Matthew Henry, The Pleasantness of a Religious Life

This past month I slowly read through Matthew Henry's little work, The Pleasantness of a Religious Life: A Puritan's View of the Good Life. Despite the book's terrible cover and terrible title, the content is top drawer. Writing towards the end of his life in the early 18th century, this book is Matthew Henry's Desiring God, this is the pre-Desiring God--a book about glorifying God by enjoying God.This book fed me. Do you have $6.99 to spare? Consider using it to buy this meal.Just a few of many favorite quotes:

"Tradesman that take no pleasure in their business, will not stick to it long, no more will those that take no pleasure in their religion; nor will any thing carry us through the outward difficulties of it, but the inward delights of it..." p. 35"If we make the yoke of Christ heavier than he has made it, we may thank ourselves that our drawing in it becomes unpleasant." p. 156"Christ had trouble, that we might have peace--pain, that we might have pleasure--sorrow, that we might have joy. He wore the crown of thorns, that he might crown us with roses, and that lasting joy might be on our heads. He put on the spirit of heaviness, that we might be arrayed with the garments of praise. The garden was the place of his agony, that it might be to us a garden of Eden..." pp. 77-78"Prayer not only fetcheth in peace and pleasure, but it is itself a great privilege; and not only an honor, but a comfort, one of the greatest comforts of our lives, that we have a God to go to at all times, so that we need not fear coming unseasonably, or coming too often, and in all places..." p. 93