CHAP. XXIV.

"Our Father which art in Heaven," expounded.

Q. 1. WHO is it that we pray to, whom we call our Father?"

A. God himself.

Q. 2. May we not pray to creatures?

A. Yes, for that which it belongeth to those creatures to give us upon our request, supposing they hear us: but not for that which is God's, and not their own to give; nor yet in a manner unsuitable to the creature's capacity or place. A child may petition his father, and a subject his prince, and all men one another.

Q. 3. May we not pray to the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as well as to the Father?

A. As the word "Father" signifieth God as God, it comprehendeth the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and as it signifieth the first Person in the Trinity, it excludeth not, but implieth, the second and the third.

Q. 4. What doth the word "Father" signify?

A. That as a Father, by generation, is the owner, the ruler, and the loving benefactor to his child, so is God, eminently and transcendently, to us.

Q. 5. To whom is God a Father, and on what fundamental account?

A. He is a Father to all men by creation; to all lapsed mankind, by the price of a sufficient redemption: but only to the regenerate by regeneration and adoption, and that effective redemption which actually delivereth men from guilt, wrath, sin, and hell, and justifieth and sanctifieth them, and makes them heirs of glory.

Q. 6. What is included, then, in our child-like relation to this Father?

A. That we are his own, to be absolutely at his disposal, his subjects, to be absolutely ruled by him, and his beloved to depend on his bounty, and to love him above all, and be happy in his love.

Q. 7. What is meant by the words "which art in heaven?”

A. They signify, I. God's real substantiality: he is existent. II. God's incomprehensible perfection in power, knowledge, and goodness, and so his absolute sufficiency and fitness to hear and help us. 1. The vastness, sublimity, and glory of the heavens tell us, that he who reigneth there over all the world, must needs be omnipotent, and want no power to do his will, and help us in our need.

2. The glory and sublimity tell us, that he that is there above the sun, which shineth upon all the earth, doth behold all creatures, and see all the ways of the sons of men, and therefore knoweth all our sins, wants, and dangers, and heareth all our prayers.

3. Heaven is that most perfect region whence all good floweth down to earth; our life is thence, our light is thence; all our good and foretaste of felicity and joy is thence and therefore the Lord of heaven must needs be the best; the fountain of all good, and the most amiable end of all just desire and love. Yet heaven is above our sight and comprehension; and so much more is God.

III. And the word "art" signifieth God's eternity in heavenly glory: it is not "who wast," or "who wilt be." Eternity indivisible.

Q. 8. Is not God every where? Is he more in heaven than any where else?

A. All places and all things are in God; he is absent from none; nor is his essence divisible or commensurate by place, or limited, or more here than there; but to us God is known by his works and appearances, and therefore said to be most where he worketh most: and so we say, that God dwelleth in him who dwelleth in love: that he walketh in his church; that we are his habitation by the Spirit; that Christ and the Holy Spirit dwell in believers, because they operate extraordinarily in them; and so God is said to be in heaven, because he there manifesteth his glory to the felicity of all the blessed, and hath made heaven that throne of his Majesty, from whence all light, and life, and goodness, all mercy, and all justice, are communicated to, and exercised on, men. And so we that cannot see God himself, must look up to the throne of the Heavenly Glory in our prayers, hopes, and joys: even as a man's soul is undivided in all his body, and yet it worketh not alike in all its parts, but is in the head, that it useth reason, sight, &c., and doth most notably appear to others in the face, and is almost visible in the

eye and therefore when you talk to a man, you look him in the face; and as you talk not to his flesh, but to his sensitive and intellectual soul, so you look to that part where it most apparently showeth its sense and intellection.

Q. 9. Is there no other reason for the naming of heaven here?

A. Yes it teacheth us whither to direct our own desires, and whence to expect all good, and where our own hope and felicity is. It is in heaven that God is to be seen and enjoyed in glory, and in perfect love and joy: though God be on earth, he will not be our felicity here on earth: every prayer, therefore, should be the soul's aspiring and ascending towards heaven, and the believing exercise of a heavenly mind and desire. For a man of true prayer to be unwilling to come to heaven, and to love earth better, is a contradiction.

Q. 10. But do we not pray that on earth he may use us as a Father?

A. Yes that he will give us all mercies on earth, conducing to heavenly felicity.

Q. 11. What else is implied in the words, "our Father?"

A. Our redemption and reconciliation by Christ, and, to the regenerate, our regeneration by the Holy Ghost, and so our adoption; by all which, of the enemies and the heirs of hell, we are made the sons of God, and heirs of heaven. It is by Christ and his Spirit that we are the children of God.

Q. 12. Why say we "our Father," and not "my Father?" A. 1. To signify that all Christians must pray as members of one body, and look for all their good, comfort, and blessedness, in union with the whole, and not as in a separate state. Nor must we come to God with selfish, narrow minds, as thinking only of our own case and good, nor put up any prayer or praise to God but as members of the universal church in one choir, all seen and heard at once by God, though they see not, and hear not one another and therefore that we must abhor the pregnant, comprehensive sin of selfishness; by which wicked men care only for themselves, and are affected with little but their personal concerns, as if they were all the world to themselves, insensible of the world's or the church's state, and how it goeth with all others. 2. And therefore that all Christians must love their brethren and neighbours, as themselves, and must abhor the sin of schism, much more of malignant enmity, envy, and persecution, and must be so far from disowning the prayers of

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.