_Direct._ VI. Be a careful and accurate (though not a vain) distinguisher; and suffer not ambiguity and confusion to deceive you. Suspect every word in your question, and anatomize it, and agree upon the sense of all your common terms, before you dispute with any adversary. It is not only in many words, but in one word or syllable that so much ambiguity and confusion may be contained, as may make a long dispute to be but a vain and ridiculous wrangling.[129] Is it not a ridiculous business to hear men dispute many hours about the _cur credis_, and into what faith is to be resolved; and in the end come to understand, that by cur one of them speaks of the _principium_ or _causa veritatis_, and the other of the _principium patefactionis_, or the _evidentia veritatis_, or some other cause? And when one speaks of the resolution of his faith as into the formal object, and another into the subservient testimony or means, or into the proofs of divine attestation, or many other causes? Or to hear men dispute, Whether Christ died for all; when by "for" one man meaneth "for the benefit of all," and another means "in the place or stead of all, or for the sins of all as the procuring cause, &c.?" Yet here is but a syllable to contain this confusion! What a tedious thing is it to read long disputes between many papists and protestants, about justification, while by justification one meaneth one thing, and another meaneth quite another thing! He that cannot force every word to make a plain confession of its proper signification, that the thing intended may be truly discerned in the word, he will but deceive himself and others, with a wordy, insignificant dispute.
_Direct._ VII. Therefore be specially suspicious of metaphors; as being all but ambiguities till an explication hath fixed or determined the sense. It is a noisome thing to hear some dispute upon an unexplained metaphorical word, when neither of them have enucleated the sense, and when there are proper words enow.
_Direct._ VIII. Take special notice of what kind of beings your inquiry or disputation is, and let your terms be adapted and interpreted according to the kind of beings you dispute of. As if you be inquiring into the nature of any grace, as faith, repentance, obedience, &c. remember that it is _in genere moris_, a moral act; and therefore the terms are not to be understood as if you disputed about mere physical acts, which are considered but _in genere entis_. For that object which must essentiate one moral act, containeth many physical particles, which will make up many physical acts.[130] If you take such a man for your king, your commander, your master, your physician, &c. if you should at the bar, when you are questioned for unfaithfulness, dispute upon the word take, whether it be an act of the fantasy, or sense, or intellect, or will, &c. would you not be justly laughed at? So when you ask, What act faith or repentance is? which contain many particular physical acts. When you dispute of divinity, policy, law, war, &c. you must not use the same terms in the same sense, as when you dispute of physics, or metaphysics.
_Direct._ IX. Be sure in all your disputes that you still keep distinguished before your eyes, the order of being, and the order of knowing: that the questions _de esse_ lying undetermined in your way, do not frustrate all your dispute about the question _de cognoscere_. As in the question, Whether a man should do such or such a thing, when he thinketh that it is God's command? How far conscience must be obeyed? It must first be determined _de esse_, whether indeed the thing be commanded or lawful, or not? before the case can be determined about the obligation that followeth my apprehension. For, whatever my conscience or opinion say of it, the thing either is lawful or it is not: if it be lawful, or a duty, the case is soon decided; but if it be not lawful, the error of my conscience altereth not God's law, nor will it make it lawful unto me. I am bound first to know and then to do what God revealeth and commandedeth; and this I shall be bound to, whatever I imagine to the contrary; and to lay by the error which is against it.