Praise of God

Praise of God is a reverent acknowledgment of the perfections, works, and benefits of God, and of the blessings flowing from them to mankind, usually expressed in hymns of gratitude and thanksgiving, and especially in the reception of the Holy Eucharist, that "sacrifice of praise" and sublimest token of our joy, and which has received the name (εὐχαριστία) because it is the highest instance of thanksgiving in which Christians can be engaged. Praise and thanksgiving are generally considered as synonymous, yet some distinguish them thus: "Praise properly terminates in God, on account of his natural excellences and perfections, and is that act of devotion by which we confess and admire his several attributes; but thanksgiving is a more contracted duty, and imports only a grateful sense and acknowledgment of past mercies. We praise God for all his glorious acts of every kind that regard either his or other men— for his very vengeance, and those judgments which he sometimes sends abroad in the earth; but we thank him, properly speaking, for the instances of' his goodness alone, and for such only of these as we ourselves are some way concerned in."-Buck, Theol. Dict. See Atterbury, Sermon on Psalm 1, 14; Saurin, Sermons, vol. 1, ser. 14; Tillotson, Sermons, ser. 146 (conclusion). SEE THANKSGIVING.