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

3. And if we could fit our words well to the Matter and to our Minds (with that double verity) yet still it is hard to fit them to the Reader or Hearer: For want of which they are lost as to him: And his information being our End, they are therefore so far lost to us. And that which is spoken most congruously to the Matter, is seldom fitted to the capacity of the receiver. And recipitur ad modum recipient is, & pro captu Lectoris, &c. Some Readers or Hearers (yea, almost all) are so used to unapt Words and Notions, obtruded on Mankind by the Masters of Words, that they cannot understand us if we change their terms and offer them fitter, and yet least understand those which they think that they best understand: And all men must have long time to learn the Art of Words, before they can understand them, as well as before they can readily use them. And the duller any Man is, and of less understanding, the more Words are necessary to make him understand: And yet his Memory is the less capable of retaining many. This is our difficulty not only in Catechizing, but in all our Writings and Teaching, a short Catechism, or a short Style, the ignorant understand not; ⟨p. 102⟩and a long one they remember not. And he that will accommodate one judicious Reader or Hearer, with profound matter or an accurate Style, must incommodate Multitudes that are uncapable of it. And therefore such must be content with few approvers, and leave the Applause of the Multitude to the more popular, unless he be one that can seasonably suit himself to both.

A Man that resolveth not to be deceived by ambiguous words, and maketh it his first work in all his Reading and disputings to difference between Words, and Sense, and Things, and strictly to examine each disputed term, till the Speakers meaning be distinctly known, will see the lamentable case of the Church, and all Mankind, and what shadows of knowledge deceive the World, and in what useless dreams the greatest part of men, yea of Learned men do spend their days: Much of that which some men unweariedly study, and take to be the honour of their understandings, and their lives, and much of that which Multitudes place their Piety and Hopes of Salvation in, being a mere game at words, and useless Notions; and as truly to be called Vanity and Vexation as is the rest of the Vain show that most men walk in. My sad and bitter Thoughts of the Heathen, Infidel, Mahomet World, and of the common corruptions of Rulers and Teachers, Cities and Countries, Senates and Councils, I will not here open to others, lest they offend; nor cry out as Seneca, Omnes mali sumus, or stultorum plena sunt omnia, nor describe the furious Spirits of the Clergy, and their ignorance, and unrighteous Calumnies and Schisms, as Gregory Nazianzene and others do, nor voluminously lament the seeming hopeless case of Earth, by the boldness, blindness, and fury of men that make use of such sad considerations, to loosen my love from such a World, and make me willing to be with Christ.