The crown & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered…The crovvn & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered…

Thirdly, A man that is affected and taken with the word as it is a holy word, he is always affected and taken with it; he loves it and takes pleasure in it, as well in adversity as in prosperity. Psalm 119.59. Thy Statutes have been my songs (I but where we) in the house of my pilgrimage, or pilgrimages, ¹as the Hebrew hath it. When David was in his banishments by reason of Saul, Absalom, and others, now the Word of God was music to him, now it was matter of joy and rejoicing to him, his whole life was the life of a Pilgrim and Stranger; now as a Pilgrim he sojourns here, and anon as a Stranger he sojourns there; no man could take more pleasure, joy and contentment in the rarest and choicest music, then David did in the Word of God, and that not only when he was in his royal Palace, but also when he was in the house of his Pilgrimage; he that loves the Word, and that delights in the Word for its holiness and purity,² he will love it and delight in it, in health and sickness, in strength ⟨p. 149⟩and weakness, in honour and disgrace, in wealth and want, in life and in death. The holiness of the Word is a lasting holiness, and so will every mans affections be towards it, who affects it, and is taken with it for its holiness and pureness. Some there be that cry up the Word, and that seem to be much affected, delighted, and ravished with the Word, (as Herod, Ezekiels hearers,³ and the stony ground was) whilst the Word is either a cheap Word to them, or a profitable and pleasing Word to them, or whilst it is courted and countenanced in the world, or whilst it is the path to preferment, or a key to enlargement, &c. But when the Word gets within them, and discovers their own sinfulness and wretchedness to them, when it shows them how Christless, and graceless, and lifeless, and helpless, and hopeless they are; when it discovers how far they are from heaven, and how near they are to hell. O!⁴ then their hearts begin to rise against it, and to cry out, Away with it, it was never good days since we have had so much preaching and hearing: Or when the Word comes to be scorned, slighted, disgraced, opposed or persecuted, oh! then they turn their backs upon it, and quickly grow weary of it.