Seven benefits of books over preached sermons: 1. You may read an able preacher when you have but a mean one to hear. 2. Every congregation cannot hear the most judicious or powerful preachers, but every single person may read the books of the most powerful and judicious. 3. Preachers may be silenced or banished, when books may be at hand. 4. Books may be kept at a smaller charge than preachers. 5. We may choose books which treat that very subject which we desire to hear, but we cannot choose what subject the preacher shall treat. 6. Books may be at hand every day and hour, when we cannot have sermons but seldom, and at set times. 7. If sermons are forgotten, they are gone, but a book we may read over and over till we remember it; and if we forget it, may again peruse it at our leisure, or at our pleasure.