CHAPTER VI. 387 ties, whose real natures we 'mistake from our very infancy, and we are ready to suppose them to be the same in us, and in the bodies that cause them ; partly, because the words which signify our own sensations are applied also to signify those unknown shapes and motions of the little corpuscles, which excite and cause those sen- sations. IV. as In conversation or reading be diligent to find out the true sense, or distinct idea, which the speaker or writer affixes to his words, and especially to those words which are the chief sub- ject of his discourse." As far as possible take heed, lest you put more or fewer ideas into one word, than the person did when he wrote or spoke ; and endeavour that your ideas of every word may be the same as his were : then you will judge better of what he speaks or writes. It is for want of tliis that men quarrel in the dark ; and that there are so many contentions in the several sciences, and especially in divinity. Multitudes of them arise from a mistake of the true sense or complete meaning in which words are used by the writer or speaker ; and hereby sometimes they seem to agree, when they really differ in their sentiments : and some- times they seem to der when they really agree. Let me give an instance of both. When one man by the word church shall understand all that believe in Christ ; and another by the word church means only the church of Rome ; they may both assent to this proposition, there is no salvation out of the church, and yet their inward sen- timents may be widely different. Again, if one writer shall affirm that virtue added to faille is sufficient to make a christian, and another shall as zealously deny this proposition, they seem to differ widely in words, and yet perhaps they may both really agree in sentiment : if by the word virtue, the affirmer intends our whole duty to God and mun ; and the denier by the word virtue means only courage ; or at most our duty towards our neighbour, without including in the idea of it the duty which we owe to God. Many such sort of contentions as these are, if traced to their original, will be found to be mere logomachiesor strifes and quar- rels about names and words, and vain.yanglings, as the apostle calls them in his first letter of advice to 'Timothy. Tn order therefore to attain clear and distinct ideas of what we read and hear, we must search the sense of words ; we must consider what is their original and derivation in our own or foreign languages ; what is their common sense amongst mankind, or in other authors, especially such as wrote in the same country, its the same age, about the saine time, and upon the saine subjects : we must consider in what sense the same author uses any parti- cular word or phrase, and that when he is discoursing on the
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