12. This art has perplexed religion and justice.
Nor hath this mischief stopped in logical niceties, or curious empty
speculations; it hath invaded the great concernments of human life and society; obscured and perplexed the
material truths of law and divinity; brought confusion, disorder, and uncertainty into the affairs of mankind; and if
not destroyed, yet in a great measure rendered useless, these two great rules, religion and justice. What have the
greatest part of the comments and disputes upon the laws of God and man served for, but to make the meaning
more doubtful, and perplex the sense? What have been the effect of those multiplied curious distinctions, and
acute niceties, but obscurity and uncertainty, leaving the words more unintelligible, and the reader more at a loss?
How else comes it to pass that princes, speaking or writing to their servants, in their ordinary commands are easily
understood; speaking to their people, in their laws, are not so? And, as I remarked before, doth it not often happen
that a man of an ordinary capacity very well understands a text, or a law, that he reads, till he consults an
expositor, or goes to counsel; who, by that time he hath done explaining them, makes the words signify either
nothing at all, or what he pleases.