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.

Ten directions how to frame our thanksgivings 3/5

   (2.) Love and joy.  Amour et gaudium faciunt musicum—love and joy, it is said, make a musician. Indeed then this music of praise is best—in heaven, I mean—where the graces are perfect.

           (a) Excite thy love.  This is an affection that cannot keep within door, but must be sallying forth in the praises of God. Austin, speaking of heaven, breaks out thus, ibi vacabimus et videbimus, vide­bimus et amabimus, amabimus et laudabimus, lauda­bimus et cantabimus—in heaven we shall have noth­ing to do but to behold the face of God, and seeing him we shall love him, loving him we shall praise him, and praising we shall sing and rejoice.  Love and thankfulness are like the symbolical qualities of the elements—easily resolved into each other.  David begins with ‘I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice,’ Ps. 116:1.  And, to enkindle this grace into a greater flame, he aggravates the mercies of God in some following verses; which done, then he is in the right cue for praises, and strikes up his instrument, ‘What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits?’ Ps. 116:12.  The spouse, when once she was thoroughly awake, pondering with herself what a friend had been at her door, and how his sweet company was lost through her unkindness, shakes off her sloth, riseth, and away she goes after him.  Now, when with running after her beloved she had put her soul into a heat of love, then she breaks out into an encomium of her beloved, praising him from top to toe, Song 5:10.  That is the acceptable praising which comes from a warm heart; and he that would warm his heart must use some holy exercise to stir up his habit of love, which, like natural heat in the body, is preserved and increased by motion.

           (b) Excite thy joy.  I will sing ‘with joyful lips,’ Ps. 63:5.  A sad heart and a thankful hardly can dwell to­gether—I mean, sad with worldly sorrow.  The disci­ples for sorrow could not hold open their eyes to pray, much more sure were they unfit to praise.  This indeed makes the duty of praise and thanksgiving more difficult than to pray, because our joy here is so often quenched and interrupted with intervening sins and sorrows that this heavenly fore seldom burns long clear on the Christian’s altar from which his praises should ascend.  Temptations and afflictions, they both drive the soul to prayer and more dispose it for prayer; but they untune his instrument for praise. Hannah, she wept and prayed, but durst not eat of the peace-offering, the sacrifice of praise, because she wept.  It behoves us therefore the more to watch our hearts lest they be indisposed by any affliction for this duty.  Do with thy soul as the musician in wet weather doth with his instrument, which he hangs not in a moist nasty room, but where it may have the air of the fire.  Art thou under affliction? let not thy soul pore too long on those thy troubles, but bring it within the scent of God's mercies that are intermingled with them.  Sit near this fire of God’s love in Christ —warm thy heart with meditation on spiritual prom­ises—while thou art under bodily pressures, and thou shalt find, through God’s blessing thy heart in some comfortable tune to praise God in the saddest and most rainy day that can befall thee in all thy life.  Thus David could make music in the cave: ‘My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise,’ Ps. 57:7.

5. Direction. Content not thyself with a bare narrative, but give every mercy its proper accent ac­cording to the enhancing circumstances thereof. There is great difference in two that sing the same song.  From one you have only the plain song; the other descants and runs division upon it, in which consists the grace of music.  The mercies of God af­fect our hearts as they are dressed forth.  If we put on them their rich habiliments—the circumstances, I mean, that advance them, they appear glorious to our eyes and enlarge our hearts in praises for them; but considered without these, we pass them slightly.  God himself, when he would express the height of his love to his people, presents them to his own eye, not as now they are, but as clothed with the glory he intends them.  ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee,’ Isa. 62:5.  At the wed­ding day the best clothes are put on.  Thus do thou, to draw out thy thankfulness for mercies, consider them in the circumstances that may render them most glorious in thine eye.  Some emperors have not suffered every one to draw their picture, lest they should be disfigured by their bungling pencil.  Truly, slighty praises disfigure the lovely face of God’s mercy.  They are but few that draw them to life.  To do this much study and meditation are requisite. ‘The works of the Lord are sought out of them that have pleasure in them.’  The curious limner studies the face of the man before he makes his draught.  Praise is a work not done in a trice, the lesson must be pricked before it can be sung.  Read therefore the word, and learn from the saints there recorded what aggravating circumstances they have observed in recognizing their mercies.

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   (1.) Humility.  A proud man cannot well tell how to beg, yet selfishness may make him stoop to it; but in thankfulness he must needs be a bungler, for this is a high piece of self-denial. ‘Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise.’  The proud man’s gift will cleave to his hand; he is unfit to set the crown on God’s head that hath a mind to wear it himself.  We find indeed the tool in the Pharisee’s hand, but he cuts his work into chips.  He seems to honour God with his mouth, but eats his words as he speaks them, and discovers plainly that he intends more to exalt himself than God: ‘I thank God I am not as this publican.’  This, ‘I thank God,’ comes in pro formâ; it is the publican he dis­dains, and himself that he applauds.  You may easily think what a look ambitious Haman gave Mordecai when he held his stirrup, who desired himself to have been in the saddle.  How, alas! can a proud heart give God that which he covets himself?  No man, saith Luther, can pray sanctificetur nomen tuum till he first be able to pray profanetur nomen meum—sanctified be thy name, till he be willing his own name should be debased.

           Labour therefore to vilify, nullify thyself; then, and not till then, thou wilt magnify, omnify thy God.  None so zealous in begging as he that is most pinched with his want; none so hearty in his thanks as he that hath most sense of his unworthiness.  And who can think better of himself that is thoroughly acquainted with himself?  If God had not set thee up, what stock couldst thou have found of thy own?  Thou wert as bare as a shorn sheep, naked camest thou into the world, and ever since thou hast been cast upon thy God, even as a poor child upon the charge of the parish.  What hast thou earned by all the service thou hast done him?  Not the bread of thy poorest meal. And art thou yet proud?  Bernard compares Joseph’s carriage with his master and the grateful soul’s with God thus together: Joseph, saith the father, knew that his master, who put all he had into his hands, yet excepted his wife, and therefore accounted it too base an ingratitude to take her from his master’s bed who had been so kind to him in his house.  Thus, saith he, God freely gives his mercies into the saint's hands but excepts his glory.  Therefore the gracious soul takes what God gives thankfully; but leaves the praise of them, which God reserves for himself humbly.

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           Second. You have heard what is the subject of our praises and thanksgivings; we shall now lay down some directions how we are to frame our thanks­givings.

1. Direction.  Be sure the thing thou prayest God for be found among the good things of the prom­ise.  That is the compass by which we are to steer our course, as in the petitionary, so also in the gratula­tory, part of prayer.  If it be not in the promise it is not a mercy, and so not the subject of thanksgiving. When some prosper in their wickedness, they are so bold as to thank God they sped so well.  Now, if it be grievous sin for a man to bless himself in any wicked way, Deut. 29:19, much more horrid is it to bless God for prospering therein.  By the former, he only vouch­eth his own sin—which indeed is bad enough—but by the other he makes God a party with him, and tempts the Lord to own it also.  It is a good speech of Ber­nard to this purpose, who, comparing those that on the one hand thank God for their success in wicked­ness, with hypocrites, who praise him for the good things they receive, saith, isti impiè mala suo Deo, isti dei bona fraudulenter in­torquent sibi (Serm. 45 super Cant.)—the one impute their sin to God, the other ascribe the glory of his mercies to themselves.  God cannot accept thy praise, unless he first approve thy fact.  He that receives a bribe is guilty of the fault. And dare you thus tempt the holy One?  If the God you serve were like the heathens’ idols, the matter were not much.  When the Philistines had practiced their cruelty on Samson, they present his head to their god.  The devil desires no better sacrifices than the fruit of men’s sins.  But the holy One of Israel abhors all wicked praises.  ‘The hire of a whore, was not to be offered,’ Deut. 23:18.
2. Direction.  Let all your praises be offered up in Christ.  ‘By him...let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God,’ Heb. 13:15.  ‘Ye...are...an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,’ I Peter 2:5.  Couldst thou pen never so rare a panegyric, couldst thou flourish it with never so much art or rhetoric, and deliver it with the great­est passion and zeal possible, all this would be harsh and grate the Almighty’s ear except sounded through Christ.  It is not the breath poured into the open air but passing through the trumpet or some other instru­ment—where it is formed into a tunable sound—that makes it pleasing music.  Possibly when thou prayest for a mercy thou shelterest thyself under Christ’s wing, and usest his name to procure thy admission —because conscious of thine own unworthiness to re­ceive what thou askest—but, when thou praisest God, thy errand being not to beg and receive but to give, thou expectest welcome.  He that brings a present shall surely find the door open.  Yes, if thy gift were suitable to the great God.  But who art thou that the great God should take a present at thy hand?  If thou beest not worthy of the least mercy thou beggest, then surely thou art unworthy of this honour to have thy thank-offering accepted.  Thou needest Christ’s me­diation for the one as much as for the other.
3. Direction.  Stay not in generals, but descend to the particular instances of God’s mercy towards thee in thy thanksgivings.  Est dolus in generalibus —there is guile in generals.  It bewrays a slighty spirit, if not a false, when in confession of sin we content ourselves with a general indictment, ‘I am a sinner—a great sinner,’ and there to stop, without a particular sense of the several breaches made in the law of God. Neither is here a better symptom when a man puts God off with a compliment at distance for his good­ness and mercy in general, but takes no notice of the particular items which swell and make up the total sum.  Now, to be able to do this, it will be necessary that thou takest special notice of God’s daily provi­dence to thee and thine, yea, and to the church of Christ also.  Lay up these in thy heart, as Mary did our Saviour’s words, for the matter of thanksgiving against the time of prayer; this true good husbandry for thy soul.  You do not expect to find that money in your chest which you never laid up there; neither will you readily find in your heart to praise God for those mercies which you never committed to your memory. It is to be feared the man means not to pay that debt honestly which he doth not set down in his book.  Ps. 107, when the psalmist there had stirred them up to thankfulness for the mer­cies of God in creation and providence, his conclusion is worthy of remark, ‘Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord,’ ver. 43.  As if he had said, The reason why so little praise is given for such great works of mercy, is because men see not the lovingkindness of God in them; and they see not this because they observe not those; and they observe not those because they have not wisdom.  It is not a library that makes a scholar, but wisdom to observe and gather the choice notions out of his books.  None want mercies to bless God for.  Divine providence is a large volume, written thick and close with mercies from one end of our life to the other; but few, alas! have a heart to read in it, and fewer have wisdom to collect the choice passages of it for such a holy purpose as this is.
4. Direction.  Excite thy praising graces.  David stirs up all that is within him to praise God, Ps. 103; that is, all the powers and graces of his soul.  To instance but in two or three.

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In a word, thus the Jews in Babylon at the very first peep of day, when their deliverance began to break out, are at their praises: ‘Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them,’ Ps. 126:2.  It was now but com­ing tide, as I may say, with them; the water was newly turned, and their affairs began to look with a more smiling face, yet now they salute their infant mercy with joy and thankfulness.  May be, Christian, thou art upon a sick‑bed, and some little reviving thou hast, though far from thy former health—O bless God for this little lift of thy head from thy pillow.  May be thou hast been, as to thy spiritual state, in great dis­tress—as it were in the belly of hell—swallowed up with terrors from the Lord, but now thy agony abates; though the Comforter be not come, yet thou hast some strictures of divine light let into thy dungeon, that raise a little hope to wait for more: O, let not this handsel of mercy pass without some thankful ac­knowledgment.  Some, alas! are like great ships that cannot be set afloat but with the spring-tide and high­water of a mercy completed; if they have not all they would, they cannot see what they have, nor tune their hearts into a praiseful frame.

3. Mercies are such as are received in this life or reserved for the next—mercies in the hand or mercies in hope.  There are promises which God will have us stay till we come to heaven for the performance of, and these we are to praise God for, as well as what we receive here; bless God for what he hath laid up for thee in heaven, as well as that he lays out upon thee on earth.  The more our hearts are enlarged in thank­fulness for these mercies, which we now have only in hope, the more honour we put upon his faithful promise.  He that bestows much cost upon a house he hath in reversion, shows his confidence is great one day to be possessed of it.  When a bill of exchange is paid at sight, it shows the merchant whose it is to be a man of credit and ability.  By the joy thou takest up, and the thankfulness thou layest out for what the bare promise tells thee thou shalt at death receive, thou glorifiest the truth of God that is the promiser.
4. There are bitter mercies and sweet mercies—some mercies God gives in wine, some in worm­wood.  Now we must praise God for the bitter mercies as well as the sweet.  Thus Job, ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’  Too many are prone to think nothing is a mercy that is not sweet in the going down, and leaves not a pleasant farewell on their palate; but this is the childishness of our spirits, which, as grace grows more manly, and the Christian more judicious, will wear off.  Who that understands himself will value a book by the gilt on the cover?  Truly none of our temporals—whether crosses or enjoyments—consid­ered in themselves abstractly, are either a curse or a mercy.  They are only as the covering to the book.  It is what is written in them that they must resolve us whether they be a mercy or not.  Is it an affliction that lies on thee?  If thou canst find it comes from love, and ends in grace and holiness, it is a mercy though it be bitter to thy taste.  Is it an enjoyment?  If love doth not send it, and grace end it—which appears when thou growest worse by it—it is a curse, though sweet to thy sense.  There are sweet poisons as well as bitter cordials.  The saints commonly have greater advantage from their afflictions in the world, than enjoyments of the world.  Their eyes are oftener en­lightened with wormwood than honey—those dis­pen­sations that are bitter and unpleasing to sense, than those that are sweet and luscious.
5. Mercies are either personal, or such as we re­ceive in partnership with others—and these must be recognized as well as the other.  ‘Pardon, O God,’ said he, ‘my other men’s sins.’  Thus, ‘Blessed be God,’ say thou, ‘for my other men’s mercies.’  Haply, Christian, thou hast prayed for a sick friend, and he is restored to health: for another in distress of spirit, and the Comforter at last is come to him.  Now thou who hadst an adventure in his bottom, hast a mercy also in the return that is made to him, and therefore art to bless God with him.  He that prays for his friend, and joins not with him in thankfulness when the mercy is given, is like one that is a means to bring his friend into debt, but takes no care to help him out.  Thy friend, Christian, needs thy aid much more to pay the thanks, than to borrow the mercy, because this is the harder work of the two.  But above all mercies to others, be sure church mercies and nation mercies be not forgot.

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1. Mercies are either ordinary or extraordinary—our everyday commons or exceedings, with which God now and then feasts us.  Thou must not only praise God for some extraordinary mercy which once in a year betides thee—a mercy that comes with such pomp and observation, that all thy neighbours take notice of it with thee, as the mercy which Zacharias and Elizabeth had in their son, that was ‘noised abroad throughout all the hill country,’ Luke 1:65—but also for ordinary, everyday mercies.  For,

(1.) We are unworthy of the least mercy, Gen. 32:10; and therefore God is worthy of praise for the least, because it is more than he owes us.

(2.) These common ordinary mercies are many. Thus David enhanceth the mercies of this kind: ‘O God! how great is the sum of them? if I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee,’ Ps. 139:17, 18.  As if he had said, There is not a point of time wherein thou art not doing me good; as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I have a new theme, in some fresh mer­cies given in since I closed them overnight, to employ my praiseful meditations.  Many little items make together a great sum.  What less than a grain of sand? yet what heavier than the sand on the sea-shore?  As little sins—such as are vain thoughts and idle words —because of their multitude, arise to a great guilt and will bring in a long bill, a heavy reckoning, at last; so ordinary mercies,what they want in their size, particu­larly and individually considered, of some other great mercies, they have it compensated in their number. Who will not say that a man shows as great, yea greater, kindness to maintain one at his table with ordinary fare all the year, as in entertaining him at a great feast twice or thrice in the same time?

(3.) The sincerity of the heart is seen more in thankfulness for ordinary mercies than extraordinary. As it shows a naughty heart upon every ordinary occa­sion to fall into sin, so the soul very gracious that takes the hint of every common mercy to bless his God.  Some, they are bound up in their spirits, that none but strong physic will work upon them; they can digest little afflictions, and swallow ordinary mercies, without humbling themselves under the one or prais­ing God for the other.  That is the upright heart which gentle physic prevails with, little chastisements humble, and ordinary mercies raise to thankfulness.

2. Mercies are complete or imperfect—begun mercies, or finished.  We must not make God stay for our praises till he hath finished a mercy, but praise him at the beginning of a mercy.  We should be as ready to return our praises for a mercy, as God is to hear our prayers when begging a mercy.  Now God comes forth early to meet a praying soul: ‘At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth,’ Dan. 9:23.  ‘I said, I will confess my trans­gressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest,’ Ps. 32:5. Thus should we echo in our thankfulness to the first intimation that God gives in his providence of an approaching mercy.  If you do but hear the king is on the road toward your town, you raise your bells to ring him in, and stay not till he be entered {through} the gates.

The birds, they rise betimes in the morning, and are saluting the rising sun with their sweet notes in the air.  Thus should we strike up our harps in praising God at the first appearance of a mercy. Notable instances we have for this: Moses did not promise God, when he had saved them from Phar­aoh’s wrath and the sea’s waves, that, at his landing them safe in Canaan, and lodging his victorious colours at the end of their journey in their full rest, he would then praise him for all his mercies together. No, but he presently pens a song, and on the bank, within sight of the howling wilderness, which they were now to enter into, he sings it with Israel in thankfulness for this first handsel after their march out of Egypt.  So, II Sam. 6:13, ‘And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings.’  And, I Chr. 15:26, which is a place parallel to this, and speaks of the same passage, ‘When God helped the Levites that bare the ark,...they offered seven bullocks and seven rams.’  That is, so soon as, by going a few paces or steps, they perceived God graciously to favour their enterprise—making no breach as formerly he had done upon them—they presently express their thank­fulness upon the place for this hopeful beginning, well knowing no way was better to engage God in the continuance and enlargement of this mercy, than by a praiseful entertainment thereof at its first approach.

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Second. The second of the twofold division of the whole matter of prayer, viz. thanksgiving.  In handling of this I shall still keep my former method.

First. I shall show what we are to return praises and thanks to God for.  Second. How we are to frame our thanksgiving we return.

What we are to praise and thank God for

First.  I shall show what we are to return praises and thanks to God for.  Now the object of thanksgiv­ing, as of requests, is something that is good, but un­der another notion. We ask what we want; we bless and praise God for the mercies we have received, or for the hope we have from the promise that we shall in due time receive them.  So that we see the Chris­tian hath as large a field for the exercise of his thank­fulness in praising God, as he hath in the petitionary part of prayer for his desires.  This duty circumscribes heaven and earth; it takes both worlds within its circumference.  As God does nothing but he aims at his own glory thereby, Prov. 16:4; so no act of God to­wards his people, wherein he intends not their good, and as such becomes the subject of their thanksgiving. Hence we are bid ‘in everything give thanks.’  O what a copious theme hath God given his people to enlarge their meditations upon—‘in everything!’  The whole course and series of divine providence towards the saints is like a music‑book, in every leaf whereof there is a song ready pricked for them to learn and sing to the praise of their God.  No passage in their life of which they can say, ‘In this I received no mercy for which I should bless God.’  Now, as a partial obedi­ence is not good, so partial thanks is stark naught. Not that any saint is able to keep all the commands, or reckon up all the mercies of God, much less return particular and express acknowledgement for every single mercy.  But, as he hath respect to all the commandments, Ps. 119:6, so he desires to value highly every mercy, and to his utmost power give God the praise of all his mercies.  ‘What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?’ Ps. 116:12. This is an honest soul indeed; he would not sink any debt he owes to God, but calls his soul to an account for all his benefits, not this or that.  The skipping over one note in a lesson may spoil the grace of the music; unthankfulness for one mercy disparageth our thanks for the rest.  But to sort the mercies of God into several ranks, that you may see more distinctly your work in this duty lie before you.