Directions for Thankfulness to God, our Benefactor.

Gratitude is to the promise, much what obedience is to the
law.

Direct. Understand how great this duty is in the nature of the thing, but especially how the very design and tenor of the gospel demands it. Our salvation by a Redeemer is the very complexion of our souls and of all of our duties. When a creature is wholly his
Creator’s and is preserved at all times by him, daily fed and sustained by him, and invested with the possibility of life eternal, he must, by necessity, be obliged to express his gratitude ceaselessly.

Likewise, unthankfulness among mankind is regarded as an unnatural, monstrous vice that forfeits the benefits of friendship and society: 2 Tim. iii. 2, the “unthankful” are numbered with the “unholy,” etc. These creatures are part of the monsters expected to appear in the last days (and we have lived to see them, exactly in accordance with the lengthy description of them we have read). However, God’s design in the work of redemption is designed to raise the highest level of gratitude in a person.

The covenant of grace contains such abundant, wondrous mercies as to compel the souls of men to gratitude and to render them utterly blameless. It is a profound truth, and much to ponder, that gratitude is that general duty of the gospel. This includes and animates all the rest as
being fundamental to all that is properly evangelical.