LOGIC: on, THE EIGHT USE OE REASON. word star in its proper and strict sense it is applied only to the fixed stars, but in a larger sense it includes the planets also. This equivocal sense of words belongs also to many proper names : so Asia, taken in the largest sense, is one quarter of the world ; in a more limited sense it signifies Natolia, or the lesser Asia ; but in the strictest sense it means no more than one little province in Natolia, where stood the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, &c. And this is the most frequent sense of it in the New Testament. Flanders and Holland, in a strict sense, are but two single provinces among the seventeen, but in a large sense Holland includes seven of them, and Flanders ten. There are also some very common and little words in all languages, that are used in a more extensive or more limited sense; such as, all, every, whatsoever, &c. When the apostle "says, all men have sinned, and all men must die, all is taken in its most universal and extensive sense, including all mankind ; Rom. v. 12. When he appoints prayer to be made for all men, it appears by the following verses, that he restrains the word all to signify chiefly all ranks and degrees of men ; 1 Tim. ii. 1. But when St. Paul says, 1 please all men in all things; 1 Cor. x. 33. the word all is exceedingly limited, for it reaches no far- ther than that he pleased all those men whom he conversed with in all things that were lawful. 4thly, Equivocal words are, in the fourth place, distin= guished by their literal or figurative sense, Words are used in a proper or literal sense, when they are designed to signify those ideas for which they were originally made, or to which they are primarily and generally annexed ; but they are used in afigura- tive or tropical sense, when they are made to signify some things, which only bear either a reference or a resemblance to the primary ideas of them. So when two princes contend by their armies, we say they are at war, in a proper sense; but when we say there is a war betwixt the winds and the waves in a storm, this is called figurative, and the peculiar figure is a me- taphor. So when the scripture says, Riches make themselves wings, and fly away as an eagle toward heaven, the wings and the flight of the eagle are proper expressions ; but when flight and wings are applied to riches, it is only by way of figure and metaphor. So when a man is said to repent or laugh, or grieve, it is literally taken ; but when God is said to be grieved, to re- pent, or laugh, &c. these are all figurative expressions borrowed from a resemblance to mankind. And when the words Job or 2sther are used to signify those very persons, it is the literal sense of them but when they signify those two books of scrip- ture, this is a figurative sense. The names of Horace, Juvenal, and illil ¡on, are used in the same manner, either for books or men.
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