'For my own part,' said Thomas Shepard to some ministers from his death-bed, 'I never preached a sermon which, in the composing, did not cost me prayers, with strong cries and tears.

I never preached a sermon from which I had not first got some good to my own soul.' 'His office and his name agree; A shepherd that and Shepard he.' And many such entries as these occur in Thomas Boston's golden journal: 'I preached in Ps.xlii.5, and mostly on my own account.' Again: 'Meditating my sermon next day, I found advantage to my own soul, as also in delivering it on the Sabbath.' And again: 'What good this preaching has done to others I know not, yet I think myself will not the worse of it.' 2.

The preaching of that Fast-day was with great authority also.

'There was such power and authority in that sermon,' reports one who was present, 'that the like had seldom been seen or heard.' Authority also was one of the well-remembered marks of our Lord's preaching.

And no wonder, considering who He was.