be partakers in their sin and guilt. For theirs, (and so charity requires it,) that they may be ashamed, which may be the means of their reduction and salvation: and (which is most considerable) for the honour of the Christian religion, that it may be vindicated, and rescued from reproach, as much as in us lies. It ought to be very grievous to us, when the reproach of our religion cannot be rolled away without being rolled upon this or that man; if, especially, otherwise valuable. But what reputation ought to be of that value with us, as his that bought us with his blood? The great God is our example, who refuses the fellowship of apostate persons, yea and churches: departs, and withdraws his affronted glory. It is pure, and declines all taint. When high indignities are offered, it takes just offence, and with a majestic shyness retires. None have been so openly owned by the Lord of glory, as that he will countenance them in wickedness. Though Coniah (he tells us, expressing a contempt by curtailing his name) were the signet on his right hand, yet would he pluck him thence. Yea, and our Saviour directs, If our right-hand itself prove offensive, we must cast it from us, Matt. v. 30. And to the same purpose, (chap. xviii.) in the next words after he had said, Wo to the world because of offences: it must be that offences will come, but wo to him by whom the offence cometh. Wherefore if thy hand offend, &c. ver. 7, 8. It must be done as to a hand, a limb of our body, with great tenderness, sympathy, and sense of smart and pain; but it must be done. Dilectionem audio, non communicationem; I hear of love, not communion, saith an ancient upon this occasion. 6. We must take heed of despondency, by reason of the sins of others, or of being discouraged in the way of godliness; much more of being diverted from it. Indeed the greatest temptation which this case gives hereunto, is (to this purpose) very inconsiderable and contemptible, i. e. that by reason of the a lascivious ways of some, (as that word signifies, and is fittest to be read; referred to the impurities of the Gnostics, as they came to be called,) the way of truth (i. e. Christianity itself) is evil spoken of. But this ought to be heard (in respect of the scoffers themselves with great pity, but) in respect of their design to put serious Christians out of their way, with disdain; and with as little regard, or commotion of mind, as would be occasioned (so one well expresses it) to a traveller, intent upon his journey, by the mowes and grimaces of monkeys or baboons. Shall I be disquieted, grow weary, and forsake my way, because an unwary person stumbles, and falls in it, and one ten times worse, and more a fool than he, laughs at him for it? We must in such cases mourn indeed for both, but not faint. And if we mourn, upon a true account, we shall easily apprehend it, in its cause, very separable from fainting and despondency. It is a discouraging thing for any party to be stigmatized, and have an ill mark put upon them, from the defection of this or that person among them, that was, perhaps, what he seemed not, or was little thought to be. But if we be more concerned for the honour of the Christian name, than of any one party in the world, our mourning will not be, principally, upon so private an account. All wise and good men, that understand the matter, will heartily concur with us, and count themselves obliged to do so. None that are such, or any man that hath the least pretence to reason, justice, or common sense, will ever allow themselves to turn the faults of this or that particular person (that are discountenanced as soon as they are known) to the reproach of a party. For others, that are aptest to do so, men of debauched minds and manners; with whom, not being of this or that party, but religion itself, is a reproach. I would advise all serious and sober-minded Christians, (of whatsoever way or persuasion,) if they be twitted with the wickedness of any that seemed to be such and were not, to tell the revilers, " They are more akin to you than to us, and were more of your party (howsoever they disguised themselves) than of any other we know of." And if yet, after all this, any will give themselves the liberty to rejoice at the sins of other men, and make them he matter of their sport and divertisement, or take any the least pleasure in observing them, I have but these two things, in the general, to say to them;-You have no e Tertullian. reason to rejoice. You have great reason for the contrary. You have first, no reason to rejoice: for produce your cause, let us hear your strong reasons. 1. Is it that such are like you, and as bad men as yourselves? But, 1. What if they be not like you? Every one, perhaps, is not, at whose sins (real or supposed) you at a venture take liberty to rejoice; what if your guilt be real, theirs but imagined? Sometimes through your too much haste, it may prove so; and then your jest is spoiled, and you are found to laugh only at your own shadow. At least you cannot, many times, so certainly know another's guilt as you may your own; and so run the hazard (which a wise man would not) of making yourselves the ridicule. And supposing your guess, in any part, hit right; what if those others sin by surprise, you by design? they in an act, you in a course? they in one kind of lewdness, you in every kind? they sin and are penitent, you sin and are obdurate? they return, you persevere ? they are ashamed, you glory? These are great differences (if they are really to be found) in any such case. But, 2. If they be not found, and those others be like you throughout, every whit as bad as yourselves, this is sure no great matter of glorying, that I am not the very worst thing in all the world! the vilest creature that ever God made! Should it be a solace to me also that there are devils, who may perhaps be somewhat worse than they or I? Nor though they fall in never so entirely with you in all points of wickedness, will that much mend your matter? Can their wit add to yours, prove there will be no judgment-day? or that there is no God? or, if that performance fail, can their power and yours defend you against the Almighty? Though hand join in hand, the wicked will not go unpunished. Or again, 2. Suppose you are not of the debauched crew; is this your reason why you at least think you may indulge yourself some inward pleasure, that wickedness (you observe) breaks out among them who are of a distinct party from you, which you count may signify somewhat to the better reputation of your own? But are you then of a party of which you are sure there are no ill men? There are too many faults among all parties; but God knows it is fitter for us all to mend, than to recriminate. Yea, but the party we are of, professes not so much strictness. No? What party should you be of, that professes less strictness? What more lax rule of morals have you than other Christians? Do you not profess subjection to the known rules of the Bible, concerning Christian and civil conversation? You do not sure profess rebellion and hostility against the Lord that bought you! Doth not your baptismal covenant (which you are supposed to avow) bind you to as much strictness as any other Christian? and can there be any other more sacred bond? But if in other things, than matters of civil conversation, such delinquent persons were of a stricter profession, (suppose it be in matters of religion and worship,) doth that delinquency prove, that in those other things, you are in the right and they are in the wrong? Doth the wickedness of any person, against the rules of the common, as well as his own stricter profession, prove the profession he is of to be false? Then, wherein the profession of protestants is stricter than of other Christians, the notorious sins of wicked protestants, will conclude against the whole profession. And the wickedness of a Christian, because Christianity is a stricter profession than paganism, will prove the Christian religion to be false. Who doubts but there may be found, of the Roman communion, better men than some protestants, and of pagans, better men than some Christians? But then, they are better, only in respect of some things, wherein all Christians, or all men, do agree in their sentiments, not in respect of the things wherein they differ. And the others are worse, in things that have no connexion with the matter of difference. Enough is to be found to this purpose, in some of the ancients, writing on the behalf of Christians, which we need not, in so plain a case. Nor can it be thought, that men of any understanding and sobriety, will make this any argument, one way or other: or think them at all justifiable, that glory in other men's daveλyetais, 2 Pet. ii. 2. wickedness, upon this or any other account. For such therefore, as are of so ill a mind, and think being of a different party gives them licence, they ought to know, they make themselves of the same party; and that upon a worse account, than any difference in the rituals of religion can amount to. Upon the whole, your reason then (allege what you will) is no reason, and argues nothing but shortness of discourse and want of reason; or that you would fain say something to excuse an ill practice, when you have nothing to say. But I must add, 2. That you have much reason to the contrary, both upon the common account, and your own. thagoras, where, when any that had obliged themselves to the observation of his virtuous precepts, did afterwards lapse into a vicious course, a funeral and solemn mourning was held for them, as if they were dead. e 2. On your own. For when our Saviour saith, Wo to that man by whom offence cometh, doth he not also say, Wo to the world because of offences? And who would not fear and lament his share in that wo? Are you proof against all hurt by another's sin? What if it encourage you to sin too? What if it harden you in it? How many do some men's sins dispose to atheism! and to think there is nothing in religion! And if you felt in yourselves an inclination to rejoice in them, that itself argues the infection hath caught upon you; seized your spirits, and corrupted your vitals: so that you have cause to lament even your having rejoiced; to be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; to turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to heaviness, James iv. One would think them indeed but half men, and scarce any Christians, that can allow themselves so inhuman and unhallowed a pleasure, as rejoicing in another's sin! "Tis very unworthy of a man to take pleasure in seeing his fellow-man turning beast. There is little in it of the ingenuity that belongs to human nature, to delight in the harms of others; much less of the prudence, to make sport of a common mischief. And would a Christian rejoice in the disadvantages of his own cause? and in the dishonour and reproach of the very name which he himself bears? To conclude, One would think no more should be need 1. Upon the common account. That the Christian world should, while it is so barren of serious Christians, be so fertile, and productive of such monsters! made up of the sacred Christian profession, conjoined with (even worse than) paganish lives! And the more of sanctity any pretend to, the more deplorable is the case, when the wickedness breaks forth, that was concealed before, under the vizor of that pretence. Is this no matter of lamentation to you? or will you here, again, say, your unrelatedness to their party, makes you unconcerned? If it do not justify your rejoicing, it will sure (you think) excuse your not mourning. Will it so indeed? Who made you of a distinct party? Are you not a Christian? or are you not a protestant? And what do you account that, but reformed, primitive Christianity? And so, the more it is reformed, the more perfectly it is itself. Who put it into your power to make distinguishing additions to the Christian religion, by which to sever yourselves from the body of other Chris-ful to repress in any this ill inclination, than to consider,tians in the world, so as not to be concerned in the affairs of the body? If this or that member say, "I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?" Is it not the Christian name that is dishonoured by the scandalous lives of them that bear that name? Whose laws are they that are broken, the laws of this or that party? or are they not the laws of Christ? Will you say you are unrelated to him too? or have no concern with him? Can any party be united within itself by so sacred ties, as all true Christians are with the whole body of Christ? I know no way you have to be unconcerned in such cases, as the matter of your humiliation, (when they occur within your notice) but by renouncing your Christianity. Nor, indeed, would that serve the turn. For what will you do with your hu- | manity? Are you not still a man, if you would be no longer a Christian? And even that, methinks, should oblige us to bewail the depravedness and dishonour of the nature and order of human creatures! that they who were made for the society of angels, yea, and of the blessed God himself, should be found delighting and wallowing in worse impurities than those of the dog or swine. what sin is, wherein they rejoice,-and what charity is, which is violated by their doing so. What, to rejoice in sin! that despites the Creator, and hath wrought such tragedies in the creation! that turned angels out of heaven! man out of paradise! that hath made the blessed God so much a stranger to our world, broken off the intercourse, in so great part, between heaven and earth; obstructed the pleasant commerce, which had, otherwise, probably been between angels and men! so vilely debased the nature of man, and provoked the displeasure of his Maker against him! that once overwhelmed the world in a deluge of water, and will again ruin it by as destructive fire! To rejoice in so hateful a thing, is to do that mad part, to cast about firebrands, arrows, and death, and say, Am not I in sport?" And to do that which so highly offends against charity! so divine a thing! the offspring of God! the birth of heaven, as it is here below, among us mortals; the beauty and glory of it, as it is there above, in its natural seat; the eternal bond of living union, among the blessed spirits that inhabit there, and which would make our world, did it universally obtain in it, another The more strictness in morals they have (falsely) pre-heaven. Consider from whom, and from what region, that tended to, the greater is your obligation to lament their must proceed, which is so contrary to God and heaven. violating those sacred rules, which you also profess to be If any will yet, in despite of Divine love itself, laugh on, subject to,) and not the less. Do I need to tell you, that at so foul and frightful a thing as sin is, 'tis too likely to even among pagans, where a profession of greater strict- prove the Sardonian laughter; i. e. (as some explain that ness had once been entered into, an apostacy to gross im- proverb) of them that die laughing; conclude their lives moralities hath been the matter of very solemn lamenta- and their laughter both together; and only cease to laugh tion. As in the school (or church should I call it ?) of Py- and to live in the same last breath. e Jambl. de vit. Pyth, THE RIGHT USE OF THAT ARGUMENT IN PRAYER, FROM THE NAME OF GOD; ON BEHALF OF A PEOPLE THAT PROFESS IT. PREFACE. No sort of men have ever pretended to religion, who have not allowed unto prayer a very eminent place in it. And so much a deeper and more potent principle is religion in the nature of man than reason, (though both are miserably perverted and enfeebled,) that the former doth secretly prompt men (especially in great distresses) to pray, and expect relief by prayer, when the way wherein it is efficacious cannot so well be explicated or apprehended by the other. And as prayer hath ever been reckoned a very principal part of religion; so hath intercession for others been wont to be accounted a very fit and proper part of prayer. In the general, prayer is most evidently a duty of natural religion, a dictate of nature, which every man's own mind suggests to him, or may be appealed to about it: (should not a people seek unto their God?) Whence that personated, eloquent patron of the Christian cause, urging for the conviction of his heathen adversary, the common practice of people in their extremities, to lift up (even untaught) their hands and eyes to heaven, fitly says of it,* Vulgi iste naturalis est sermo, That they do herein, as it were, but speak the language of Nature. Now hereupon, the impression of that primitive law of nature, (not quite worn out from the mind of man, even in this his very degenerate state,) to love our neighbours as ourselves, doth as a natural instinct, secretly prompt us to pray for others, whom we cannot otherwise help, (especially such to whom we have more peculiar obligations, who are in a more especial sense our neighbours,) as (at least in our last necessities) we do for ourselves. In which recourse to God, whether for ourselves or others, we are led by a sense of our own impotency and dependent state from a deeply inward apprehension of a Deity, that is, (as Epicurus himself seems constrained to acknowledge concerning the idea of God,) even proleptical, or such as prevents reason. So that we do not, being urged by the pinching necessity of the case, stay to deliberate and debate the matter with ourselves how this course should bring relief, but do even take it for granted, that it may; by an apprehension that is earlier in us, than any former reasoning about it, and being prior to it, is also not suppressed by it, but prevails against it, if there be any thing in reason objected, which we cannot so clearly answer. Yet when we do bring the matter to a rational discussion, we find that in our conception of God we have the apprehension of so perfect and excellent a nature, that we cannot suppose he should be moved by any thing foreign to himself, or that we can inform him of any thing he knew not before, or incline him to any thing to which his own nature inclines him not. And therefore that though the wise and apt course of his government over intelligent creatures requires that they should be apprehensive of their own concernments, (whether personal or that belong to them, as they are in communities) and pay a solemn homage to his sovereign power and goodness, by supplicating him about them, yet that if he hear their prayers, it must not be for their sakes, but his own. Therefore also it cannot, upon strictest reasoning, but seem most dutiful to him and hopeful for ourselves, that our prayers should be conceived after such a tenor, as may be most agreeable unto that apprehension. The Holy Scriptures and the Divine Spirit do both aim at the recovery of apostate man, and the repairing the decays of his degenerate nature, and do therefore (besides what was necessary to be added) renew the dictates of the law of nature, the one more expressly representing them, the other impressing them afresh, and re-implanting them, in the hearts of all that are born of God. Therefore, that external revelation of the mind and will of God doth direct, and his blessed Spirit (which is pleased to be in all his children the Spirit of grace and supplication) doth inwardly prompt them, not only to pray, (in reference to their single and common concernments,) but to form their prayers after this tenor; which is to be seen in their so frequent use of this argument in prayer, from the name of God. Whereupon, in a time when we are so much concerned to be very instant in prayer, not only each of us for himself, but for the body of a people, upon whom that holy name is called; I reckoned it seasonable to show briefly the import and right use of this argument; and to that purpose have taken for the ground, the following text of Scripture. * Octav. apud Min. F. PRAYER FROM THE NAME OF GOD. JER. XIV. 21. DO NOT ABHOR US FOR THY NAME'S SAKE. WHERE we have-a petition, and-the argument enforcing it. I. A very serious petition, or a deprecation of the most fearful evil imaginable. Do not abhor us. The word doth not merely signify abhorrence, but disdain: a displeasure prevailing to that degree, and so fixed, as to infer rejection, even from a just sense of honour. So some of the bversions read, reject us not, or cast us not forth, as we would do what (or whom) we despise and scorn to own; as if it were feared the holy God might count it ignominious, and a reproach to him, to be further related to such a people, and might even be ashamed to be called their God. And consequently that the following argument is used not without some suspense of mind and doubt lest it should be turned against them, whereof more hereafter. Here it is implied, 1. To be no impossible thing that God should reject with abhorrence a people once his own, or that have been in peculiar, visible relation to him. Prayer is conversant about matters of divine liberty, i. e. that are not known to us to be already determined this way or that; but that may be, or may not be, as he pleases and sees fit; consistently with the settled course and order of things, not about things that he had before made ordinarily necessary, nor about things that are simply or in ordinary course impossible. In the former case prayer would be needless, in the latter to no purpose. We do not pray that the sun may rise tomorrow at the usual hour, or that the sea may ebb and flow, nor that they may be prevented doing so. But we must distinguish such necessity and impossibility from a mere certainty that things shall either be, or not be. We are to pray in the present case, with a deep apprehension that this is perfectly a matter of liberty with the great God, and that as he took such a people to be his, of mere good pleasure, so it depends wholly upon his mere pleasure, that he continues the relation, when he might abandon and cast them off. It is further implied, a prayer were itself reflecting, and an affront, if it should proceed upon a supposition, or but intimate, that he should ever be inclined to do such a thing, without an excepted cause. Such as that his rejecting them upon it might consist with his being faithful to his word: when he values himself so much upon his faithfulness, and seems even to lay his very Godhead upon it: as those strangely emphatical words import, (Deut. vii. 9.) Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him, and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; implying that he would even yield himself not to be God, if he did not in all points vindicate and demonstrate his faithfulness. Nor indeed do we properly crave for any thing, but we therein disclaim a legal right to it, and acknowledge it to be rightfully in his power, to whom we apply ourselves, to grant or deny; we make demands from justice, and are supplicants for mercy. And with this sense the spirits of holy men have abounded, when they have taken upon them to intercede in the like case, as we see Dan. ix. 7. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day, &c. And to the same purpose, Ezra ix. Neh. ix. at large, and in many other places: q. d. "Our only resort, O Lord, is to thy mercy: thou mightest most justly abhor and abandon us, and say to us, Loammi, ye are none of my people; but in the multitude of thy tender compassions and mercies, do it not" It is again further to be collected, 3. That this is a thing which holy and good men do most vehemently dread and deprecate, viz. that God should thus abhor and reject a people so related to him. 'Tis that which the very genius and spirit of holiness in the sincere, regret beyond all things for themselves. They have taken the Lord to be their God, for ever and ever; their hearts have been attempered to the tenor and constitution of an everlasting covenant, which they entered with no design or thought of ever parting; but that it should be the ground 2. That the more serious and apprehensive among such of an eternal relation. And the law of love written in a people, do understand it (at sometimes more especially) their hearts, prompts them to desire the same thing for a thing very highly deserved, that God should abhor and others too; especially such to whom they have more espe reject them. The deprecation is a tacit acknowledgment,cial, endearing obligations; and (if it were possible) that that the deprecated severity was reasonably to be feared, not only from sovereign power, but offended justice. This is indeed expressed in the next foregoing words. We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee, do not abhor us, &c. So that this ought to be the sense of the supplicants in the present case, that they are herein perfectly at mercy, that if they be heard, 'tis undeserved compassion, if they be rejected, 'tis from most deserved displeasure. And if it were not expressed, yet the supplication must be understood to imply it. For when the great God hath vouchsafed to limit his sovereign power and antecedent liberty by his promise and covenant, such a SN Sprevit contempsit. b Vulg. Lat. and Chald. Pur. the whole body of a people to whom they are themselves united, might all be united to God upon the same terms, even by the same vital and everlasting union; and therefore also, that same divine and soul-enlarging love, being a living principle in them, makes them have a most afflicting sense of any discerned tendencies to a rupture and separation that might prevent, and cut off the hope of his drawing still more and more of into them that inward living union, and intercourse with himself. These things it may suffice briefly to have noted from the petition in the text. That which I principally designed, is what we have next coming under our view, viz. II. The argument brought to enforce it; "for thy e Deut. vii. 7. chap. x. 15. name's sake." About which, what I shall observe, shall | as it's said, having no greater to swear by, he sware by be with special reference to the case which the prophet refers unto, in his present use of it; viz. that in praying for a people professing the name of God, that he would not reject and cast them off, the fit and proper argument to be insisted on is that from his own name, (see ver. 1, 9.) And here it will be requisite,-1. To have some very brief consideration of this argument in the general; though -2. We principally intend to treat of it as it respects this present case. 1. In the general, we are to consider both what the name of God in itself imports, and what is signified by using it as an argument in prayer. And, himself, Heb. vi. So having no greater to act for, it is most just, and most worthy of him, and but a Godlike owning of himself, to act only to and for himself. And then whereas, having this constant, just, and holy will, he doth all things according to counsel in pursuance of it, it must signify that he ever takes the aptest and most proper methods for the advancing of his own glory; the choosing the fittest and most suitable means to a fore-resolved end, being the prope. business and design of consultation. Though that be spoken of God but allusively, and after the manner of men, who by slow degrees, and by much deliberation, arrive to the very imperfect knowledge of things, (1.) As to what is imported by the name of God, in itself which at one view he perfectly beholds from all eternity. considered. We shall not trouble this discourse with the But also how the great God designs his own glory in all fancies of the Rabbins; of whom yet one a very noted, that he doth, we must take great care be duly and decently soberly and plainly tells us the name of God is wont to understood. It were low and mean to think that the signify his essence and truth, though the instance he gives, design of his mighty works and accurate dispensations is shows he means it of the Nomen Tetragrammaton, (the only that he may fill men's minds with wonder; be highly name Jehovah,) which indeed more eminently doth so. thought of, admired, and celebrated in the world, which To our purpose it is obvious, and sufficient to note, that by even a wise and virtuous man would think an end much his name, more generally, is signified both the peculiar beneath him. But the glory of his name must be underexcellencies of his nature and being, which are himself, as stood to be primarily an objective glory, that shines with the use of a man's name is to notify the man. So when a constant and equal lustre in all his dispensations, whehe is pleased himself to proclaim his own name, thus it ther men observe, or observe it not. And shines primarily runs; The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, to himself, so as that he hath the perpetual self-satisfaction long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keep- of doing as truly becomes him, and what is in itself reputing mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgres-able, worthy of him, and apt to approve itself to a right sion, and sin, &c. Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. And again, that mind, as his own ever is, let men think of his ways as they by his name is meant his glory, and most especially the please. Thus it was in his creating the world, when he honour and reputation of his government. For so, too, a had not yet made man, nor had him to look on, as a witman's name signifies his fame and repute in the world ness and admirer of his other glorious works; it was (as they whom our translation calls men of renown, Gen. enough to him to be self-pleased that he saw them to be vi. 4. the Hebrew text says only, but plainly, meaning the good, and that they had his own most just and complasame thing, they were men of name.) And if he be a cential approbation. Nor is he less pleased in himself, in public person, a prince, and ruler over others, it must more his governing the world, than he was in the making of it. peculiarly signify his reputation and fame as such. Thus As also good men, by how much the more they excel in Moses designing to celebrate the unexceptionable equity goodness, have herein the greatest resemblance and imitaand awful majesty of the Divine government, begins thus; tion of God, doing good for goodness sake, and pleasing Because I will publish the name of the Lord; ascribe ye themselves with the lustre and beauty of their own actions, greatness unto our God. He is the rock, his work is per- shining to their own mind and conscience, and their disfect; for all his ways are judgment, Deut. xxxii. 3, 4. cerned conformity to the steady rules of righteousness; without being concerned whether perverse and incompetent judges approve or disapprove them. Though also, because the blessed God delights in propagating blessedness, and imparting it to his intelligent creatures, he is pleased in recommending himself, so far, to their estimation and love, as is necessary to their own felicity, wherein also he doth as it were but enjoy his own goodness, as his felicity can only be in himself, and is pleased with the self-satisfying beauty, pleasantness, and glory of it. (2.) As an argument used in prayer, it may accordingly either signify the principle from which it is hoped and requested he should do what we desire, or the end for which. For as his name signifies his nature, which himself hath taught us primarily to conceive under the notion of goodness, mercy, love, in that forementioned Exod. xxxiv. 7. and 1 John iv. 16. so when we pray he would do this or that for his name's sake, the meaning may be, that we request he would do it for his mercy's sake, even in compliance with himself, and as it were to gratify his own nature, which, as nothing is more Godlike, is wont to be delighted in acts of goodness towards all, of compassion and mercy to the miserable, and of special favour to them that more peculiarly belong to him. And again, as his name signifies his glory, and principally the honour and reputation of his government; so when we pray he would do this for his name's sake, we further must be understood to mean, we desire he would do it to prevent his own dishonour, to augment his glory, and further to recommend himself to the world. And I conceive it must be meant in both these senses taken together, viz. that we pray he would do this, or that, both from himself, and for himself; from his goodness, or indeed the general perfection of his nature, and for his glory, and that he may represent himself such as he truly is. But some circumstances in the coherent verses, afterwards to be particularly noted, seem to intimate that the honour and dignity of his government are here more directly meant. His glory is indeed the end which he cannot but design in all that he does. For inasmuch as he is said to do all things according to the counsel of his will, Eph. i. his will must be principally of the end, which is ever the highest and most excellent good; and that can be no other than himself, and that only as he is capable of greatening himself by his own action; which cannot be in respect of intrinsic excellency, that being already perfect and capable of no addition, therefore it must be in point of glory and reputation only. And so d Maimon. Mor. Nevoch. Yet further also we are to consider, that though it be most suitable to the majesty, and the independent, selfsufficient fulness of God, to take pleasure only in the real goodness, excellency, decency, and glory of whatever he is, and doth; yet it belongs to, and becomes the dutiful affection of his people towards him, to be deeply concerned how he is thought and spoken of in the world. Dishonourable reflections upon him are therefore as a sword in their bones. What cannot hurt him ought to wound them. Which dutiful love also cannot but make them highly covet that his name might be known, and renowned all the world over, knowing that the reproach that is no real damage, is a wrong to him; and that universal praise is his right, though it cannnot be an advantage. And this love to his name they cannot more fitly express, than in praying to him. And here we are further to note that this argument, thus generally considered, hath, when we use it in prayer, a twofold aspect, i. e. we are to consider it as an argument both to God, and to ourselves. To God, as whereby we expect to prevail with him to hear our prayers. To ourselves, as whereby we are to be urged and excited to pray with the more importunity and confidence, so as not to faint in prayer. Thus much as to what is more general. We are now, 2. To consider it in reference to this present case. Where we are to show,-(1.) How the name of God may be understood to be concerned, in his abhorring, so as to forsake a people more peculiarly related to him,--(2.) The |