By David W. Bailey
He continued to preach whenever and wherever safety allowed, but he was never again to minister at his beloved St. Stephen's. Watson was, on occasion, reported to the authorities as a "conventicler" because he per-sisted in convening assemblies of believers. Following the fire of 1666, in which most of London's church edifices were destroyed, Watson and some of his Nonconformist compatriots furnished private rooms as worship sanctuaries.
With the passage of the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, official animosities toward the ejected minis-ters diminished. Watson obtained a license to preach, securing a great hall at Crosby House on the east side of Bishopgate Street. He was joined there in 1675 by the eminent Stephen Charnock. For some five years the two preacher-theologians served as co-pastors to the fortunate flock. Charnock, who preached during his years at Crosby House the famous expositions on the existence and attributes of God, died July 27, 1680.
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Watson continued for some years as pastor at Crosby House after the death of his colleague, eventually retiring to Barnston, Essex. As noted previously, this may have allowed Watson the pleasure of spending his declining years with family. He is reported to have died suddenly in his closet while at his prayers. Efforts to determine the date and place of Watson's burial are inconclusive, but it is probable that he was buried in Essex in the grave of his father-in-law, John Beadle.
Thomas Watson left a legacy of printed works, including his best-known A Body of Practical Divinity (a three-volume opus containing Watson's expositions on the Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism: volume one, A Body of Divinity; volume two, The Ten Commandments; volume three, The Lord's Prayer); also eminent among Watson's writings are Heaven Taken by Storm: Showing the Holy Violence a Christian is to Put Forth in the Pursuit After Glory; The Mischief of Sin; and The Art of Divine Contentment.
A debt of gratitude is owed by all admirers of Thomas Watson to Soli Deo Gloria Publications and to the Banner of Truth Trust for giving his expositions a new and wider hearing in print. Read Watson and the other Puritans; your preaching will improve, and your heart will soar!
1J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, 285-86.
2Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Brief Memoir of Thomas Watson, in A Body of Divinity, vii.
3Principal biographical references include Spurgeon's Brief Memoir; the brief vita in Sermons of the Great Ejection; and Biographical Introduction by Hamilton Smith in Gleanings from Thomas Watson.