The Pastors, College, for the use of whose students this work is published, earnestly petitions for a place in the intercessions of the saints. This was the reason that this single College of Emmanuel, in Cambridge, bred more of the Puritans and Nonconformists than perhaps any seven of the other Colleges or Halls in either University.” Such a fact as this should attract the prayers of all believers to our seminaries for the sons of the prophets, since upon the manner in which these institutions are conducted will depend under God the future well-being of our churches. In the margin of the book is the following observation on the foregoing: ‘It may not be improper to observe how much young students, in both Universities, fell in with the prejudices of their governors and tutors. Bates, Stephen Charnock, Samuel Clarke, Nathaniel Vincent, Dr John Collings, William Bridge, Samuel Hildersam, Adoniram Bifield, followed by this remark, ‘These are most of them mentioned in the list of sufferers for Nonconformity, and appear upon the registers to have been all of Emmanuel College, beside great numbers, no doubt of the same society, who were forward preachers up of the unhappy changes of 1641,' etc.
White, Samuel Slater, Thomas Watson, John Rowe, Dr. In Kennet's ‘Register and Chronicle,' is a list of eighty-seven names of Puritan ministers, including many well-known and loved as preachers and commentators such as Anth. He had the happiness to be educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, which in those days deserved to be called the School of Saints, the nursing mother of gigantic evangelical divines. Some men are their own ancestors, and, for ought we know, Thomas Watson's genealogy reflected no fame upon him, but derived all its lustre from his achievements. We shall not attempt to discover his pedigree, and, after the manner of antiquarians, derive his family from a certain famous Wat, whose son distinguished himself in the Crusades, or in some other insane enterprise whether blue blood was in his veins or no is of small consequence, since we know that he was the seed-royal of the redeemed of the Lord. His writings are his best memorial perhaps he needed no other, and therefore providence forbade the superfluity. Although Thomas Watson issued several most valuable books, comparatively little is known of him - even the dates of his birth and death are unknown. There is a happy union of sound doctrine, heart-searching experience and practical wisdom throughout all his works, and his Body of Divinity is, beyond all the rest, useful to the student and the minister. Watson was one of the most concise, racy, illustrative, and suggestive of those eminent divines who made the Puritan age the Augustan period of evangelical literature. Thomas Watson's Body of Practical Divinity is one of the most precious of the peerless works of the Puritans and those best acquainted with it prize it most.
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