玉米 SERMON IV. MATTHEW Vi. 9th. Hallowed be thy Name. UR Saviour having directed his disciples to whom they were to offer their prayers, and by what name more especially they should approach him, proceeds to direct them likewife for what things they should pray to him, and in what order their petitions should be prefented prefented, beginning with, "Hallowed be thy Name." A petition which, as it naturally arifes out of the words which went before, fo doth it very properly precede and obtain the preference over all that follow after. When we receive any great and material obligations from Man, when we are unexpectedly relieved from any great distress, or delivered from any impending danger, the first motion of the foul is all hurry and confusion, a mixture of pain and pleasure rather to be felt than defcribed. But when thefe firft tranfports are over, when Reason refumes her feat, and Reflection fucceeds, the first enquiry of a grateful foul is this: I have received an obligation, how fhall I return it? If that appears impoffible, all that a generous benefactor will require, all that a grate ful ful foul can do, and more than fhe can fometimes express, is to acknowledge her obligations, and to fay, I thank thee. Thus it is between us and God: when we have thoroughly weighed and examined the great and material benefits conferred on us by God, and strongly conveyed to our minds, by the name of Father, when we view him. at once as creating us out of the duft of the earth, as preferving that being which he gave, and fafely conducting us through all the storms of life, as redeeming us from the claim of Hell, regenerating us by his bleffed Spirit, and adopting us in his bleffed Son, all is joy, all is wonder, expreffing itself in the words of the Pfalmift, Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of man, that thou regardest him? Upon cooler recollection, gratitude induces. us to think of making some return, and to cry out, What reward fhall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits he hath done unto me? What What reward fhalt thou give unto him. indeed! Thy intentions are good, but never to be executed. The mercies of God are as much above any returns of thine, as they are above thy deferts. Thy Wealth is Poverty, thy Power Weakness, and thy Wifdom Folly in the fight of God. Prudently then, and piously, content thyfelf with acknowledging his goodness, and fetting his mercies ever before thine eyes, with faying, in the lively and grateful eloquence of the Pfalmift, Praise the Lord, O my foul, and all that is within me praise his holy name; Praise the Lord, O my foul, and forget not all his benefits; O God, our God, our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. The order in which this petition stands doth very properly point out to us what all of us must know, and yet many of us are very apt, and too willing to forget, that the glory of God ought to be the great and chief pursuit of man. It is apparent, that whatsoever hath a right to our first confideration in our prayers, fhould have the fame preference in our lives and converfations. Man may indeed, and too often doth divert and amufe himself with vain and idle pursuits, with worshipping idols of his own creation, and following phantoms which he himself hath formed, but he can have no folid and rational views, which have not a regard to, and do not ultimately terminate in, the glory of God; that most noble and lively principle, that most worthy and happy end of all his actions. The defign of God in the creation of the world was the glory of the Creator, and the good of the Creature; and then only doth the Creature attain to the utmost perfection of his nature, when both these ends are happily answered. But the misfortune is, that these things, which in the defign of the Deity, and in the nature |