What is meant by real praises 2/2

    Hath God plucked thee out of Sodom—out of Satan’s bondage?  Where are then thy bowels of compassion to those who are yet chained to the devil’s post?  What means dost thou use to redeem these captives out of their worse than Turkish slav­ery?  The argument God urgeth to Israel to use stran­gers kindly, is to remember they were once so, Deut. 23:7.  Hast thou, after long lying in the dungeon of spiritual darkness and troubles of conscience, had thy head lift up with the comforts of the Spirit—received into the presence of God, as Pharaoh’s butler was to his prince’s court? how canst thou think thyself thankful, while thou forgettest others that lie in the same prison-house, under as sad fears and terrors as once thyself did?  ‘Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compas­sion, and righteous,’ Ps. 112:4.  Surely this will hold, if in any, then in this case.  In a word—that I may not be thought to make you hard to the outward man, while I stir up your charity to the inward—hath God raised thee to an estate?  May be thy pilgrim’s staff, with Jacob’s, is turned to two troops?  Dost thou now show the kindness of God to his poor members? as David, who inquired if there were none of the house of Saul.  O how unlike are we to the saints of primi­tive times!  They would run to meet an object for their charity, and we run from them.  They consid­ered the poor, what they wanted, how they might relieve them, yea, they ‘devised liberal things;’ but we consider and contrive how we may save our purse best.  They were willing to part with all in case of extremity, while we grudge a little from our superflu­ity; laying that, by pride, on our backs which should cover the poor’s; throw that to our hawks and hounds which should refresh the bowels of the poor; yea, spend more in our drunken meeting, a miser’s feast, or a wrangling suit at law, than we can be willing to give in a year to the necessitous members of Christ.

           (4.) Our praises are real when they produce a stronger confidence on God for the future.  Who will say that man is thankful to his friend for a past kind­ness that nourishes an ill opinion of him for the fu­ture, and dares not trust him when he needs him again?  This was all that ungrateful Israel returned to God for his miraculous broaching the rock to quench their thirst, ‘Behold, he smote the rock, can he give bread also?’ Ps. 78:20.  This indeed was their trade all along their wilderness march.  Wherefore God gives them their character, not by what they seemed to be while his mercies were piping hot, and the feast stood before them—then they could say, ‘God was their Rock, and the high God their Redeemer’—but by their temper and carriage in straits.  When the cloth was drawn, and the feast taken out of their sight, what opinion had they then of God?  Could they sanctify his name so far as to trust him for their dinner to‑morrow who had feasted them yesterday?  Truly no.  As soon as they feel their hunger return, like froward children they are crying, as if God meant to starve them.  Wherefore God spits on the face of their praises, and owns not their hypocritical acknowledg­ments, but sets their ingratitude upon record, ‘They forgat his works, and waited not for his counsel.’  O how sad is this, that after God had entertained a soul many a time at his table with choice mercies and deliverances, these should be so ill husbanded, that not a bit of them all should be left to give faith a meal, thereby to keep the heart from fainting, when God comes not so fast to deliver as we desire!  He is the most thankful man that ponders up the mercies of God in his memory, and can feed his faith with the thoughts of what hath done for him, so as to walk in the strength thereof in present straits.  When Job was on the dunghill, he forgot not God’s old kindnesses, but durst trust him with a knife at his throat, ‘Though he slay me yet will I trust in him.’  He that distrusts God, after former experience, is like the foolish builder, Matt. 7—he rears his monument for past mer­cies on the sand, which the next tide of affliction washeth away.

           10. Direction. Thou must not only praise God thyself while on the stage of this earth, but endeavour to transmit the memorial of his goodness to posterity. The psalmist, speaking of the mercies of God, saith, ‘We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord,’ Ps. 78:4.  Children are their parents’ heirs, they enter upon their estates.  It were unnatural for a father, before he dies, to bury up his treasure in the earth, where his children should not find or enjoy it.  Now the mercies of God are not the least part of his treasure, nor the least of his child’s inheritance, being both helps to their faith, matter for their praise, and spurs to their obedience: ‘Our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old; how thou didst drive out the heathen,’ &c., Ps. 44:1-3.  From this they ground their confidence, ‘Thou art my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob,’ ver. 4; and excite their thankfulness, ‘In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever,’ ver. 8.  Indeed, as children are their parents' heirs, so they become in justice liable to pay their parents' debts.  Now, the great debt which the saint at death stands charged with, is that which he owes to God for his mercies, and therefore it is but reason he should tie his posterity to the payment thereof.  Thus mayest thou be praising God in heaven and earth at the same time