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sires, but our knowledge; surpassing not our deserts SERM. only, but our wishes, yea, even our conceits, in the dispensation of his inestimable and unrequitable benefits; having no other drift in the collation of them, beside our real good and welfare, our profit and advantage, our pleasure and content.

To him who not lately began, or suddenly will cease, that is either uncertain or mutable in his intentions, but from everlasting designed, continues daily, and will (if we suffer him) to all eternity persevere unmoveable in his resolutions to do us good.

To him whom no ingratitude, no undutiful carriage, no rebellious disobedience of ours, could for one minute wholly remove, or divert from his steady purpose of caring for us: who regards us, though we do not attend to him; procures our welfare, though we neglect his concernments; employs his restless thought, extends his watchful eye, exerts his powerful arm, is always mindful, and always busy to do us good; watching over us when we sleep, and remembering us when we forget ourselves: in whom yet 'tis infinite condescension to think of us, who are placed so far beneath his thoughts; to value us, who are but dust and dirt; not to despise and hate us, who are really so despicable and unworthy. For though he dwelleth on high, saith the Psalmist Ps. cxiii. 5, truly and emphatically, he humbleth himself to behold the things that are done in heaven and earth.

To him that is as merciful and gracious, as liberal and munificent toward us; that not only bestows on us more gifts, but pardons us more debts, forgives us more sins, than we live minutes; that with infinite patience endures, not only our mani

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SERM. fold infirmities and imperfections, but our petulant follies, our obstinate perversenesses, our treacherous infidelities; overlooks our careless neglects and our wilful miscarriages; puts up the exceedingly many outrageous affronts, injuries, and contumelies continually offered to his supreme Majesty by us base worms, whom he hath always under his feet, and can crush to nothing at his pleasure.

James i. 5.

To him yet, who, as St. James saith, giveth freely, and upbraideth no man; who calls us neither very frequently nor over strictly to accounts; who exacts of us no impossible, no very difficult, no greatly-burdensome or costly returns; being satisfied with the cheerful acceptance of his favours, the hearty acknowledgments of his goodness, the sincere performance of such duties, to which our own welfare, comfort, and advantage (rightly apprehended) would otherwise abundantly dispose us.

To him, lastly, whose benefits to acknowledge is the greatest benefit of all; to be enabled to thank whom deserves our greatest thanks; to be sensible of whose beneficence, to meditate on whose goodness, to admire whose excellency, to celebrate whose praise, is heaven itself and paradise, the life of angels, the quintessence of joy, the supreme degree of felicity.

In a word, To him whose benefits are immensely great, innumerably many, unexpressibly good and Ps. cvi. 2. precious. For, Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? who can shew forth all his praise? said he, who had employed often his most active thoughts and his utmost endeavours thereupon, and was incomparably better able to do it.

To this God, to this great, to this only Benefactor

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of ours, we owe this most natural and easy, this SERM. most just and equal, this most sweet and pleasant duty of giving thanks. To whom if we wilfully refuse, if we carelessly neglect to pay it, I shall only say thus much, that we are not only monstrously ingrateful, and horribly wicked; but abominably foolish, and deplorably miserable. I shall repeat this sentence once again, and wish it may have its due effect upon us: To this great, to this only Patron and Benefactor of ours, if we do not in some measure discharge our due debt of gratitude for his inestimable benefits and mercies, we are to be adjudged not only most prodigiously unthankful, most detestably impious, but most wofully stupid also and senseless, most desperately wretched and unhappy.

I should now proceed to consider the circumstance of time determined in the word always; and the extension of the matter, implied in those words, for all things: and then to subjoin some further inducements or arguments persuasive to the practice of this duty. But the time (and, I fear, your patience) failing, I shall reserve them to some other opportunity.

SERMON IX.

OF THE DUTY OF THANKSGIVING.

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EPHES. V. 20.

Giving thanks always for all things unto God. SERM. HAVING formerly discoursed upon these words, I observed in them four particulars considerable : 1. The substance of a duty, to which we are exhorted, to give thanks; 2. The term unto which it is directed, to God; 3. The circumstance of time determined in that word always; 4. The extent of the matter about which the duty is employed, for all things. Concerning the two former particulars, wherein the duty consisted, and wherefore especially related unto God, I then represented what did occur to my meditation..

III. I proceed now to the third, the circumstance of time allotted to the performance of this duty, expressed by that universal and unlimited term, always.

Which yet is not so to be understood, as if thereby we were obliged in every instant (or singular point of time) actually to remember, to consider, to be affected with, and to acknowledge the divine benefits for the deliberate operations of our minds being sometimes wholly interrupted by sleep, otherwhile preoccupied by the indispensable care of serving our

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natural necessities, and with attendance upon other SERM. reasonable employments, it were impossible to comply with an obligation to the performance of this duty so interpreted. And those maxims of law, Impossibilium nulla est obligatio, and, Quæ rerum natura prohibentur, nulla lege confirmata sunt, (that is, No law or precept can oblige to impossibilities,) being evidently grounded upon natural equity, seem yet more valid in relation to his laws, who is the Judge of all the world, and in his dispensations most transcendently just and equal.

We may therefore observe, that the Hebrews are wont (in way of synecdoche, or grammatical hyperbole) so to use words of this kind, that their universal importance ought to be restrained by the quality or circumstances of the matter about which they converse. As when our Saviour saith, Ye shall be Matt. x. 22. hated of all men for my sake; all is not to be taken

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every singular person, (since there were some that loved our Saviour, and embraced the evangelical doctrine,) but for many, or the most. And when David saith, There is none that doeth good; Ps. xiv. 1. he seemeth only to mean, that in the general corruption of his times there were few righteous persons to be found. And so for ever is often used, not for a perpetual and endless, but for a long and lasting duration; and always, not for a continual, unintermitted state of being or action, but for such a perseverance as agrees to the condition of the thing to which it is applied.

xxviii. 30.

"Tis, for instance, prescribed in Exodus, that Aaron should bear the judgment of the children of Exod. Israel (the Urim and Thummim) upon his heart before the Lord continually; that is, (not in abso

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