*If a man does not believe that all the world is as God’s family, where nothing happens by chance, but all is guided and directed by the care and providence of a being that is all love and goodness to all his creatures; if a man does not believe this from his heart, he cannot be said to believe in God. And yet he that has this faith, has faith enough to be always thankful to God. For he that believes every thing happens to him for the _best_, cannot complain for the want of something that is _better_. If therefore you live in murmurings and complaints, it is not because you are a weak, infirm creature, but it is because you want the first principle of religion, a right belief in God. For as thankfulness is an express acknowledgement of the goodness of God towards you; so repinings and complaints are as plain accusations of God’s want of goodness towards you. *On the other hand, would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who _prays_ most, or _fasts_ most; it is not he who gives most _alms_, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice; but it is he who is _always thankful_ to God, who _wills_ every thing that God _willeth_, who receives every thing as an instance of God’s goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for it. All prayer and devotion, fastings and repentance, meditation and retirement, all sacraments and ordinances, are but so many means to render the soul thus conformable to the will of God, and to fill it with thankfulness and praise for every thing that comes from God. This is the perfection of all virtues; and all virtues that do not tend to it, or proceed from it, are but so many false ornaments of a soul not converted unto God. 23. If any one would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness, he must tell you to _thank and praise God for every thing that happens to you_. For whatever seeming calamity happens, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself, than by this _thankful spirit_; for it _heals_ with a word speaking, and turns all that it touches into happiness. If therefore you would be so true to your interest, as to propose this _thankfulness_ as the end of all your religion; if you would but settle it in your mind, that this was the state that you was to aim at by all your devotions, you would then have something plain and visible to walk by, and might judge of your improvement in piety. For so far as you renounce all motions of your own will, and seek for no other happiness, but in the thankful reception of every thing that happens to you, so far you have advanced in piety.