Ten directions how to frame our thanksgivings 4/5

Sometimes we have them setting the accent upon the speedy return of their prayers, ‘In the day when I cried thou answeredst me,’ Ps. 138:3.  This is a print that superadds a further excellency to the mer­cy.  It was but knock, and have; come, and be served. While the church were at God’s door praying for Peter’s deliverance, Peter is knocking at theirs to tell them their prayer is heard.

           Sometimes from the sinful infirmities which mingled with their prayers.  Now that mercy would come with a ‘notwithstanding these,’ and steal upon them when they had hardly faith to wait for them, this hath exceedingly endeared the goodness of God to them.  ‘I said in my haste, All men are liars.  What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits?’ Ps. 116:11, 12.

           Sometimes from the greatness of their strait: ‘This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.’  ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good,’ Ps. 34:6, 8.  So, ‘Who remem­bered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever,’ Ps. 136:23.  Indeed this must needs raise high ap­preciating thoughts of the mercy.  The water that God gave Israel out of the rock is called honey, because it came in their extreme want, and so was as sweet to them as honey.  Silver is gold when given to a poor man that must else have died for lack of bread.

           Sometimes from the frequent returns of God’s goodness and expressions of his care; thy mercies ‘are new every morning,’ Lam. 3:23.  ‘Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed,’ Ps. 129:2.  ‘Hitherto hath the Lord helped us,’ I Sam. 7:12.  This gives such an accent as, without it, the mercy cannot be pronounced with its due em­phasis.  A course of sin is worse than an act of sin. ‘Their course is evil,’ Jer. 23:10.  So a course of mercy from time to time speaks more love.  Some that could beteem  a single alms on a beggar, would beat him from their door should he lie there and make it a trade.

           Sometimes from the peculiarity of the mercy, they take notice of the distinction God makes in issu­ing out his favours: ‘He hath not dealt so with any na­tion: and as for his judgments, they have not known them.  Praise ye the Lord,’ Ps. 147:20.  ‘Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?’ John 14:22—Let these few hints suffice to set thee on work to find out the other.  Without this, we rob God of the best part of our sacrifice; as if a Jew had stripped off the fat and laid the lean on God’s altar; or, as he did by his idol, who took off the cloak of silver it had and put on his own threadbare one in the room of it.  The mercies thou receivest are great and rich; give not him thy beggarly praises.  He ex­pects they should bear some proportion to his mercy: ‘Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness,’ Ps. 150:2.

6. Direction.  Distinguish between mercy and mercy; let the choicest mercies have thy highest praises.  It shows a naughty heart to howl and make a great noise in prayer for corn and wine, and in the meantime to be indifferent or faint in his desires for Christ and his grace.  Nor better is it, when one acknowledges the goodness of God in temporals, but takes little notice of those greater blessings which concern another life.  You shall have sometimes a covetous earthworm speak what a blessed time and season it is for the corn and the fruits of the earth —that fit his carnal palate, as the pottage did Esau’s —but you never hear him express any feeling sense of the blessed seasons of grace, the miracle of God’s patience that such a wretch as he s out of hell so long, the infinite love of God in offering in offering Christ by the gospel to him.  He turns over these as a child doth a book, till he hits on some gaud and picture, and there he stays to gaze.  Christ and his grace, with other spiritual blessings, he skills not of, he cares not for, except they would fill his bags and barns.  Now, shall such a one pass for a thankful man? will God accept his praises for earth that rejects heaven? that takes corn and wine with thanks, and bids him keep Christ to himself with scorn? saying, as Esau when his brother offered him his present, ‘I have enough?’  A gracious heart is of another strain: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,’ Eph. 1:3.  Indeed God gives tem­porals to make us in love with spirituals, yea, with himself that gave them; as the suitor sends the token to get the love of the person.