_Direct._ X. Be sure when you first enter upon an inquiry or dispute, that you well discover how much of the controversy is verbal _de nomine_, and how much is material _de re_;[131] and that you suffer not your adversary to go on upon a false supposition, that the controversy is _de re_, when it is but _de nomine_. The difference between names and things is so wide, that you would think no reasonable man should confound them: and yet so heedless in this point are ordinary disputers, that it is a usual thing to make a great deal of stir about a controversy before they discern whether it be _de nomine_ or _de re_. Many a hot and long dispute I have heard, which was managed as about the very heart of some material cause, (as about man's power to do good, or about the sufficiency of grace, or about justification, &c.) when the whole contest between the disputers was only or principally _de nomine_, and neither of them seemed to take notice of it. Be sure as soon as you peruse the terms of your question, to sift this thoroughly, and dispute verbal controversies but as verbal, and not as real and material. We have real differences enow: we need not make them seem more by such a blind or heedless manner of disputing.[132] _Direct._ XI. Suffer not a rambling mind in study, nor a rambling talker in disputes, to interrupt your orderly procedure, and divert you from your argument before you bring it to the natural issue. But deceiving sophisters, and giddy-headed praters, will be violent to start another game, and spoil the chase of the point before you: but hold them to it, or take them to be unworthy to be disputed with, and let them go (except it be where the weakness of the auditors requireth you to follow them in their wild-goose chace). You do but lose time in such rambling studies or disputes. _Direct._ XII. Be cautelous of admitting false suppositions; or at least of admitting any inference that dependeth upon them. In some cases a supposition of that which is false may be made, while it no way tends to infer the truth of it; but nothing must be built upon that falsehood, as intimating it to be a truth. False suppositions cunningly and secretly worked into arguments, are very ordinary instruments of deceit. _Direct._ XIII. Plead not uncertainties against certainties: but make certain points the measure to try the uncertain by. Reduce not things proved and sure to those that are doubtful and justly controverted; but reduce points disputable to those that are past doubt. _Direct._ XIV. Plead not the darker texts of Scripture against those that are more plain and clear, nor a few texts against many that are as plain; for that which is interpreted against the most plain and frequent expressions of the same Scripture is certainly misinterpreted.