The Nature and Duty of Thanksgiving

In every tiling give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

I SHALL now endeavour, with divine, assistance, to deliver to you the second part of my meditations on these words. I have already shewn you what we are to understand by the duty of thankfulness; what is implied in it, and how it is to be expressed, I have, in the second place, acquainted you with the extent of this command that it tj 2

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reaches to all times and circumstances, and conditions of life whatsoever; in every thing give thanks. In the third place, I have proposed to you several helps to perform this duty, for it is a duty that our nature seems very backward to perform. We are much more ready to run to God in prayer, when we stand in need of his mercies, and feel the pressure of our wants, than we are to return and make acknowledgement to him, when the affliction is removed, and the mercy granted. Some of the helps I proposed to you, w ere these; meditate much on the goodness of God, especially as revealed in the gospel. Keep an account of the various instances of the mercies, the special mercies, that you have received at his hand. Indulge not the melancholy humour of brooding over your own sorrows, especially while they are present and speaking of them often to others; unless it be when you are designing to make this repetition of them subservient to your thankfulness. Speak of them in this manner 5 All this have I suffered, yet the

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^’ Lord has sustained me; all these sorrows ‘^ have I borne yet the Lord is gracious f “these have been my calamitous circum- ^’ stances yet the Lord is merciful still,” and his loving kindness abounds.’^ Unless, I say, you design to give such a turn to it, indulge not the melancholy delight of counting over your ovn calamities. Keep up the evidences of your adoption always clear, and review them often, that when you go before God with an offering of thanksgiving, you may go as children, not es enemies; not as criminals and malefactors, but as his friends and his saints. Dwell much in your thoughts upon the certainty and greatness of your final salva tion, and beg earnestly of God a thankful frame.

But the last great help to thankfulness, which I could not mention when I discoursed last upon this head, is, to compare various circumstances and things together. This way of comparison I reserved to the last, as being the most excellent method, and as

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having been often tried and proved. Compare, then, your sorrows with your sins ;. compare your mercies with your merits 5 compare your comforts with your calamities; compare your own troubles with the troubles of others; compare your sufferings with the sufferings of Christ Jesus your Lord 5 compare the pain of your afflictions with the profit of them; compare your chastisement on earth with condemnation in hell; compare the present hardships you bear, with the happiness you expect hereafter, and try whether all these will not awaken thankfulness.

1. Compare, in the first place, your sorrows with your sins; God hath not dealt with lis after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities,^ He corrects us less than our sins merit; he punishes us less than our iniquities deserve. Let, then, each of us say, “What a dreadful sinner have I” been, and what a spectacle of misery *’ should I have been, had God awakened

* Psalm ciii. 10.

^“^ all his wrath against me, and remarked ‘^ every transgression! Is there a day, is ^’ there an hour of my life, that has passed ^’ without my offending the majesty of hea- “ven? But what multitudes of days, and ‘’ thousands of hours have passed away, ^’ without my having received any sensibly “sorrows from his hand! What, is there “no ground for thankfulness when I put my “sorrows and sins into the scale, and find that my sorrows are so light and my sins” are so heavy?’^

S. Compare, in the second place, your mercies with your merits. What have you deserved at the hands of God of all the various instances of his loving kindness that you have been made partaker of? Must you not confess with good Jacob, I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy servant /* Ezra and Daniel, in their long prayers to God, and petitions for mercy, when they make their acknowledgements * Genesis xxxii. IQ,

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and their thanksgiving to him, compare theilp mercies and their merits together. Our iniquities are increased over our head and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens* After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, thou, our God, hast punished us less than ice de- 0erve,^ — We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though ive have rebelled against him. Let every christian say, How little have I done for God, and ‘^ how much have I received from him I ^’ How much have I done against God, and yet how bountiful has his hand been to* wards me!’^

3. Compare your comforts with your calamities, in the number of them, in the length of them, and in the greatness of them,

* JEzra ix. 6. 13. t Daniel ix. 5, 8, ^.

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Yt)u have received millions of mercies blessings innumerable; but your sorrows may be numbered. Every hour of sparing mercy whil you continued in a state of guilty and while you hung over the bottomless pit, with only the thread of life sustaining you, demands your constant praise. That God should make that thread strong, till he had called you to the knowledge of himself, and not let you drop into that eternity, should never be forgotten by you. A saint should never forget that he was long a sinner, and that God spared him. Compare the mercies you have received since you have known God, with the calamities you have i-cceived from his hands. You have had continual support, when you have had burdens laid upon you. If the Lord has smitten you with one hand, he has put underneath you his everlasting; arm; he has borne you up under your sorrows 5 you have received help from the Lord, and you stand until this day.

4. Compare your own troubles with the troubles of others, in body,, in soul, and in

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estate. I can give but hints of these things 5 1 hope yon will remember them, and meditate more largely upon them. Compare your troubles in spiritual things with the troubles of others. You have had it may be, difficulties, darkness upon your mind distraction, and sometimes the absence of God; but the gospel is not absent from you, you have still the promises of grace, you have still the Bible in your hands, you have still the death of a Saviour, you have still an all-sufiicient Redeemer proposed to you, in all his grace, and all his glory. If christians would be thankful, let them go to the heathen world, and there see millions stooping before a wooden image, or adoring a god of stone, and then let each of them say, ^’ Why was not I one of them?” See there the torments and the racks that they expose their flesh to, (and their flesh is as tender and subject to pain as your own,) see there, I say, the racks and the torments that they expose their own flesh to, in order to atone for their sins, and make satisfaction to God for their oflTehces; and not one sin is atoned for, not one of their iniquities is expiated

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by all their suiferings. But you have the blood of Jesusj it cost you not one drop of your own blood. Go to the nations where men are kept in popish darkness, where the doctrine of the cross is mingled with so much ceremony, that it is almost lost in confusion; and the redemption that our Lord Jesus Christ wrought out, is distributed among so many intercessors, so many mediators, and blended with so great a mixture of will -worship, that the Godhead is almost spoiled, if not utterly lost, among them. “And what if I had been born” there! Should I have been a protestant, had I been born in the midst of a popish ^’ country? Should I have known God in that glory in which I now see him, had I been born in the midst of France, or ^’ Spain, or any of those countries where it is death to mention him; in those na- tions where protestants are persecuted to death?’’ Go to the inquisition, go to the slaves in the gallies, and they will tell you what it cost them to utter a word concerning the profession of religion, concerning the 24iS The JSTature and Duty Serm. IX,

salvation of Christ; and ask yourself, ^’ Have not I then in Englnd in London, ^’abundant reason for thankfulness?’^ As for distress in body, if you would learn to be thankful when you are afflicted under it, go to the hospitals of the sick, go to the beds of the lame and maimed, that cannot move or stir; go to the chambers of the distracted, whose reason is hindered in its exercise by the disorders of the brain; go to the fields of battle, where thousands lie groaning under anguish, with the extremity of pain arising from bloody wounds. Of these distresses you suffer nothing; by the mercy of God you are free from them; yet why should not you, as well as others, be in the number of these miserable ones?

Again, compare others of God’s people, others of God’s own people, with yourselves. Bo we not now and then hear of instances, wherein God afflicts his own children so dreadfully, that there are sorrows all around them, fear and terror continually possessing them? It may be, that each of us may say

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concerning himself, Surely these are as holy as I am, surely these have deserved as much at the hands of God as I have ‘^ done, and surely they are beloved of God as well as myself. Why, then, has God made a difference between me and them? a Why are not all their sorrows mine?’* Look abroad in the streets at the circum*^ stances of others, the poor and miserable that curse and swear, and provoke God to add fresh misery to their present sorrows, and say, “Why am not I one of these “wretches, poor, and distressed, and naked, “and necessitous in the outward man, and” without any knowledge of God, any “thought of a Redeemer, any hope of eter- “nal happiness? Why am not I one of these “poor sinners, that to all outward appear- ance are travelling through a world of sor- “row and pain, into a world of greater sor*- ‘* row and more intense and everlasting” pain? Why am not I one of these? Wh6 is it that has made me to differ froms ^- them?’^

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5. Compare your sufferings with the sufferings of Christ for you. When we sustain our little sorrows we are ready to say to all our friends around us, 0 ije that pass by is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow P^ but we are ready then to forget the sorrows of our Lord, when it pleased the Father to bruise him for our sins, and great drops as it were of bloody ran from his body to the ground, by reason of the anguish of his soul, by reason of his dreadful sorrows, under that wrath of Grod that you and I deserve. We know not the bitterness of the Almighty’s wrath, but our Saviour has known it, for lie felt it once for you and me. Look at Christ in the garden, when your sorrows seem so high that you can only mourn, and learn thankfulness. Look at Christ upon the cross, look at him crucified between two malefactors as the chief of them. When you feel uneasy under your reproaches and shame, that you bear at any time here on earth, look at the greater sorrows of your Lord, and say,” All these he * Lam. i. ±2*

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^’ deserved not, yet he felt them: all my” sorrows and many more I have deserved, ‘’ yet I am unthankful.’^ Blush and be ashamed at such a thought.

6. Compare the pain of your afflictions with the profit of them, and the purpose of God in and by them. If Israel suffer, By ihis says Isaiah, shall their iniquity be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away their sin,^ If christians suffer, this is the design of God in it, to make them partakers of his holiness.^ Reflect with yourselves, that you may be thankful. Think that while you are suffering, God, it may be, is fulfilling your on prayers; he may be pro» moting your sanctification, he may be weaning you from the world, he may be making you partakers of his own holiness, he may be bringing you to a greater meetness and fitness for heaven. Oh that each of us could learn this language,” All this is the desiga ^’ of my heavenly Father in afflicting me * Isaiah xxvii. 9. f Heb. xii. io.

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^’ therefore I will submit to his wisdom, ^’ and be thankful for the kind methods of ^’ his providence and his grace towards

“me/^

y. Compare your chastisements on earth with condemnation in hell, and consider then, whether in the midst of sorrows, there is not room for thankfulness; say within yourselves, “I that am smitten by the Lord, ‘’ though it be down to the dust, might have ^’ been smitten to everlasting destruction; ^’ I that am laid low here amongst the sor- ^’ rowful on earth, might have been laid ^’ lower amongst sinning and suffering an- ‘^ gels in hell.” If God chastens us here in this world, that he may not condemn us in the next, let us take his chastisements kindly at his hands, and say, “Verily the ^’ Lord is gracious, truly God is good to Is- ^’ rael. Though I am chastened, yet he has” saved me from hell; he deserves everlast- ing praises, even though he should chas- ‘’ ten me every moment of my continuance ^’ here upon earth. What is earth to hell?

What is time to eternity? What are the ^’ sorrows that I sustain, to the sorrows they feel who have no remedy, no sacrifice, no “Redeemer, no hope? And why was not I one ^’ amongst these? I have deserved long ago and often at the hands of God to be cut down, and made miserable without relief. ‘’ Blessed be the name of the Lord that has ^’ spared, has renewed, has called me, and “brought me to some comfortable hope.”^

8. In the last place, compare your hardships here, with your happiness hereafter. The apostle tells us, the sufferings of this jpresent time are not worthy to he com]yared tvith the glory tchich shall be revealed in us,^ Well, then, if they are not worthy to be compared with them, it is a sign they are infinitely less in comparison with them; and when you put these two into the balances together, the comforts infinitely overweigh the sorrows. When I can say, ^’1 have the hopes of such an inheritance, incor- ruptible, undefiled, on high,’’ let me not * Rom. viii. 19.

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be overwhelmed with sorrow because I am poor and low here on earth. If there are the joys of eternity in reserve for me, let me give thanks to that God who has prepared heaven for me, even though my portion here in the world may have some bitterness in it. Has not Grod trained up all his saints in this manner? Was not our Lord Jesus Christ himself trained up by affliction, and fitted for glory? but you find him rejoicing in spirit; Father says he, I tJianJc thee that the things ofthj gospel that are hidden from the icise and prudent, are revealed unto babes.^ Let every one of us awaken his hope then, and raise his faith, and encourage himself with the view of everlasting blessedness; and let us say, that the light and momentary sorrows that we now feel, as they are not worthy to be compared to future happiness, so they are ivorlcing for us a far more exceeding, and eternal weight of glory; while we loolc not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are * Matthew xi. 25,

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temporal; hut the things which are not seen are eternal,^

I intended to have given yon several motives and encouragements to this duty of thanksgiving, but I can only just mention that one which we have in our text; it is the will of God in Christ concerning yoit.

The meaning of these words, in my opinion, is this; God manifesting himself in the gospel through Jesus Christ his Son, requires this at your hands: it is the will of God in Christ concerning you, God reconciling the world to himself by Christ; this God in Christ demands your praise. God revealing his authority to Moses, under the law, requires your reverence and fear; God manifesting his grace and truth in the gospel by Christ, requires your love, and joy and thankfulness.

The Psalmist, under the Old Testament dispensation, saw abundant reason for * 2 Cor. iv. ir, 18. 1 2 Cor. v. 18.

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tliaukfulness, and is continually calling on his soul to give praise to the Lord, though he lived under a dark dispensation. How low, how weak, how carnal was it ia comparison of ours? that which the Apostle calls carnal ordinances and rites, performed in a worldly sanctuary, the ceremonies of which were hut weak and beggarly elements, and the ministration itself was a ministration of death and condemnation. Shall not we then, who live under the gos. pel, and in the light of the Sun of Righteousness; shall not we, who have the miu* istration of righteousness and life; we, who worship Grod in spirit, in the spiritual ordinances of the gospel; shall not we call upon our souls and all that is within us to give thanks to our God? If we could refuse a sovereign God commanding this duty, yet surely we cannot resist a gracious God condescending to merit it at our hands. He has deserved all our thankfulness. Has not God, stooping down to unite himself to our natare, even the Son of God in the flesh, he that has merited pardon and peace for us

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by his own death at the hands of God, has not he merited thanks at our hands for all this peace and this pardon? God your Crea* tor requires it. You are peculiarly enjoined to praise and thanks^iving, though you are sinners, for you have great reason to praise him because you are not in hell. God your Redeemer deserves it at your hands. While he gives you the hope of heaven, it is but a very small return he asks for all his goodness, that you should, in every state of life, live to the praise of redeeming mercy, and be found in a thankful frame. To God the Father our Creator, to God the Son our lledeemer and God the Holy Ghost that hath sanctified us, be everlasting praises and thanksgiving. Amen.