Note 524 — Part II—The Worldlings (continued 3)

Barrow's Theological Works, 6 vols. Oxford, 1818, I. 141-142; Sermon VIII. "The Duty of Thanksgiving," Eph. V. 20.

"These words, although (as the very syntax doth immediately discover) they bear a relation to, and have a fit coherence with, those that precede, may yet (especially considering St. Paul's style and manner of expression in the preceptive and exhortative parts of his Epistles), without any violence or prejudice on either hand, be severed from the context, and considered distinctly by themselves.... First, then, concerning the duty itself, to give thanks, or rather to be thankful (for εύχαριστέΐν doth not only signify gratias agere, reddere, dicere, to give, render, or declare thanks, but also gratias habere, grate affectum esse, to be thankfully disposed, to entertain a grateful affection, sense, or memory)... I say, concerning this duty itself (abstractedly considered), as it involves a respect to benefits or good things received; so in its employment about them it imports, requires, or supposes these following particulars."