Five Disputations of Church Government, Notice
Satisfaction to certain CALVMNIATORS.
I Am informed from London, and several parts of the Land, that some of my Books having lately been sold at excessive rates by the Booksellers, it is somewhat commonly reported that it is caused by my excessive gain, which say they, is at least three or four hundred pounds a year. I thank the Lord that doth not only employ me in his service, but also vouchsafe me the honor and benefit of being evil-spoken of for doing him the best service that I can, Mat. 5.11, 12. 1 Pet. 4.13, 14, 15, 16. Blessed Augustine was put to vindicate himself by an oath, from the infamy of a covetous design, which was raised by one godly woman, upon a disorderly action o… other men, and to that end he wrote his 225. Epistle. I find no call to use his oath; but yet I judge it my duty to imitate him in patience, and in rescuing the slanderers from their sin, that they abuse not their souls by uncharitable surmises, nor their tongues by false reports. To which end I give them this true information: The two first Books I printed, I left to the Booksellers Will; for all the rest, I agreed with them for the fifteenth Book, to give to some few of my friends, hearing that some others agreed for the tenth. Sometime my fifteenth Book coming not to an hundred, and sometime but to few more, when of Practical Books I needed sometime 800. to give away. Because I was scarce rich enough to buy so many, I agreed with the Bookseller, (my Neighbour,) to allow 18. d. a Ream (which is not a penny a quire,) out of his own gain towards the buying of Bibles, and some of the practical Books which he printed, for the poor: Covenanting with him, that he should sell my Controversal Writings as cheap, and my Practical Writings somewhat cheaper then books are ordinarily sold. To this hour I never received for my self one penny of mony from them for any of my Writings, to the best of my remembrance: but if it fell out that my part came to more than I gave my friends, I exchanged them for other Books: My accounts and memory tell me not of 5. li. that ever was returned for me on these accounts, which was on litera…y occasions: so that my many hundreds a year is come to never a penny in all, but as abovesaid, in some exchange of Books. And the price I set on my Books which I exchanged for theirs at the dearest rates, is as followeth, [Treat. of Conversion, 2. s. Treat. of Crucifying the World, 2. s. Disput. of …ustificat. 2. s. 4. d. The Call to the Unconverted, 8. d. Disput. of saving Faith, 5. d. Of the Grotian Religion, 6. d. Directions for sound Conversion, 1. s. 8. d. Disput. of Right to Sacraments, Edit. secund. 2. s. 4. d.] These are all my bargains and my gains. And I chose the honestest Booksellers that I could meet with, according to my small measure of wit and acquaintance; who told me, they still made good their Promises. And now censorious Slanderer, tell me, what thou wouldst have had me to have done more? If I had got Food and Rayment out of my own hard labors, had it been unlawful or dishonourable, when Booksellers get so many hundred pounds by one Book, that never studied nor spent their time and cost for it, as I have done? And yet dost thou reproach me that receive not a groat? But because I will not oblige my self to the same course for the future, and that thou mayst know at what rates I serve thee, let me tell thee, that in these labors early and late my body is wasted, my precious time laid out, and somewhat of my Estate, and somewhat of the labor of my friends. I cannot have twenty quire of my writing well transcribed, under fifty pounds. And who shall pay for this, or maintain me in thy service? I have troubled a Neighbour-Minister in the tedious work of transcribing my Characters (for some books,) for which, neither he nor I had ever one penny. These personal matters are unsavory to me, and I take it for a great injury that thou puttest upon me a necessity of mentioning them. But I have yielded this once to thy unrighteous importunity, that thou mayest hereafter learn what to believe and utter, and make more conscience of thy censures and reports. And that thou mayst have the utmost relief that I can procure thee for the time to come, I shall agree with my Booksellers, to sell all that I publish at three farthings a sheet, and to print the price of every book at the bottom of the Title page.
Farewell. Richard Baxter. October 11. 1658.
End of the text · Richard Baxter, Five Disputations of Church Government (1659)