Every Thing Betters A Saint

William Jenkyn, "How Ought We to Bewail the Sins of the Places Where We Live?" in Puritan Sermons, 1659-1689, Vol. 3, p. 125:

Every thing betters a saint. -- Not only ordinances, word, sacraments, holy society, but even sinners and their very sinning. Even these draw forth their graces into exercise, and put them upon godly, broken-hearted mourning. A saint sails with every wind: as the wicked are hurt by the best things, so the godly are bettered by the worst. Because "they have made void thy law, therefore do I love thy commandments." (Psalm cxix. 126, 127.) Holiness is the more owned by the godly, the more the world despiseth it. The most eminent saints were those of Caesar's (Nero's) house: (Phil. iv. 22: ) they who kept God's name, were they that lived where Satan's throne was. (Rev. ii. 13.) Zeal for God grows the hotter by opposition; and thereby the godly most labour to give the glory of God reparation. Lime, by casting water upon it, grows inflamed; and opposition confirms the upright Christian in holiness; winds make the trees more firmly rooted. It was said of old, Grave bonum a Nerone damnari: "The best action saints account that which is opposed by the worst men." Elijah's jealousy for religion was the more kindled by its being opposed by idolaters: (1 Kings xix. 14: ) Lot showed himself a better man in Sodom than in the cave. (Gen. xix. 30.)