A practical exposition of the Lord's-Prayer

5. From the Nature of Prayer. The whole Spiritual Life it is a living to God. Gal. 2. 19. I am dead to the Law, that I might live unto God. The whole Tendency and Ordination of all acts of the Spiritual Life, they are to God. Even the Natural Life is over-ruled and directed to this End; there is an Eating and Drinking to God; the Meat and Drink we take, if God be not the last End of it, it is but a Meat-Offering, and a Drink-Offering to our own Appetite, and a Sacrifice to Moloch: Now much more in acts of immediate Worship, there God will be principally regarded, for their respect and tendency is mainly to God. In our whole Life we are God's, dedicated to him. Every Godly Man is set apart for God. A Man that is a Christian, must Be holy in all manner of Conversation, 1 Pet. 1. 15. A Christian must look upon himself, as one that is dedicated to God, when he is at his Meals, in his Trade and Calling; and Grace is to run out in every Act. But much more is this tendency of Grace to bewray it self in our solemn Sequestration of our selves, when we make our nearer approaches to him. Lev. 10. 3. I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the People will I be glorified. What is it to sanctify God? A thing is sanctified ⟨p. 139⟩when it is set apart: And God is sanctified, when we set apart our selves wholly for him, when he hath more than common Affections, and common Respects. And therefore in Prayer, in the first• place we should go to God, for God, and surely in such a Request we are likely to speed.

6. Love to God (if it be unfeigned, and hath any Strength in the Soul) will necessarily put us upon this. Love seeks the good of the Party beloved, as much or more than its own. Those which love, have all things in common between them; and one counts it done to himself what is done to the other: So it is in the Love between us and God. Look, as Christ loves the Saints, and counteth what ever you do to them it is done to him, because done to those whom he loved,