2. If any one doubts the soundness of this reasoning, let him consider whether a problem in ethics, or physics, or theology, can be properly conceived without accurately finding the meaning, and without close regard to the clear rules of logic. What absurdity is there in listening to those who determine the exact meaning of words in different languages, and in carefully attending to things signified? And we sometimes through ignorance of logic fall into great errors, because we do not clear up the equivocal senses, ambiguities, misapplications, literal meanings, and distinctions. Take, for example, the word world. Through not knowing that it was an equivocal term, men have fallen into the most impious opinions concerning the Demiurge: men, I mean, who have not cleared up the question in what sense "the world lieth in the evil one," and have not realised that the "world" there denotes earthly and human affairs. Supposing the "world" to be literally the complex whole of heaven and earth and things therein, they exhibit the utmost audacity and impiety in their conceptions of God; for with all their efforts they cannot show how the sun and moon and stars, with their wonderful orderly movements, "lie in the evil one." If, again, we study the passage, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," and attempt to show that "world" is here the scene of sin abounding, that is, the different localities of the earth, they will candidly admit what is said, but from a spirit of foolish contention they will cling to their detestable errors, which they have once embraced, simply because they do not understand the equivocal meaning of |62 the word. If, again, we read that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," they will no longer, certainly not consistently with their own principles, succeed in showing that the word denotes the whole world, that is, the contents of the whole world; on their own showing the word must be examined as being equivocal. And as for detestable interpretations caused by ambiguity, punctuation, and countless other things, a keen student may find abundant illustrations. But we have digressed thus far in order to show that even we ourselves, who wish not to err concerning the truth in our understanding, of the Scriptures, are bound to be familiar with the logical principles involved in the use of them. Such principles we just now required to discover the difference between the two expressions with which we began, the lights being said to have been created for rule of the night, and to rule the day and the night.