Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE NAME OF GOD HALLOWED. " Jjallofort ie tjs flumt." This formula of prayer bears the same relation to the subject- matter of prayer, as the ten precepts of the Decalogue do to the whole subject of obedience. As the latter, under some one or other of its precepts, comprehends whatever is man's duty in any situation, so the former, under some one or other of its petitions, contains every request that a man need offer to the throne of grace. " Hallowed be thy name" is the first of these comprehensive petitions." The order in which the desires of a devout mind are here directed to be expressed, corresponds with the object of the Deity in creation, providence, and redemption. There is no truth more clearly revealed, or more consonant to reason, than that God should have the glory. Wherever we look around his works, they are marked with excellence; not with the excellence of the creature, but of the Creator, who is " God over all, blessed for evermore." When you compare all created excellence with his, it is as nothing. It is great to us, but we are small. Put all the excellence and all the enjoyment which appear in the manifestations of his goodness in the balance with himself, and they are as the dust of the balance. That which is finite can bear no assignable proportion to that which is infinite. So that whether we stand on the basis of Scripture, or sober reason, no end should be so steadily pursued as the glory of God. Such would be the religion of nature, had not man Mien by his iniquity. Such is the religion of the Bible, and of man fallen, man redeemed, man glorified. There is but one object that is enthroned in the heart of piety, that is, the infinitely blessed and adorable God. Everything else occupies a place second and subordinate to his hono...