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

What is meant by real praises 1/2

           (1.) Our praises are real when they are cordial —‘All that is within me, bless his holy name,’ Ps. 103:1—when his mercies beget amiable thoughts of God in our hearts.  We read of ‘cursing God in the heart,’ Ps. 106.1 {better: Job 1:5}; which then is done when we have base, low, unbecoming thoughts of his greatness and goodness.  And, on the contrary, when the mercies of God imprint such an image in the heart of him as livelily represents these his attributes, then thou blessest God in thy heart, by adoring his majesty, reverencing his holiness, delighting in his love, and fearing his goodness.  Here is real thankful­ness.  What is laus—praise or honour, but a reflec­tion of the person’s excellency we commend?  Now, as the glass represents the image of the person that looks on it, so the thankful soul reflects those glor­ious attributes again upon God which he puts forth in his mercies.  Thus God sees his face in a true glass, which the thankful soul holds up while he praiseth him.  Whereas an unthankful heart, like a broken glass, distorts and disfigures the beautiful face of God, by conceiving such low thoughts of God as are un­worthy of his glorious attributes.

           (2.) Our praises are real when they are obedien­tial.  God accounts those mercies forgotten which are not written with legible characters in our lives, ‘They forgat God their Saviour,’ Ps. 106:21.  That of Joshua is observable, ch. 8:32.  Upon their victory over the city Ai, an altar is built as a monument of that signal mercy.  Now mark, what doth God command to be written or engraved on the stones thereof?  One would have thought the history of that day’s work should have been the sculpture, but it is ‘the copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel,’ ver. 32, whereby he plainly showed the best way of remembering the mercy was not to forget to keep the law.  Saul could not blind Samuel’s eyes with his many good‑morrows, that the people saved the best of the cattle for sacrifice: ‘Hath the Lord,’ saith he, ‘as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heark­en than the fat of rams,’ I Sam. 15:22.  As if he had said, ‘What, Saul! thinkest thou to bribe God with a sacrifice, while thou art disobedient to his command?  Dost thou take the swan, and stick the feather in the room? deny him thine own heart to obey his word, and give him a beast’s heart in sacrifice for it?  Is this the oblation which he hath required, or will accept?’ Truly God riseth hungry from our thanksgiving-dinners, if obedience be not a dish at the table.  With­out this we and our sacrifices may burn together. God will pluck such from the horns of the altar, and take them off their knees with their hypocritical praises, to pay this debt in another kind.  ‘If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land,’ Isa. 1:19. Then, and not till then, will God eat of your sacri­fices, and yourselves taste the sweetness of your en­joyments.  ‘He meeteth him that rejoiceth and work­eth righteousness,’ Isa. 64:5.  Not either apart, but both together are required; not rejoice without working righteousness, nor that without rejoicing in the work. The threatening is levelled against Israel not barely because they served not God, but because they served him not ‘with gladness in the abundance of his mercies,’ Deut. 28.  God delights to have his mercy seen in the cheerful countenance of his servants while they are at his work, which may tell the spectators they serve a good master.

           (3.) Then they are real praises when they end in acts of mercy.  Very observable is that place, ‘By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name,’ Heb. 13:15.  Now mark the very net words, ‘but to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.’  As if he had said, Think not you may thank God to save charges, be willing to both or neither.  God’s goodness to us should make us merciful to others.  It were strange indeed a soul should come out of his tender bosom with a hard uncharitable heart.  Some children do not indeed take after their earthly parents; as Cicero’s son, that had nothing of his father but his name.  But God’s children partake all of their heav­enly Father’s nature.  Philosophy tells us that there is no reaction from the earth to the heavens.  They, in­deed, shed their influences upon the lower world, which quicken and fructify it, but the earth returns none back to make the sun and stars shine the better. David knew very well that ‘his goodness extended not unto God,’ but this made him reach forth to his brethren, ‘to the saints that are in the earth,’ Ps. 16:2, 3.  Indeed, God hath left his poor saints to receive his rents we owe unto him for his mercies.  An ingenuous guest, though his friend will take nothing for his en­tertainment, yet to show his thankfulness will give something to his servants.  At Christ’s return, how doth he salute his saints?  Not, ‘Come ye blessed,’ ye have kept such a thanksgiving day, and filled the air with your songs of praise; but, When ‘I was an hungered and ye gave me meat, naked and ye clothed me,’ Matt. 25.  Alms-deeds in Saint Paul’s language are called fruit: ‘When therefore I have performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit,’ Rom. 15:28; imply­ing that all our profession without these good works are but leaves.  This is the solid fruit of our faith —love to God and thankfulness for his mercies. Neither must these acts of charity be restrained to the money in thy purse or bread in thy cupboard, though these are included: there are poor souls as well as poor bodies, that need relief.