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they meet with in their journey through this vale of sorrow and uncertainty; it being doubtless owing to neglect of prayer to God, and a becoming dependence on his favour and protection, that we see such an increase of wickedness and misfortune among all orders of people. And that we may all become thoroughly sensible of the great benefit and blessing of having such an inestimable legacy left us, as this heavenly Prayer holds out, and that we may never fail to use it according to the gracious purpose of the divine Testator, let us now unite to glorify God's holy name for this great and undeserved privilege of laying our wants before him, in a form so highly qualified by the wisdom of his Holy Spirit, and the tender love of his dear Son, our Lord; in whose blessed name, as we begun this feeble effort of magnifying his goodness to us, so by his grace we will conclude it, in those very words, which, out of compassion to our infirmities, he hath taught and commanded us at all times, when we call upon him, to employ, and say, Our Father, &c.

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LECTURE XXXVII.

THE SECOND ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

FIRST PETITION.

PSALM XCIX. 3.

They shall give thanks unto thy name, which is great, wonderful, and holy.

IN my former Lecture I informed you (my brethren), that the Lord's Prayer consisted of six petitions. It may be useful, for the fuller explanation of the order and design of this holy form of words, to acquaint you, that this division will admit of a still further and necessary distinction; viz. that the three first petitions relate more immediately to the honour and glory of God, and therefore may, perhaps, be more properly styled pious wishes, than positive petitions; whereas the three last do particularly concern our own absolute wants.

The first of these petitions, or expressions of pious desire, with which this divine prayer presents us, is contained in these words: HAL

LOWED BE THY NAME. In the progress of these labours for the instruction and improvement of all who are desirous to be acquainted with the first principles of the religion they profess, I have judged it essentially conducive to that end, that you should have a clear understanding of any terms of difficult interpretation, that may occasionally present themselves; because ignorance of the meaning of one word may sometimes cause such obscurity in the understanding of a whole sentence, as to leave the notion of any particular duty very imperfect, should not the sense of the principal word be rendered perfectly familiar to the hearer and reader. For which reason, before I have proceeded to the explanation of any doctrine, I have generally thought proper to clear the way, by rendering the terms intelligible in which it is conveyed: I shall employ the same method in the case before us.-TO HALLOW any thing, signifies to pay becoming reverence or honour to it, to consider or treat a thing or person as being HOLY: this is the true meaning of the word in the Saxon language, whence it is taken, and as it is always applied in Scripture. Thus, in Levit. xxii. 32, the Lord delivers this command: I will be HALLOWED; that is, I will be treated according to my holiness. Again, I am the Lord who HALLOW you, that is, by whom ye are made holy. In Jer. xvii. 22, it

is applied to the sabbath-day; as it is also in the 20th chapter of Exodus, where the express commandment respecting that day is recorded; HALLOW ye the sabbath-day; HALLOW my sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between me and you. The Lord blessed the sabbath-day, and HAL LOWED it; that is, appointed it to be kept holy. By hallowing God's name, you see, we understand the considering it in the most holy light, and that we are to pay all respect and veneration to it. A petition of this import deservedly requires the first place in a Prayer composed for the use of weak and needy creatures, because it supplies a necessary preparation of the mind, to make such humble applications as their dependent state requires.

In this address we separate the name of God to the holy use of prayer alone; and the more we indulge our meditation on the authority, power, and reverence due to this most holy name, the better we shall be qualified to present consistent and acceptable petitions to the throne of grace, since a previous contemplation of the great and awful Being in whose presence we are now appearing, should give us pause, and will serve to check all hasty and irreverent approach to him in our words or actions.

Our blessed Saviour began his Prayer with this very petition or desire, in order to direct us

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