Divine Conduct, Head 5 · Motive 5
The Fifth Motive.
THe Recognition of former Providences will minister to your souls continual matter of praise and thanksgiving, which is the very employment of the Angels in Heaven, and the sweetest part of our lives on Earth.
See Psal. 61. 7, 8. If God will prepare Mercy and Truth for David, he will prepare Praises for …is God, and that daily. So Psal. 71. 6. By thee have I been holden up from the womb, thou art he that took me out of my Mothers bowels; (there Mercies from the beginning are recognized.) My praise shall be continually of thee: there the natural result of those recognitions is expressed.
There be five things belonging to the praise of God, and all of them have relation to his Providences exercised about us.
(1.) A careful Observation of the Mercles we receive from him, Isa. 41. 17, 18, 19, 20. This is fundamental to all praise: God cannot …e glorified for the mercies we never noted.
(2.) A faithful Remembrance of the favour▪ received, Psal. 103. 2. Bless the Lord, O my soul▪ and forget not all his benefits. Hence the Lord brands the Ingratitude of his people, Psal. 106. 13. They soon forgat his works.
(3.) A due Appreciation and Valuation of every Providence that doth us good, 1 Sam. 12. 24. That Providence that fed them in the Wilderness with Manna, was a most remarkable Providence to them; but they not valuing it at its worth, God had not that praise for it which he expected, Numb. 11. 6.
(4.) The Excitation of all the faculties and powers of the soul in the acknowledgement o… these mercies to us. Thus David, Psal. 103. 1… Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within m… bless his holy name. Soul-praise is the very sou… of praise: this is the fat and marrow of that thank-offering.
(5.) A suitable Retribution for the mercies received. This David was careful about, Psal. 116. 1. And the Lord taxes good HezekJah for the neglect of it, 2 Chron. 32. 24, 25. This consists in a full and hearty resignation of all to him, that we have received by Providence from him: and in our willingness actually to part with all for him, when he shall remand it.
Thus you see, how all the ingredients to praise, have respect to Providences. But more particularly I will shew you, that as all the ingredients of praise have respect to Providence, so all the motives and Arguments obliging and engaging souls to praise, are found therein also. To this end consider, how the mercy and goodness of God is exhibited by Providence, to excite our thankfulness.
(1.) That the goodness and mercy of God is let out upon his people in his Providences about them: and this is the very root of praise. It is not so much the possession that Providence gives us of such or such comforts, as the goodness and kindness of God in the dispensing of them, that engages a gracious soul to praise, Psal. 63. 3. Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. To give, maintain and preserve our life, are choice acts of Providences: but to do all this in a way of grace and loving-kindness, this is far better than the gifts themselves: life is but the shadow of death without it: this is the mercy that crowns all other mercies, Psal. 103. 4. It's this a sanctified soul desires God would manifest in every Providence about him, Psal. 17. 7. and what is our praising of God else, but our shewing forth that loving-kindness, which he sheweth us in his Providences? Psal. 92. 1, 2.
(2.) As the loving-kindness of God manifested in Providences, is a motive to praise; so the free and undeserved savours of God, dispensed by the hand of Providence, oblige the soul to praise. This was the consideration that melted David's heart into a thankful praising frame, even the consideration of the free and undeserved favours cast in upon him by Providence, 2 Sam. 7. 18. What am I? O Lord God: and what is my Fathers house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? (i. e.) raised me by Providence from a mean condition to all this dignity: from following the Ewes, to feed Jacob his people, Psal. 78. 70, 71. O this is it that engages thankfulness, Gen. 32. 10.
(3.) As the freeness of mercies dispensed by Providence, engageth praise; so the Multitudes of mercies heaped this way upon us, strongly oblige the soul to thankfulness. Thus David comes before the Lord encompassed with a multitude of mercies to praise him, Psal. 5. 7. We have our loads of mercies, and that every day, Psalm 68. 19. O what a rich heap will the mercies of one day make, being laid together!
(4.) As the multitudes of mercies dispensed by Providence, oblige to praise; so the tenderness of Gods mercy manifested in his Providence, leaves the soul under a strong obligation to thankfulness. We see what tender resentments the Lord hath of all our wants, straits and burdens, Psalm 103. 13. Like as a Father pitJeth his Children, so the Lord pitJeth them that fear him. He is full of bowels, as the word foreign in James 5. 11. signifies. Yea, there are not only bowels of compassion in our God, but the tenderness of bowels, like those of a Mother to her sucking child, Isa. 49. 15. He feels all our pains as if the apple of his eye were touched, Zech. 2. 8. and all this is discovered to his people in the way of his Providences with them, Psal. 111. 2, 3, 4. O who of all the Children of God hath not often found this in his Providences? And who can see it, and not be filled with thankfulness? All these are so many bands clapt by Providence upon the soul, to oblige it to a li…e of praise. Hence it is, that the prayers of the Saints are so full of thanksgivings upon these accounts: 'tis sweet to recount them to the Lord in prayer: to lye at this feet in an holy astonishment at his gracious condescensions to poor worms.