ternal kindness exacts from us every return of grateful love, which it is in our power to make. While we are employed in meditation on His greatness, our minds are filled with holy awe and overwhelming astonishment: but, when we also contemplate His boundless compassion, the feelings, which His dreadful majesty would otherwise inspire, are tempered by the milder beams, which His more amiable attributes dispense; and thus we are prepared for the work of praise, in which we are called to engage.

The persons, who unite in this holy and delightful exercise, profess themselves to be God's unworthy servants.' We are then in that peculiar frame of mind, which is most adapted to the performance of this act, when we are least and lowest in our own eyes; because, at those seasons of self abasement, (for a more frequent return and a longer continuance whereof every believer devoutly prays) we acknowledge with the most unequivocal sincerity that God is the author of all good, and experience the liveliest emotions of gratitude to Him. The language of Jacob will become every sinful child of Adam, I am not. worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant.' This conviction of unworthiness is es

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sential to the spirit of praise; for a hireling dotk

* Gen. xxxii. 10.

not consider himself under any obligation to his master for the wages, which he has earned by the sweat of his brow; as a mendicant to his benefactor for the alms, which he has gratuitously received. A converted heart therefore is an indispensable prerequisite to the unfeigned and fervent use of this form of thanksgiving; because, without this qualification, the sinner is unhumbled, and deems himself more or less worthy of the blessings, which he enjoys. Until I know that, in consequence of sin, I have forfeited every good, and have merited every evil; and that whatever I possess flows from the mercy of God through the mediator Jesus; the language of my lips, if I use the form of thanksgiving which our church has prescribed to her members, will be chargeable with gross hypocrisy, and prove an act of insult to the Great Searcher of hearts. Reader, is your avowal of unworthiness free from duplicity? It is easy for the lips to adopt the words of self-humiliation, but God requireth truth in the inward parts. Take heed and beware of dealing deceitfully with God. Look to it that your discontent at the allotments of providence ; your fretfulness occasioned by the absence of blessings, to which your heart advances a claim of desert; or your forgetfulness of God do not afford demonstrative evidence that there is a lie in your right hand, while you call yourself God's

unworthy servant.' The specious language of compliment will not pass current in His presence, whose eyes are as a flame of fire.

The act, in which we here engage, is giving to God most humble and hearty thanks.' Thanksgiving is an open confession of the Divine attributes, arising from a heart deeply impressed with a sense of those inestimable benefits, which as creatures and as sinners we derive from them. Of this we have a beautiful exemplification in the conduct of the man after God's own heart; who, when he had received of the people of Israel their liberal contributions towards the erection of a temple to the Lord at Jerusalem; and had dedicated his own munificent offerings for the same pious purpose, renounces all merit on account of, or deducible from, the work they had performed, and ascribes the glory to God alone. The sacred historian informs us, that David blessed the Lord before all the congregation, and said, Blessed be Thou, O Lord God of Israel our Father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head ♦ above all. Both riches and honour come of Thee, and Thou reignest over all, and in Thine

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hand is power and might, and in Thine hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all. Now, therefore, our God, we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious name.

But what am I, and should be able to of

what is my people, that we fer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of Thee, and of Thine owe have we given • Thee.'* Humility is an essential concomitant of all acceptable thanksgiving. Is there not reason to fear that many, who join in our devotional forms, are offering incense to their own vanity, while they pretend to give unto God most hum

ble and hearty thanks? It is evident that the Pharisee, whose duplicity our Lord has delineated in a parable as a warning to others, sacrificed to his own supposed goodness, when he stood in the temple and said, God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, 'adulterers, nor even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tythes of all that I possess. Our church supposes her worshippers to be possessed of the temper of the humble publican, who stood afar off, not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven; but smote upon his heart, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner !'† Sincerity is equally as necessary as humility. And indeed each of these qualifications supposes

the other; for it is impossible to separate them. The sincere language of every unhumbled heart is similar to that, which the church of Laodicea used; I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing.' While every genuine member of our church, who offers unto God humble and hearty thanks,' approaches the throne under a deep conviction of being in himself poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked.'+

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The subject of our thanksgiving is generally defined to be God's goodness and loving-kind'ness to ourselves and to all men.' Though we cannot but feel in the most sensible manner those proofs of His goodness, which respect ourselves; and therefore properly begin with the mention of these; yet, as it becomes us to remember the wants of our brethren in our daily supplications, equally does it behove us to celebrate God's mercy towards them in our acts of praise. And this is indeed expressly required of us by the Apostle, who enjoins that giving of thanks,' as well as prayers and intercessions, be made for 'all men.' It is one of the lovely offices of Christian charity to rejoice with them that do re'joice.' They whose hearts are truly sensible of the amazing kindness of God to the human race, will grieve that there are so many of their fellow

Rev. iii. 17, 18.