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 ftorms 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 regardeft him? Upon cooler recollection, gratitude induces us to think of making fome return, and to cry out, What reward fhall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits he hath done unto me? 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 Wisdom Folly in the fight of God. Prudently then, and piously, content thyself with acknowledging his goodness, and setting his mercies ever before thine eyes, with faying, in the lively and grateful eloquence of the Pfalmift, Praife 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

deration 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 plantoms 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 moft 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 thefe ends are happily anfwered. But the miffortune is, that these things, which in the defign

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defign of the Deity, and in the nature of things, are strictly and infeparably connected and united, become divided by the folly and corruption of man, and are confidered as incompatible, as two distinct and oppofite pursuits, of which both are not attainable; and it is plain to be seen by the practice of the world, how much weight the glory of God will have with us, and how far it will influence our actions, when once it comes to be confidered as inconfiftent with, and oppofite to, what we imagine to be our happiness.

The greater part of mankind calling inclination reason, and corruption happiness, direct their course to some distant goal, where imaginary happiness takes up her abode; whilft the wifer and the happier few purfue the road which leads to the glory of God, and to the only true, folid,

and

and lafting happiness of man. Our wife Creator, well acquainted with the nature of the Creature which he had made, contrived to implant in us a principle more quick and powerful to advance his glory than gratitude itself, when he made the fame means which conduced to his glory, neceffary to our own happinefs; and that man who leads a religious and Chriftian life, doth at the fame' time give glory to God, which is the one end of his creation, and procure happiness to himself, which is the other.

Thus much obferved in general, I proceed more particularly, to confider the petition before us, and fhall fhew,

First, What we are to understand by

God's Name.

And,

Secondly,