Cover of A Pastor's Love Expressed to a Loving People

Classic Christian work

A Pastor's Love Expressed to a Loving People

by Thomas Watson

A deeply moving farewell sermon preached in 1662, as Watson was forced from his London pulpit under the Act of Uniformity. Grounded in 2 Corinthians 7:1, he expounds the ardent love a faithful pastor bears toward his congregation, modeled on the Apostle Paul's self-sacrificing devotion. The heart of the work is twenty practical directions for the Christian life — from daily prayer and Scripture reading to watchfulness against sin, heavenly-mindedness, and meditating on eternity. A tender, urgent, and richly illustrated charge from a shepherd who knew he might never address his flock again.
Chapters
2
Word count
5,547
Type
Sermon
Start reading →

Table of contents

  1. 01 Sermon 1,082 words
  2. 02 Application in Several Inferences 4,161 words
Front matter (2 sections)

Title Page

A PASTORS LOVE Expressed to a Loving People In a Farewell SERMON PREACHED At Stephens Walbrook, London. August 17, 1662.

By Mister THOMAS WATSON.

Acts 20. 38.

Sorrowing most of all for the words that he spoke, that they should see his face no more.

LONDON, Printed in the Year, 1662.

To the Reader

Christian Reader,

Here is presented to your view, the last Sermon of Mister Thomas Watson that he preached to his loving and beloved people of Stephens Walbrook: The Reverend Author having no knowledge of its publication, I hope will be sufficient apology for the disparity that is in it from his other Works, it being not published by the same pen, nor adorned with marginal quotations suitable to his other Sermons. You cannot but know there is great difference between preparing Sermons for the Pulpit, and for the Press. The wisest Master Builder sees it sometime expedient to beat often upon one and the same truth, that they may nail them not only to the ears, but the hearts of their Auditors. And therefore wonder not if you meet with anything that may look like a tautology, since I would rather be guilty of that than to take my own judgment for leaving out anything delivered. I should be sorry, if the publication of this Sermon, which was intended for the satisfaction of all, should prove to the dissatisfaction of any. However I hope you will be so candid to lay any fault in printing or the like at the publisher's door, not at the Preacher's. I have but one request more, and that is, that the Reader would propound as honest ends to himself, in reading it, as I did in transcribing of it. In so doing I shall be satisfied, and he will be edified.

Your Friend and Servant. R. M.

Take it with you.

Get the app for offline reading, bookmarks, and progress sync.