Of acknowledging God in all our Ways. 307 and it is his office to put into form, and ac- SERM. tively to employ himfelf in rendering that XII. grateful tribute which they lay before his L"'") underftanding. But, since his own being, his own faculties, and all his ways, the en- tire compafs of his defigns and interefts, are from God, and in his hands ; fince he lives, and moves, and has his being in God, it would he the utnioft fcupidity not to praife him, This was the guilt charged upon the Heathen nations, in which they were utterly inex- cufable 4', that when they knew God (they could not be altogether ignorant, having fo fufficient means of knowing him from his works) yet they gloried him not as God, nei- ther were thankful. But it will fill be more inexcufable in us, when that which may be known of him, of his nature and perfetions, of his providence intimately near, taking all our ways and concerns under its in fpe &ion, care and influence ; and the fervice he experts from us; when all this, I fay, is fo clearly laid before us, by an exprefs revelation. Let me only add, under this bead, that the formal expreons of gratitude, without the inward affe cionate fenfe and feeling of it in our own minds, can anfwer * Rom. i. zi. X 2
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