425 LOGIC : OR, THE RIGHT USE 01' REASON. SECT. II. Prejudices arising from Words. OUR ideas and words are so linked together, that while we judge of things according to words, we are led into several mis- takes. These may be distributed under tw6 general heads, namely such as arise from single words or phrases, or such as arise from words joined in speech, and composing a discourse. I. The most imminent and remarkable errors of the first kind, are these thrce. (1.) When our words are-'insignificant, and have no ideas: as when the mystical divines talk of the prayer of silence, the supernatural and passive, night of the soul, the vacuity of powers, the suspension of all thoughts : or (2.) When our words are equivocal, and signify two or more ideas, as the words law, light, flesh, spirit, righteousness, and many other terms in scripture : or (3.) When two or three words are synonymous, and signify one idea, as regeneration and new cre- tion in the New Testament ; both which mean only a change of the heart from sin to holiness ; or, as the Elector of Cologn and the Bishop of Cologn are two titles of the same man. These kinds of phrases are the occasion of various mistakes: but none so unhapy as those in theology : for both words without ideas, as well as synonymous and equivocal words, -have been used and abused by the humours, passions, interests, or by the real ignorance and weakness of men, to beget terrible contests among christians. But to relieve us under all those dangers, and to remove these sorts of prejudice which arise from single words or phrases, I must remit the reader to Part I. Chap. 1V. where I have treated about words, and to those directions which I have given concerning the definition of names, Part I. Chap. IV. Sect. 3. II. There is another sort of false judgments or mistakes which we are exposed to by words, and that is, when they are joined in speech, and compose a discourse ; and bere we are in danger two ways. The one is, whep á man writes good sense, or speaks mnéh to the purpose, but has not á happy and engaging manner of ex- pression.- Perhaps he uses coarse and vulgar words, or old, obsolete, and unfashionable language, or terms and phrases that tire foreign, Latinized, scholastic, 'very uncommon, and hard be understood : and this is still worse, if his sentences are long and intricate, or the sound of them harsh and grating to the ear. All these indeed are defects in style, and lead some nice and un- thinking hearers or readers into an ill opinion of all that such a person speaks or writes. 11any an excellent discourse of our .forefathers, has had abundance of contempt cast upon it by our . aodern pretenders to sense, for want of tixeir distidguishing be- tween the language and the ideas. On the other hand, when a man of eloquence speaks or writes
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