102 A GUIDE TO PRAYER, my own strength as the ground of my hope ; for myunderstand- ing is dark, my will is impotent, and my best affections are in- sufficient to carry me onwards to heaven : I now again renounce dependance upon all of them, that I may receive greater light and strength and love from God. I am dead to the law, I am mortified to sin, I am crucified to the world, and all by the cross of Jesus my Saviour. 1 bid Satan get him behind me ; I renounce him and his works : I will neither fear him nor love him; nor lay a confederacy with the men of this world, for I love my God, for I fear my God, in my God is'my eternal help and hope : "I will say, what have I to do any more with idols ?" and I will banish theobjects of temptation from my sight. Thus I abandon ever thing that would divide me fromGod, to whom I have made a surrender of myself. And shouldest thou see fit to scourge and correct me, Omy God, I submit to thine hand; shouldest thou deny me theparticular requests I have presented to thee, I leave myself in thy hands, trusting thou wilt chose better for me. And because 1 know my own frailty of heart, and the inconstancyof my will, I humbly put all these my vows and solemn engagements into the bands of my Lord Jesus to fulfil them in me, and by me, through all the days of my infirmity and this dangerous state of trial." SECT. VII.-Of. Thanksgiving. The seventh part of prayer consists in thanksgiving. To give thanks is to acknowledge the bounty of that hand whence we receive our blessings, and to ascribe honour and praise to the power, the wisdom and the goodness of God upon that account. And this is part of that tribute which God our King expects at our hands for all the favours we receive from him. It very ill becomes a creature to partake of benefits from his God, and then to forget his heavenly Benefactor, and grow regardless of that bounty whence his comforts flow. The matter of our thanksgivings may be ranged under these two heads : we must give thanks for those benefits for which we have prayed; and for those which God bath conferred upon us without pray- ing for. I. Those benefits which God bath bestowed on us without asking, are proper to be mentioned in the first place, for they are the effects of his rich and preventing mercy : and how many are the blessings of his goodness with which he hath prevented us ! " We praise thee, O Lord, for thine original designs of love to fallen man ; that thou shouldest make a distinction be- tween us and,the angels that sinned: what is man, that thou art thoughtful about his salvation ; and sufferest the angels to perish for ever without remedy: that thou shouldest chose a certain number ei' the race of Adam, and ìve diem into the hands of
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