everlasting advancement in perfection and joy...

It is, of course, Thanksgiving week.  In the busyness and, for many, stress, of the "Holiday Season" it is, ironically, often the most difficult time to pause to offer thanks.  This week, excerpts from Thanksgiving Sermons beginning with Abiel Abbot. 

"THANKSGIVING

"I. Chronicles, xxix. 13. "Now, therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name."

IV. In calling to our minds some of the subjects of grateful thanksgiving this day, let me in the fourth and last place, mention the mercy of the gospel, the greatest blessing of Heaven to man. O that we had a heart in due degree' to estimate it! Other blessings chiefly regard our comfort, our outward welfare through this brief life; and are things, which perish with the using. The design of the gospel is to purify and exalt our nature; to provide, in the renovation of the heart, a durable foundation of happiness and joy. It is a blessing greater than all others to a community ; it promotes the love and practice of righteousness, renders magistrates just men, fearing God and hating covetousness, and the people submissive to wholesome laws, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. Its higher office is to open to our view a glorious immortality. It is the counsel of God for our salvation from sin and misery, and our everlasting advancement in perfection and joy...

In offering thanksgiving to God this day, let us remember with the deepest emotion his unspeakable gift to the world and to us, and bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. O may each one of this assembly long and strive to praise him with that glowing joy and gratitude, which transport the real subjects of his grace... Continually let us pray, " Our Father who art in heaven ; thy kingdom come. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen,

Blessings