God Is Good.

The duty we are here again and again called to is to give thanks, to offer the sacrifice of praise continually, not the fruits of our ground or cattle, but the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, Hebrews 13:15. We are never so earnestly called upon to pray and repent as to give thanks for it is the will of God that we should abound most in the most pleasant exercises of religion, in that which is the work of heaven. Now here observe, 1. Whom we must give thanks to--to him that we receive all good from, to the Lord, Jehovah, Israel's God, the God of gods, the God whom angels adore, from whom magistrates derive their power, and by whom all pretended deities are and shall be conquered, to the Lord of lords, the Sovereign of all sovereigns, the stay and supporter of all supports. In all our adorations we must have an eye to God's excellency as transcendent, and to his power and dominion as incontestably and uncontrollably supreme. 2. What we must give thanks for, not as the Pharisee that made all his thanksgivings terminate in his own praise (God, I thank thee, that I am so and so), but directing them all to God's glory.

We must give thanks to God for his goodness and mercy, Give thanks to the Lord, not only because he does good, but because he is good (all the streams must be traced up to the fountain), not only because he is merciful to us, but because his mercy endures for ever, and will be drawn out to those that shall come after us. We must give thanks to God, not only for that mercy which is now handed out to us here on earth, but for that which shall endure for ever in the glories and joys of heaven. We must give God thanks for the instances of his power and wisdom. - Matthew Henry