[2.] The great respect it hath to love. Praise and thanksgiving is an act of love, and then it cherisheth and feedeth love. It is an act of love to God, for if we love God we will praise him. Prayer is a work of necessity, but praise a mere work of duty and respect to God. AVe would exalt him more in our own hearts and in the hearts of others : Ps. Ixxi. 14, ' I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.' We pray because we need God, and we praise him because we love him. Self-love will put us upon prayer, but the love of God upon praise and thanksgiving ; then we return to give him the glory. Those that seek themselves will cry to him in their distress ; but those that love God cannot endure that he should be without his due honour. In heaven, when other graces and duties cease, which belong to this im- perfect state, as faith and repentance cease, yet love remaineth; and be- cause love remaineth, praise remaineth, which is our great employment in the other world. So it feedeth and cherisheth love, for every benefit acknowledged is a new fuel to keep in the fire : Ps. xviii. 1, ' I will love thee,0 Lord, my strength;' Ps. cxvi. 1, ' I will love the Lord, who hath heard the voice of my supplications ; ' Deut. xxx. 20, ' That thou mayest love the Lord, who is thy life, and the length of thy days.' The soul by praise is filled with a sense of the mercy and goodness of God, so that hereby he is made more amiable to us.
VeR. 62.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 163
[3.] With respect to submission and obedience to his laws and providence.
(1.) His laws. 'The greatest bond of duty upon the fallen creature is gratitude. Now grateful we cannot be without a sensible and ex- plicit acknowledgment of his goodness to us : the more frequent and serious in that, the more doth our love constrain us to devote ourselves to God : Kom. xii. 1, ' I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present yourselves a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.' To live to him : 2 Cor. v. 14, 15, ' For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.' And therefore praise and thanksgiving is a greater help to the spiritual life than we are usually aware of; for, working in us a sense of God's love, and an actual remembrance of his benefits (as it will do if rightly performed), it doth make us shy of sin, more careful and solicitous to do his will. Shall we offend so good a God ? God's love to us is a love of bounty ; our love to God is a love of duty, when we grudge not to live in subjec- tion to him : 1 John v. 3, ' His commandments are not grievous.'
(2.) Submission to his providence. There is a querulous and sour spirit which is natural to us, always repining and murmuring at God's dealing, and wasting and vexing our spirits in heartless complaints. Now, this fretting, quarrelling, impatient humour, which often showeth itself against God even in our prayers and supplications, is quelled by nothing so much as by being frequent in praises and thanksgivings : Job i. 21, ' The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord.' It is an act of holy prudence in the saints, when they are under any trouble, to strain themselves to the quite contrary duty of what temptations and corruptions would drive them unto. When the temptation is laid to make us murmur and swell at God's dealings, we should on the contrary bless and give thanks. And therefore the Psalmist doth so frequently sing praises in the saddest condition. There is no perfect defeating the temptation but by studying matter of praise, and to set seriously about the duty. So Job ii. 10, ' Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ? ' Shall we receive so many proofs of the love of God, and quarrel at a few afflictions that come from the same hand, and rebel against his providence when he bringeth on some needful trouble for our trial and exercise ? and having tasted so much of his bounty and love, repine and fret at every change of dealing, though it be use- ful to purge out our corruptions, and promote our communion with God ? Surely nothing can be extremely evil that cometli from this good hand. As we receive good things cheerfully and contentedly, so must we receive evil things submissively and patiently.
3. It is a most delightful work to remember the many thousand mercies God hath bestowed on the church, ourselves, and friends. To remember his gracious word and all the passages of his providence ; is this burdensome to us ? Ps. cxlvii. 1, ' Praise ye the Lord, for it is pleasant ; ' and Ps. cxxxv. 3, ' Sing praises unto his name, for it is pleasant.' Next to necessity, profit; next to profit, pleasure. No