The Great Gain of Godliness

As for this treatise, it comes abroad in a plain dress: truth like a diamond-shines brightest in its native luster! Paul did not come to the Corinthians with excellence of speech, or the pride of oratory-his study was not to court-but convert. It is an unhappiness that, in these luxuriant times, religion should for the most part run either into notion or ceremony; the spirits of true religion are evaporated. When knowledge is turned into soul food, and digested into practice-then it is saving. That God would accompany these few imperfect lines with the operation and benediction of his Holy Spirit, and make them edifying-is my prayer.
Thomas Watson was an English preacher and author who obtained great fame preaching until the Restoration when he was ejected as the vicar of St. Stephen's Walbrook for noncomformity. Watson continued to exercise his ministry privately and upon the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 he obtained a license to preach at the great hall in Crosby House.