other Christians, on pretence of their various circumstances and imperfections, and from separating in heart from them on any account, for which God will not reject them, as that they must never put up a prayer or praise, but as in concord with all the Christians on earth, desiring a part in the prayers of all, and offering up hearty prayers for all: the imperfections of all men's prayers we must disown, and most of our own; but not for that disown their prayers, nor our own. They that hate, or persecute, or separate from God's children, for not praying in their mode, or by their book, or in the words that they write down. for them, or for not worshipping God with their forms, ceremonies, or rites, or that silence Christ's ministers, and scatter the flocks, and confound kingdoms, that they may be lords of God's heritage, and have all men sing in their commanded tune, or worship God in their unnecessary, commanded mode, do condemn themselves when they say "our Father." And to repeat the Lord's prayer many times in their liturgy, while they are tormenting his children in their prisons and inquisitions, is to worship God by repeating their own condemnation.

Q. 13. It seems this particle "our," and "us," is of great importance.

A. The Lord's prayer is the summary and rule of man's love and just desires; it directeth him what to will, ask, and seek. And therefore must needs contain that duty of love which is the heart of the new creature, and the fulfilling of the law: the will is the man; the love is the will. What man wills and loves, that he is in God's account, or that he shall attain. And therefore the love of God, as God, and of the church, as the church, and of saints, as saints, of friends, as friends, and of neighbours, as neighbours, and of men, (though enemies and sinners,) as men, must needs be the very spring of acceptable prayer, as well as the love of ourselves, as ourselves. And to pray without this love, is to offer God a carrion for sacrifice, or a lifeless sort of service. And love to all makes all men's mercies and comforts to be ours, to our great joy, and that we may be thankful for all.

CHAP. XXV.

"Hallowed be thy Name."

Q. 1. WHY is this made the first petition in our prayers? A. Because it containeth the highest notion of our ultimate end; and so must be the very top or chief of our desires.

Q. 2. What is meant by God's Name here?

A. The proper notices or appearances of God to man; and God himself as so notified and appearing to us. So that here we must see that we separate not any of these three: 1. The objective signs, whether words or works, by which God is known to us.

2. The inward conceptions of God received by these signs. 3. God himself so notified and conceived of.

Q. 3. And what is the hallowing of God's Name?

A. To use it holily: that is, in that manner as is proper to God as he is God, infinitely above all the creatures, that is sanctified which is appropriated to God by separation from all

common use.

Q. 4. What doth this hallowing particularly include?

A. First that we know God, what he is. 2. That our souls be accordingly affected towards him. 3. That our lives and actions be accordingly managed. 4. And that the signs which notify God to us be accordingly reverenced, and used to these holy ends.

Q. 5. Tell us now, particularly, what these signs or names of God are, and how each of them is to be hallowed?

A. God's name is either, 1. His sensible or intelligible works objectively considered. 2. Or those words which signify God, or any thing proper to God. 3. And the inward light or conception, or notice of God, in the mind. And all these must be sanctified.

Q. 6. What are God's works which must be so sanctified, as notifying God?

A. All that are within the reach of our knowledge. But especially those which he hath designed most notably for this use, and most legibly, as it were written his name or perfections upon. P

P Exod. ix. 16; Psalm viii. 1.

Q. 7. Which are those?

A. First, the glorious, wonderful frame of heaven and earth. 2. The wonderful work of man's redemption by Jesus Christ. 3. The planting of his nature, image, and kingdom in man, by his Spirit.

4. The marvellous providence exercised for the world, the church, and each of ourselves, notifying the disposal and government of God.

5. The glory of the heavenly society, known by faith, and hoped for.

Q. 8. How must the first, God's creation, be sanctified.

A. When we look on, or think of the incomprehensible glory of the sun, it's wonderful greatness, motion, light, and quickening heat; of the multitude and magnitude of the glorious stars, of the vast heavenly regions, the incomprehensible invisible spirits or powers that actuate and rule them all; when we come downward and think of the air and its inhabitants, and of this earth, a vast body to us, but as one inch or point in the whole creation; of the many nations, animals, plants of wonderful variety, the terrible depths of the ocean, and its numerous inhabitants, &c. All these must be to us but as the glass which showeth somewhat of the face of God, or as the letters of this great book, of which God is the sense; or as the actions of a living body by which the invisible soul is known. And as we study arts for our corporeal use, we must study the whole world, even the works of God, to this purposed use, that we may see, love, reverence, and admire God in all and this is the only true philosophy, astronomy, cosmography, &c.

Q. 9. What is the sin which is contrary to this?

A. Profaneness; that is, using God's name as a common thing: and, in this instance, to study philosophy, astronomy, or any science, or any creature whatsoever, only to know the thing itself, to delight our mind with the creature knowledge, and to be able to talk as knowing men, or the better to serve our worldly ends, and not to know and glorify God, is to profane the works of God. And, alas, then, how common is profaneness in the world!

Q. 10. What is it to sanctify God's Name as in our redemption? A. Redemption is such a wonderful work of God, to make

him known to sinners for their sanctification and salvation, as no tongue of man can fully utter. To think of God, the Eternal Word, first undertaking man's redemption, and then taking the nature of man, dwelling in so mean a tabernacle, fulfilling all righteousness for us, teaching man the knowledge of God, and bringing life and immortality to light, dying for us as a malefactor, to save us from the curse, rising the third day, commissioning his apostles, undertaking to build his church on a rock, which the gates of hell should not prevail against; ascending up to heaven, sending down the wonderful and sanctifying Spirit, interceding for us, and reigning over all; who receiveth faithful souls to himself, and will raise our bodies, and judge the world. Can all this be believed and thought of, without admiring the manifold wisdom, the inconceivable love and mercy, the holiness and justice of God? This must be the daily study of believers.

Q. 11. How is this Name of God profaned?

A. When this wonderful work of man's redemption is not believed, but taken by infidels to be but a deceit or, when it is heard but as a common history, and affecteth not the hearer with admiration, thankfulness, desire, and submission to Christ; when men live as if they had no great obligation to Christ, or no great need of him.

Q. 12. How is God's Name, as our Sanctifier, to be hallowed? A. Therein he cometh near us, even into us, with illuminating, quickening, comforting grace, renewing us to his nature, will, and image, marking us for his own, and maintaining the cause of Christ against his enemies; and therefore must, in this, be specially notified, honoured, obediently observed, and thankfully and joyfully admired.

Q. 13. But how can they honour God's Spirit and grace, who have it not; or they that have so little as not well to discern it?

A. The least prevailing sincere holiness hath a special excellency, turning the soul from the world to God, and may be perceived in holy desires after him, and sincere endeavours to obey him; and the beauty of holiness in others may be perceived by them that have little or none themselves, if they be not grown to malignant enmity. You may see, by the common desire of mankind to be esteemed wise and good, and their impatience of being thought and called foolish, ungodly, or bad men, that even corrupted nature hath a radicated testimony in itself for goodness and against evil.

Q. 14. Who be they that profane this Name of God?

A. Those that see no great need of the Spirit of holiness, or have no desire after it, but think that nature and art may serve the turn without it. Those that think that there is no great difference between man and man, but what their bodily temperature and their education maketh, and that it is but fanatic delusion, or hypocrisy, to pretend to the Spirit. Those that hate or deride the name of spirituality and holiness, and those that resist the Holy Ghost.

Q. 15. How is God known and honoured in his providence? A. By his providence he so governeth all the world, and par ticularly all the affairs of men, as shows us his omnipotence, his omniscience, and his goodness and love, ordering them all to his holy end, even the pleasing of his good-will in their perfection.

Q. 16. How can we see this while the world lieth in madness, unbelief, and wickedness, and the worst are greatest, and contention, and confusion, and bloody wars, do make the earth a kind of hell, and the wise, holy, and just, are despised, hated, and destroyed?

A. 1. Wisdom, and holiness, and justice, are conspicuous and honourable by the odiousness of their contraries, which, though they fight against them, and seem to prevail, do but exercise them to their increase and greater glory and all the faithful are secured and purified, and prepared for felicity, by the love and providence of God.

2. And as the heavens are not all stars, but spangled with stars, nor the stars all suns, nor beasts and vermin men, nor the earth and stones are gold and diamonds, nor is the darkness light, the winter summer, or sickness health, or death life; and yet the wonderful variety and vicissitude contributeth to the perfection of the universe, as the variety of parts to the perfection of the body; so God maketh use even of men's sin and folly, and of all the mad confusions and cruelties of the world, to that perfect order and harmony, which he that accomplisheth them doth well know, though we perceive it not, because we neither see the whole, nor the end, but only the little particles and the beginnings of God's unsearchable works.

3. And this dark and wicked world is but a little spot of God's vast creation, and seemeth to be the lowest next to hell, while the lucid, glorious, heavenly regions are incomprehensibly great, and no doubt possessed by inhabitants suitable to so glorious a

* Mal. ii. 2.