if he makes my fickness and my poverty turn to the good of my foul, this I may very rationally thank him for. I. cannot thank God for depriving me of the fociety of a dear and useful friend: the most that I can do, is to forbear. murmuring and repining at it; and to bear it with courage and decency: but if fuch a providence as this is the means of making me more heavenly and spiritual; if it weans my affections from the world, and fixes them upon God; if it makes me more thoughtful about, death and judgment, and more diligent in making preparation for them; then, tho I cannot thank God for the death of my friend, fimply and in itself confidered, yet I may, and I ought to thank him for thofe happy effects and confequences of it. This fhall fuffice for the explication of the precept, in every thing give thanks.

The next thing to be explained, is the reafon affigned for the practice of it; viz. because it is the will of God in Chrift Jefus concerning us.

Now here are two things which deferve to be confider'd.

1. How it can be faid, that thankf giving is the will of God in Christ Jesus? which

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which infinuates as if our obligation to it was founded on the chriftian religion, when it is manifeft that is a part of nátural religion, and what we fhould have been obliged to, tho there had never been any pofitive revelation of the will of God, either by Chrift or by any other. 2. How it can be faid to be the will of God in Chrift Jefus, when it doth not appear from the hiftory of his life, that he delivered any precept, or made any declaration of the will of God about it?

As to the firft, it may be acknowledged, that thanksgiving is a natural duty, to which mankind was obliged before the coming of Christ, and would have been fo tho he had never appeared in the world to reveal the will of God to us. Our obligation to it arifes from the relation we ftand in towards God as creatures. He hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the Sheep of his pafture; therefore we should enter into his gates with thanfgiving, and into his courts with praife; Pfalm C. 3, 4. But it doth not follow, that becaufe a duty may be difcerned by the light of nature, therefore it may not be enjoined by a pofitive precept: for

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God may make known his will to us by as many ways as he pleases; and the more methods he takes for the difcovering his mind to us, the more thankful ought we to be unto him. The law of nature teaches men to honour their parents, to abstain from murder, adultery, theft, and all injurious treatment of our neighbour; and yet God thought fit to oblige the Jews unto the practice of thefe duties by pofitive precepts and fo there are many duties that are founded in the nature and reafon of things, which are adopted by our Saviour into the chriftian scheme, and made a part of his religion. And this is fo far from derogating from christianity, that it adds to the glory of it; for there is more beauty and excellency in precepts of a moral nature, which vifibly refult from principles of reafon, than in pofitive inftitutions. Our Saviour came to ftrengthen and enforce all moral obligations. Undoubtedly, from the beginning of the world, it was the will of God that men fhould give thanks: but it more eminently appeared to be fo after the coming of Chrift than it did before; because God, by fending him into the world upon

fo kind a defign as that of their redemption, bestowed on them a greater favour than ever he did before, and indeed the greateft that he poffibly could.

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But how can it be faid that thankf giving is the will of God in Christ Jesus; when it doth not appear from the history of his life, that he delivered any precept, or made any declaration of the will of God about it? It is plain, that he thought thanksgiving was a duty, because he practised it himself Matt. XI. 25. I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou haft hid these things from the wife and prudent, and haft revealed them unto babes. And just before he raised Lazarus from the dead, he lifted up his eyes, and faid, Father, I thank thee that thou haft heard me; John XI. 41. And we find that he always bleed, or gave thanks before meat. And as he practifed thanksgiving himself, fo he commended it in others. We read in the XVIIth chapter of Luke, that ten leprous men met our Saviour as he was entring into a village, and cried unto him to have mercy upon them. He commanded them to go and fhew

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themselves to the priests; and as they went they were cleanfed. One of them, who was a Samaritan, when he faw that he was healed, turned back with a great voice glorifying God, and he fell down on his face at the feet of Jefus, giving him thanks; and Jefus faid, Were there not ten cleanfed? but where are the nine? there have not been found, who have returned to give glory to God, fave this firanger. By this our Lord infinuates, that the Samaritan had done what was proper and becoming, and that the reft had been guilty of a great fault. So that it appears he thought thanksgiving to be a duty, and the neglect of it a fin. Yet neither here, nor any where elfe, that I know of, doth he give any precept for it, or make any declaration of the will of God about it. His apostles indeed deliver precept upon precept, but he himself is very filent in the matter. How then can it be faid, that thankf giving is the will of God in Christ Jesus?

I answer: That God's fending of Jesus Christ into the world, doth of itself fufficiently prove thankfgiving to be a duty. This act alone, with out any verbal declaration, demonK 4 ftrates