9. Their simple ones mutable and undetermined.
Thirdly, A third defect that frequently gives the name of
confused to our ideas, is, when any one of them is uncertain and undetermined. Thus we may observe men who,
not forbearing to use the ordinary words of their language till they have learned their precise signification, change
the idea they make this or that term stand for, almost as often as they use it. He that does this out of uncertainty of
what he should leave out, or put into his idea of church, or idolatry, every time he thinks of either, and holds not
steady to any one precise combination of ideas that makes it up, is said to have a confused idea of idolatry or the
church: though this be still for the same reason as the former, viz., because a mutable idea (if we will allow it to
be one idea) cannot belong to one name rather than another, and so loses the distinction that distinct names are
designed for.
