It is almost impossible to separate things which are so near; only the power of God, which can do any thing, can do it. Hence it is, that it is so hard to bring a man to leave sin, when his soul hath found out joy in it, when the sinner can make music to himself in his sins, when the sinner by art hath made an instrument of his sin, a lute to play upon, and delight his senses withal. Joy is a fragrancy made from many flowers, with much picking, choosing, and composing of flowers; it is honey gathered with much art, from much variety: the soul is not easily brought to put that by, which it hath so spent itself for, and so laid out its utmost art and skill after. Bad joy is the soul in the arms of the devil, he holds fast; two evil spirits dear each to other. Evil spirits endeared are harder to part than evil bodies.

Bad joy has this grand evil in it,-it is the completion of evil it is wickedness full sin grown old, out-lived all virtue, yea, out-lived all conscience; for till conscience was quite dead, bad joy could not live. Bad joy is an evil that hath conquered virtue, truth, conscience, God; and triumphs in this victory. All the tone now is, hang sorrow, and yet hell now gapes for the man, and never so wide as now.

Sin may be grown old when the man is young: it is many a young man's case, the Lord knows; nothing mature in them, but sin, as you may see by their joy and triumph in it; fit for hell, ere they come to age to be fit for their patrimony.

Bad joy, hath this grand evil in it,—it sets the soul very near to wrath-at the gates of hell, knocking to go in. Evil joy is a malefactor upon the gallows, there is but a step between him and turning off. "The triumphing of the wicked is short;" when once

a sinner begins to triumph, he has but a little time to live. Seest thou a sinner laughing? stay a little, the next change of countenance, will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. You say of some notorious persons, that the gallows groans for them when you see a man notoriously wicked, joying and triumphing in sin, Ah, Lord! hell groans for this man, hell opens for this man; in a moment he will go down to the pit.

SERMON XIV.

COLOSSIANS I. 12.

-GIVING THANKS UNTO THE FATHER, &c.

God

THANKSGIVING, according to the sense of this and other texts, is a divine return of divine love. It is a sea going forth into all the veins of the earth, and returned again to itself by rivers and streams. bestows largely here below, and yet all upon finite man, man is to make a return of all, and in God's own coin; love, for love; to make God's own doings and dealings acknowledge him and own him; all love to the creature, respecting body and soul; in prosperity and adversity to call him Father. "Giving thanks unto the Father."

Man is the mouth of the creation, to make all the works of God speak, and acknowledge their proper author; all the power, all the wisdom, all the love that is in them, to God as their Father. Every creature hath a rude speech to this purpose of its

own: that is, as God's own glory, gloriously revealed in them, sensibly speaks forth himself. But man is formed intentionally, and very transcendently to this work; to speak, not rudely, but divinely, accurately; to make power speak, and to speak to the life; wisdom speak, and speak to the life. Every mute creature and action, and all the love that lies mute and silent in them, to speak out and prostrate itself to God as its Father. "Giving thanks unto the Father," &c.

All things in the world, in the heavens, in the earth, in the sea, have God's mark upon them, as his goods; as great merchants set their mark upon all the goods which are theirs. God hath not left himself without witness, throughout the creation. Now thankfulness is going from creature to creature, from work to work, to find out God, his mark, his image and superscription. To whom does this belong? to whom that? If the echoes are to God, why is it so? It is written, Render unto God the things that are God's :" if this creature or action be so mute that it cannot speak nor call God Father, I will speak for it, saith a thankful soul. Let God have all his own, let him wear his own glory himself, and none else. Father all love, to all things here below, temporal love, eternal love upon him. 66 Giving thanks unto the Father," &c.

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Thankfulness is a making every thing that is good, to cry " Abba Father" to God. Every thing that is good, and all the good that is in every thing; what is simply and totally good; what is subordinately and finally good, good in its end, as troubles which prepare and fit for heaven. What good is in the staff? what good is in the rod? What good is in good, and what good is in evil? Thankful

ness goes a fishing and gathering for love, everywhere, and to every one's door; to hell's door, to heaven's door, to present it to its own Father's ; Giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."

Thankfulness is God's faithful register. It is recorder to the great city above; it hath an admirable memory, nothing dies that love doeth. It is a grace which lays up doings, sayings, yea, whisperings of love in the heart many years, and ponders them every day, every hour, and keeps them alive, and as fresh and fragrant in the soul, as if but now done. She writes love, as he writes beloved, upon the palm of her hand. She is never forgotten, nor ever forgets; she remembers days of old. Days of love, though ever so old, are new. Thankfulness makes mercies live as God lives, for ever. "His name is had in everlasting remembrance." whom? By a thankful soul, by none else. There is no grace makes chronology so exact for years, for days, for hours, for all circumstances, as thankfulness does. How long God hath been a Father; in what condition a Father, in what manner and measure a Father; to what end a Father-to bestow an inheritance; what inheritance for kind, for situation; whether in darkness, or in light, she exactly records all. " Giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."

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Thankfulness is God's bountiful paymaster. It is a return of God's own with advantage; his favours, and man's heart in, over and above, for God's favours. A thankful man cannot nakedly return fatherly love ; he binds up his heart in his acknowledgments; he

bundles up blessings, and bundles up his soul in them, and so carries them all together to heaven. All His benefits, and all my soul, and all that is within it, let them all go together to heaven, to make an offering of thanksgiving. Let the ark go home again, but by no means let it go home empty. Let Christ and love revealed in my soul, be returned by my soul home again, but let them not be returned empty, says a thankful man; let me picture out and engrave God's kind dealings in my heart, and so send divine favours and heart together, home to heaven. Yea, it I had ten thousand souls, ten thousand jewels more precious than that inmost jewel of all in my breast let that love which hath made itself my father, and made me out an inheritance, as a child, and me fit for that inheritance, have all. Giving thanks unto the Father," &c. Understand this to be a heart speech, a soul breathing, an intense, total soul breathing, heavenward.

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Thanksgiving is a presenting God with his own; with all his own: "With thine own have we offered unto thee," saith David in his thanksgiving: dom, might, are thine; all that is good comes of thee." A thankful man hath no good thing of his own, it is all God's that he has; his wisdom is God's; his strength God's; every good thought of God; to do, to will good, of God; whatsoever he has, whatsoever he is, is grace-" By his grace I am that I am:" this is the natural language of a thankful soul. All good in me, all good that comes from me, is of him and through him, and therefore all shall be for him: inheritance, fitness for this inheritance; all felicity, all that belongs to felicity, have no natural, but a divine Father. "Giving thanks unto the Father," &c. It is an especially strong expression in the original,

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