Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A58819
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A sermon preached before the queen the 22d of May, 1692 upon occasion of the late victory obtained by Their Majesties fleet over the French / by John Scott ...
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Scott, John, 1639-1695.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing S2076; ESTC R34060
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18,980
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39
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excites in us sharp and dolorous Reflections upon our Guilts and Miscarriages but Thanksgiving has nothing in it but a warm and vigorous sense of the mightiest Love and most indearing Goodness For it is only the overflow of a heart full of Love the free sally and emission of a Soul that is captivated and indeared by Kindness and there is no Passion in Humane Nature so sweet and ravishing as Love especially while being heated with the warm sense of the Kindness of its beloved it boils over upon it in Praise and Gratitude And seeing our Thanksgiving lives upon Love and Beneficence and is al1 along nourished and maintained by it the greater the Love is upon which it feeds and the more the Beneficence the richer its Fare is and the nobler its Entertainment But where can our Gratitude find out a Love comparably so great or productive of such ample Beneficence as that of Gods Upon this inexhaustible Subject it may live for ever without any other Supplies and fare deliciously every moment to eternal Ages For what more delicious or comfortable thought can ever present itself to the mind of Man than this that the great Lord of the World the good the wise and mighty King of Heaven and Earth is our faithful kind and munificent Friend that his Heart is always pregnant with Designs of Love to us and that the great subject of all his Contrivances is to do us good here and to render us Glorious hereafter O were such thoughts as these but set home upon our hearts with their full and due Emphasis how would they even ravish and transport our Souls How would they convert all our Faculties into Concent and Harmony and even evaporate our Spirits in a Songs of Praise and Thanksgiving to him And whilst from a lively Sense of all these Wonders of his Love we are offering up to him our Sacrifice of Thanksgiving O with what Triumph and Exultation of Soul should we ascend in the flames of it But alas we are even the best of us in a great measure unacquainted with the Pleasure and Sweetness of this heavenly Performance and the reason is because we have not a quick Sense and lively Relish of the Divine Goodness upon which it terminates Had we this always present with us we should feel so much Joy and Pleasure in Thanksgiving that it would be our Heaven upon Earth our Meat and Drink our Business and Recreation to breath up our Souls to God in Hymns of Praise But this we do all know who know any thing of Religion that to laud and magnifie the Lord is the End for which we were born and the Heaven for which we are designed and that when we are arrived to that vigorous sense of the Divine Love that the blessed People of Heaven have attained we shall need no other either Employment or Pleasure to render us for ever happy but only to sing eternal Praises and Hallelujahs to our God and to the Lamb that sitteth upon the Throne the vigorous Relish of whose unspeakable Goodness to us will so inflame our Love and animate our Gratitude that to eternal Ages we shall be never able to contain our selves from breaking forth into new Songs of Praise and then every new Song will still create a new Pleasure and every new Pleasure dictate a new Song and so round again for ever But these are things too sublime for our short reach and cognisance only at present let us but consult the Experience of devout and grateful Souls about them and this will assure us that there is nothing under Heaven so pleasant and delightsom as from a warm and vigorous sense of the Love of God to breath up our Souls to him in Praise and Thanksgiving that this gives such a Jubilee to the Mind such a sprightful Recreation to the Heart as far exceeds the most studyed and artificial Pleasures of Epicurism But for satisfaction in this point we need go no further than to our praiseful Psalmist who tho he were a King and had all the Pleasures of a fruitful Kingdom at his beck and command yet doth upon his own Experience advise Praise the Lord for the Lord is Good sing praises to his name for it is pleasant And elsewhere Praise the Lord for it is good to sing Praises to our God it is pleasant and praise is comely Seeing therefore that Gratitude to God is so high a Pleasure and such a grateful Entertainment to the rational Soul when it is duly disposed this is such a Motive to the Practice of it as carries with it an eternal Force and Obligation III. Gratitude to God mightily obliges him to continue and repeat his Favors to us For though God doth not covet our Thanksgivings for himself or out of any prospect of Advantage they can bring him he being so intirely happy in his own Perfections that neither the Praises of Angels can add any thing to him nor the Blasphemies of Devils subtract any thing from him yet when he so freely bestows his Benefits upon us he expects the return of our Gratitude both as it is highly just and reasonable in itself and vastly beneficial and advantageous to us For he being infinitely reasonable himself and loving himself infinitely for being so he cannot for his own sake but love what is fit and reasonable in others and what he so justly loves in us he justly expects of us It is highly displeasing to him to see us ungrateful to others as well as to himself not that he sustains any Damage thereby for how can he be the worse for our Ingratitude to others But the Ground of his Displeasure is to see reasonable Beings so grosly swerve from the Canon of right Reason and Justice and act so contrarily to the Laws of his Nature and their own So again he is as well pleased and delighted when he finds us thankful to our other Benefactors as when we are so to him not that he can reap the least Benefit or Advantage from the Thanks which we render to others for how can he be the better for that which he doth not receive But because the thing is just and reasonable in itself and because whatsoever is so is amiable and delightsom in his Eyes And as God expects our Gratitude for its own sake as it is in itself a most just and comely and reasonable thing so doth he also expect it for our sake as it is one of the most advantageous things we can do for our selves For by accustoming our selves to frequent Returns of Thanksgiving to God we shall by degrees a thankful Frame and Disposition of Soul which as I shall shew by and by will both influence us in all other parts of our Duty with a mighty Chearfulness and Alacrity of Spirit and carry us on through the most wearisom Stages of it with an indefatigable Vigour and also inhanse the value of the Divine Benefits and render them more precious in our esteem
Dr. SCOTT's Thanksgiving Sermon Preached before the QUEEN The 22d of May. A SERMON Preached before the QUEEN The 22d of May 1692. Upon Occasion of the late VICTORY OBTAINED BY Their Majesties Fleet OVER THE FRENCH By JOHN SCOTT D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties Published by Her Majesties Special Command LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard M DC XC II. A SERMON Preached before the QUEEN Psalm 50.14 Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most High IN the foregoing Verses the Psalmist whether he were David or Asaph is uncertain introduces God as delivering his own Sense concerning the Ritual and Ceremonial Religion of the Iews upon which they so much valu'd themselves and laid such a mighty stress v. 7. Hear O my people and I will speak O Israel and I will testifie against thee or I have something of high Moment to speak to thee I am God even thy God that God who under the Title of The Lord thy God brought thee out of the Land of Egypt and gave thee the Moral Law comprised in Ten Commandments I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices and burnt offerings to have been continually before me I know thou art exact enough in the observance of these my Ritual Commands and therefore as to this matter I do not blame thee but this is not the thing I chiefly value and esteem 'T is the observance of my Moral Laws in which thou art extremely defective that I principally insist on as for those Sacrifices with which thou causest mine Altars continually to smoak they are things with which if I needed 'em I could supply my self from the Herds of a Thousand Hills which thou knowest not and which are all my own And so he goes on to the Text upbraiding 'em with laying the whole stress of their Religion upon their exact performance of the instituted Rites of it which tho it was their Duty yet the least part of it And then comes in the Text to acquaint 'em what was the main of their Religion which he principally intended and was most delighted in and wherein they were most remiss and negligent Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most High i. e. If thou wilt bring me an acceptable Sacrifice indeed in the first place bring me a truly thankful Heart that gratefully receives and acknowledges my Benefits and in the next place perform to me those Vows and Promises of Repentance and Amendment which thou madest to me in thy Affliction when out of extreme want of the Benefits I have since bestowed on thee thou wast earnestly imploring 'em at my Hands I shall at present only treat of the first of these Offer unto God thanksgiving which according to the Sense I have given of the Text and Coherence is a Duty of far more value with God than any of the instituted Rituals of Religion as being one of those Moral and eternal Duties in which the Main and Substance of Religion doth consist In handling this Argument therefore I shall endeavor these two Things First To shew you what this Duty is and wherein it doth consist Secondly To shew you that is a Moral Duty or which is the same thing a Duty inforced with eternal Reasons I. What this Duty of Thanksgiving is and wherein it doth consist In general Thanksgiving consists in rendring to our Benefactors a chearful acknowledgment of the Benefits we have received at their Hands and consequently to offer Thanksgiving to God is freely heartily and chearfully to acknowledge and recognize to him the manifold Favours and Benefits which with a most liberal Hand he bestows upon us from time to time In order to which it is necessary that we should diligently remark and attend to his Benefits and not suffer 'em to pass thorough our Minds like Birds thorough the Air without leaving any Track or Path behind 'em but that we should so curiously observe and take notice of 'em that every Footstep of 'em if possible may remain upon our Memories in lively and lasting impressions For tho we can no more count the Benefits of God than we can the Moments of Eternity and tho when ever we enter into the recollection of 'em we are like a man that is diving into the bottom of the Sea over whose Head the water runs insensibly so as that neither he is pressed with the weight of it nor confounded with the number of the drops of it because he attempts not to cast 'em up but concludes 'em innumerable yet there are many and many of the Benefits of God which lie so open to our observation being attended with such indearing and remarkable Circumstances as that without great stupidity we cannot but take notice of ' em And therefore in order to our being truly thankful to God it is requisite that such as these should be drawn and imprinted upon our memories in strong and lively Colours not to be worn or washed out by Time or Chance but to flourish there if possible like the Pictures of the Graces in immortal Youth And as to our giving Thanks to God for his Benefits as it is requisite that we should so far as we are able closely observe and remember 'em so it is no less requisite that by frequent reflections upon 'em we should indeavour to raise in our own Minds a just value and esteem of 'em and thereby to affect our own Hearts with a warm and vigorous Sense of the Divine Goodness that inexhaustible Fountain whence every good we receive is derived And when with the close consideration of the Favors and Benefits of God we have chafed our own Souls into an affectionate feeling of his Goodness we may then cry out with David My heart is ready O Lord my heart is ready I will sing and give praise For the Requisites before mentioned are only necessary Dispositions and Preparations to Thanksgiving they are only the tuning the Strings of the musical Instrument and setting it in order for the Angelical Harmony to be plaid on it but the Thanksgiving itself consists in an affectionate Acknowledgment to God of the manifold Favours we have received at his hands together with all those gracious Circumstances so far as we are able to recollect them with which they came attended which Acknowledgment is to be made either in express Words in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs or by recounting his Favors to him in mental Recognitions which is to make melody in our Hearts to the Lord. But because usually when the Heart is full the Mouth will overflow therefore Thanksgiving in common Acceptation signifies an oral and verbal Acknowledgment of Gods Favors arising from an inward and affectionate Sense and Feeling of his Goodness towards us And to crown all this and render our Thanksgiving substantial and real it must be accompanied with a hearty study and intention of Soul to render unto God for his Favor all