1, They are to teach us how ready we should be to take all occa- sions of thankfulness and spiritual worship; for besides their vowed services and instituted services they had daily sacrifices and set feasts commanded by God ; they had their free-will-offerings offered to God in thankfulness for some special blessing received or deliverance from danger.
2. It shows with what voluntariness and cheerfulness we should go about God's worship in the gospel, and what a free disposition of heart there should be, and edge upon our affections in all things that we offer to God. And in this latter sense I shall speak, that our offerings to God, prayer and praise, should be free-will-offerings, come from us not like water out of a still forced by the fire, ])ut like water out of a fountain, with native freeness, readily and freely.
[1.] God loves a cheerful giver; constrained service is of no value and respect with him. Under the law, when sacrifice of beasts was in fashion, wherefore did God choose the purest and fattest of every- thing offered to him, but as a testimony of a willing mind ? And still he looks to the aftections rather than the action. God weighs the spirit, Prov. xvi. 2. When God comes to put them into the balance of the sanctuary, what doth he weigh ? External circumstances of duty, or the pomji and appearance wherein men go ? No ; but he con- siders with what kind of heart it is done ; and the love of sin, God takes notice of that, as well as the practice of sin. So in our duties, God takes notice of the love, the inclination of our souls, as well as the outward service ; therefore our offerings must be free and voluntary.
[2.] God deserves it, he doth us good with all his heart, and all his gtvings come to us from his love. Why did he give Christ for us and to us ? * He loved us.' Why gave he him for us ? ' God so loved the world,' John iii. 16. Why doth he give Christ to us ? Eph. ii. 4, 5, ' God. who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.' That which moved God to bestow his saving grace upon us
VeR. 108.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 113
was his great love, and all the good we receive from him. Why, mercy pleaseth him : ' I will rejoice over them to do them good.' If lie deliver us out of any danger, he hath ' loved us from the grave/ Isa. xxxviii. 7. Now love should season all our services to God.
[3.] Where a day of grace hath passed upon our hearts, so it will be ; the soul will come off readily and freely to the duties God hath required of us : Ps. ex. 3, ' Thy people shall be a willing people in the day of thy power.' We are naturally backward, slow of heart to do anything* that is good, hang off from God, will not be subject to liim ; but when the day of his power passeth upon us, then we are a willing people, we are more delighted in communion with God, less averse from him, the bent of our hearts is altered, and the stream of our affections is turned another way, and our converses with God are more delightful, and we are as earnest in serving God as before we were in serving sin.
Use. To press us to serve God with a perfect heart and with a willing mind, 1 Chron. xxix. 9. Thus when we give God any spiritual sacrifice, when we pray to or praise him, Ave should do it willingly, not customarily, or by constraint, or for by-ends, nor by the compulsion of a natural conscience ; and when we feel, as we shall now and then, any tediousness and irksomeness in prayer, we should quicken ourselves by this motive : Christ Jesus, who was our sin-offering, he willingly offered up himself upon the service of our salvation. I might urge other arguments, as the nobleness of our service, the greatness of our reward, the many sweet experiences we shall gain in our converse with God ; but this should be as the reason of reasons, and instead of all. Christ Jesus did not grudgingly go about the work of our salvation, but willingly offered himself : Ps. xl. 8, ' I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.' When God would have no more legal sin-offerings, but the great sin-offering of the gospel was to be produced and brought forth in the view of the world, ' Lo, I come ; in the volume of the book it is written of me.' Now our thank- offering should be carried on with the same willingness. Christ will be served now out of gratitude, and therefore his love should constrain us. Surely if we believe this great mystery of Christ, that he did willingly offer himself upon the service of our souls, and if we have any faith in him, ' faith will work by love,' Gal. v. 6. The soul may reason and discourse thus with itself, Do I believe Christ Jesus did thus willingly give himself for my soul ? how can I be backward in God's service and hang off from him ? Oh ! let me live to Christ, ' who loved me, and gave himself for me,' Gal. ii. 20. What ! shall I be more backward to do for God than Christ was to die for me, to go to the throne of grace than Christ Jesus was to go to the cross ? Can I hang him off from such pleasing noble service, when Jesus Christ my Lord refused not the hard work of my redemption ? If his will was in it, certainly so should be yours,