Methodus Sacrae Scripturae in publicis tum praelectionibus tum concionibus utiliter atque intelligenter tractandae

...I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no dissensions among you. Thus Mark, about to write the Evangelical history, proposes his own counsel at the beginning of the book, Mark 1:1: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Luke begins the Gospel written by him with the same reason, Luke 1:3-4: It seemed good to me, etc. Therefore, he who, explaining places of this kind, says so, "This place is a προοίμιον preamble of the entire argument to be treated," notes the order and continuation briefly with one word, through which great light and ease is now brought to the future dispute, in my judgment. For this brief admonition ensures that the mind of the listener does not wander in uncertainty, but that it has where to always tend, as if to the target of the undertaken place, and if it has once wandered (as often happens), where it may return and receive itself as if from a long pilgrimage. The same, therefore, must be done and observed in other words signifying the order and series of speech, so that we may note them briefly: or if we do not use the words themselves (as there is no need to be religiously, not to say childishly, bound always to name them), yet we may encompass the thing itself and the reason of continuation which they demonstrate in few words. But we instruct only the juniors and candidates in this place, not those supreme and already exercised Pastors or Theologians, finished in all their numbers.

Προοίμιον preamble is the brief...