It is not so much the expence of our labours, as the loss of them, that kills us. It is not with us, as it is with other labourers: They find their work as they leave it, so do not we. Sin and Satan unravel almost all we do, the impressions we make on our people’s souls in one sermon, vanish before the next. How many truths we have to study! how many wiles of Satan, and mysteries of corruption, to detect! how many cases of conscience to resolve! Yea, we must fight in defence of the truths we preach, as well as study them to paleness, and preach them unto faintness: but well-spent head, heart, lungs, and all; welcome pained breasts, aching backs, and trembling legs; if we can by all but approve ourselves Christ’s faithful servants, and hear that joyful voice from his mouth, ‘Well done, good and faithful servants.’

from The Character of a True Evangelical Pastor, works vol VI, p.568-569

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