The Pleasantness of a Religious Life was Matthew Henry’s final literary work; it was in the process of being printed when he died in 1714. In it he examines the great joys of the Christian life by expounding upon Proverbs 3:17, “[Wisdom’s] ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”

Rather than being a bleak and burdensome business, Matthew Henry’s clear teaching shows how “religion brings both pleasure with it, and profit after it,” and argues that the difficulties met with on the journey of faith are not worthy of being compared to the joyful recompense which our God and King rewards us with along the way and at our final resting place in his kingdom. Thus “the practice of serious godliness not only tends to our happiness in the next life, but is also greatly conducive to our comfort in this life,” for we learn that, “the more we live with an eye to Christ and another world, the more comfort we are likely to have in our hearts.”

Pastor Henry also unmasks the counterfeit pleasures this world attempts to use to cheat us out of pleasures that are both satisfying indeed and eternally durable—for the world’s sensual pleasures are bland to those who have tasted the sweetness of the Lord, and felt the lightness and rest which is to be found under his yoke.

Far from a copy-paste-publish e-book, this edition has been painstakingly edited into an entirely new text which has been gently modernized for today’s reader, while still retaining the flavor and character of the original manuscript. To aid the reader, over four hundred Scripture references (in the ESV) have been embedded into the text as hyperlinked end-notes (no internet connection is required).

Contents:

1. The exposition of the doctrine.
2. The pleasure of being religious proved from the nature of true religion, and many particular instances of it.
3. The pleasantness of religion proved from the provision that is made for the comfort of those who are religious, and the privileges that they are entitled to.
4. The doctrine further proved by experience.
5. The doctrine illustrated by the similitude used in the text, of a pleasant way or journey.
6. The doctrine vindicated.
7. The application of the doctrine.

ISBN 9781304288028. e-Book only, approximately 192 pages.
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