And, because singing of psalms is of all other the most proper ordinance for expressing of joy and thanksgiving, let some pertinent psalm or psalms be sung for that purpose, before or after the reading of some portion of the word suitable to the present business.

Some have asked me over the years why Presbyterians celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday. 

Days of public thanksgiving are found in the Scriptures–magistrates or elders calling on the church to pray and give thanks for certain providences that God had provided. We see it in: 1 Kings 8:62–66; 2 Chronicles 7:8–10; Esther 9:20–22; 2 Chronicles 20:27–28; and Nehemiah 12:27–43. By what we call “good and necessary consequence,” days of thanksgiving occur in the life of the church and are part of our covenanting heritage. 

Historically, while Presbyterians rejected “holy days” (see the Westminster Directory for Public Worship [1647] section called “Touching Days and Places for Publick Worship”), they did allow and promote having special fast days that could be called, as well as special days of thanksgiving. Through these being called in the Scripture, our forefathers saw that not only permissible, but prudent on certain occasions. 

Providence would direct the when and why of these days: for example (for thanksgiving), you might have a particularly good harvest, or a war or battle might end, or you might have new officers in the church, or a new magistrate put in office. It could also be at the end of a long winter or in thanks for rain following a drought… maybe even after surviving a harsh winter after crossing the Atlantic in a rickety tall ship that did not have any citrus! 

Here’s what the Westminster Directory for Public Worship (1647) says about days of thanksgiving and directing what worship and feasting would look like on those occasions: 

“When any such day [of Thanksgiving] is to be kept, let notice be given of it, and of the occasion thereof, some convenient time before, that the people may the better prepare themselves thereunto.

The day being come, and the congregation (after private preparations) being assembled, the minister is to begin with a word of exhortation, to stir up the people to the duty for which they are met, and with a short prayer for God’s assistance and blessing, (as at other conventions for publick worship,) according to the particular occasion of their meeting.”

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