And, to name no more but this one, above all, leg of God his Holy Spirit. For this blessing of God is nothing else but a vent from the Spirit. For as organs and wind instruments do never sound except they be blown, they are dead and make no music till there be breath put into them ; so we are dead and dull instruments. Therefore it is said, we are ' filled with the Holy Ghost,' Acts ix. 17. All God's children, they are filled with the Spirit before they can praise God. The Spirit stirs them up to praise him, and as it gives them matter to praise him ; for so it gives the sacrifice of praise itself.- God gives to his children both the benefits to bless him for, and he gives the blessing of a heart to bless him. And we must beg both of God ; beg a heart able to discern spiritual favours, to taste and relish them, and to see our o^vn unworthiness of them ; and beg of God his Holy Spirit to awaken, and quicken, and enlarge our dead and dull hearts to praise his name.
Let us stir up our hearts to it, stir up the Spirit of God in us. Every one that hath the Spirit of God should labour to stir up the Spirit. As St Paul writes to Timothy, 2 Tim. i. 6, and as David stirs up himself, * Praise the Lord, 0 my soul : and all that is within me, praise his holy name,' Ps. ciii. 1, seq., so we should raise up ourselves, and stir up our- selves, to this duty.
And shame ourselves. What ! hath God freed me from so great misery ? And hath he advanced me to so happy an estate in this world ? Doth he put me in so certain a hope of glory in the world to come ? Have I a certain promise, to be carried to salvation ? that neither ' things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus' ? Rom. viii. 88. Doth he renew his mercies eveiy day upon me ? And can I be thus dead, can I be thus dull-hearted ? Let us shame ourselves. And certainly if a man were to teach a child of God a ground of humiliation, if a child of God that is in the state of grace should ask how he might grow humble and be abased more and more, a man could
* Qu. ' often ? '— £d.
26 COMMENTARY ON
give no one direction better tlian tliis, to consider how God hath been good continually ; how ho hath been patient and good, and upon what ground we hope that ho will be so ; and to consider the disposition of our OAvn drooping, ch'owsy souls. If this will not abase a soul that hath tasted the love and mercy of God, nothing in the world will do it. There never was a child of God of a dull temper and disjiosition, but he was ashamed that, being under such a covenant of favour, that ho should yet not have a heart more enlarged to bless God.
To Btir us up to this duty, for arguments to persuade us, what need we use «nany ?
1 . It should be our duty in this world to be as much in heaven and heavenly emploijment. ' Oui* conversation is in heaven,' saith the apostle, Phil. iii. 20. How can we bo in heaven more than by practising of that which the saints and angels, and the cherub ins and seraphins, spend all their strength in there ? How do they spend all that blessed strength with cheerfulness and joy, that are in that place of joy ? How do they spend it but in setting forth the praise of God, the wonderful goodness of God, that hath brought them to that happiness ? Certainly that which we shall do for ever in heaven, we ought to do as much as we may do on earth.
2. And it is, as I said before, in all afilictions and troubles the only special way to mitigate them, to ivork our hearts to thankfulness for mercies and favours that we enjoy. We have cause indeed at the first to be abased and humbled ; but we have more cause to rejoice in working our hearts to comfort, in blessing of God. It will ease the cross, any cross whatsoever. I will not dwell further upon the point. I shall have occasion oft to digress upon this duty.
The object of praise here is God, clothed with a comfortable descrip- tion ; not God simply, for, alas ! we have no hearts to praise God, take God only armed with justice, clothed with majesty. Consider God thus, indeed he deserves glory and praise, but the guilty soul will not praise him thus considered, and abstracted from mercy, and goodness, and love. There- fore saith he, 'Blessed be God.' God how considered ? ' Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
First, he is Father of Christ, and then Father of mercies, and God of comfort. God, so considered, be blessed !
Ohs. God, as he is to be prayed unto, so he is to be praised, and only God.