Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…

2. Much less do I need to fear the loss of all other Books, or Sermons, or other Verbal informations. Much reading hath oft been a weariness to my Flesh; and the pleasure of my Mind is much abated by the great imperfection of the means. Many Books must be partly read, that I may know that they are scarce worth the reading: And many must be read to enable us to satisfy other mens expectations, and to confute those who abuse the authority of the Authors against the Truth: And many good Books must be read, that have little to add, to what we have read in many others before; and many that are blotted with ensnaring Errors: Which if we detect not, we leave snares for such as see them not: And if we detect them (never so tenderly, if truly) we are taken to be injurious to ⟨p. 100⟩the Honour of the Learned godly Authors, and proudly to overvalue our own conceits. And so lamentable is the Case of all Mankind, by the imperfections of humane Language, that those Words which are invented for communication of conceptions, are so little fitted to their use, as rather to occasion misunderstandings and contentions: There being scarce a Word that hath not many significations, and that needeth not many more words to bring us to the true notice of the speakers Mind: And when every word is a Signum that hath three relations, 1. To the Matter spoken of. 2. To the Mind of the Speaker as signifying his conceptions of that matter. 3. And to the Mind of the Hearer or Reader which is to be informed by it, it is so hard to find and use words that are fitted indeed to all these uses, and to have store of such, and mix no other, that few if any in the World were ever so happy as to attain it. 1. And if words be not fitted to the Matter or Things, they are false as to their first and proper use: And yet the penury of apt words, and the redundancy of others, and the Authority of the Masters of Sciences imposing Arbitrary Terms and Notions on their Disciples, and the Custom of the Vulgar who have the Empire as to the fence of Words, have all conspired to make words inept, and of very uncertain signification. So that when Students have learnt words by long and hard Studies, they are oft little the nearer the true knowledge of the Things; and too oft by their ineptitude misled to false conceptions.

2. Much less do I need to fear the loss of all other Books, or Sermons, or other Verbal informations. Much reading hath oft been a weariness to my Flesh; and the pleasure of my Mind is much abated by the great imperfection of the means. Many Books must be partly read, that I may know that they are scarce worth the reading: And many must be read to enable us to satisfie other mens expectations, and to confute those who abuse the authority of the Authors against the Truth: And many good Books must be read, that have little to add, to what we have read in many others before; and many that are blotted with ensnaring Errours: Which if we detect not, we leave snares for such as see them not: And if we detect them (never so tenderly, if truly) we are taken to be injurious to