A practical exposition of the Lord's-Prayer

Use. 3. For Trial. Do we prefer the Glory of God in the first place? Take these Marks.

Vse. 3. For Trial. Do we prefer the Glory of God in the first place? Take these Marks.

1. Then we would be content with our own loss, provided the Name of God may gain any respect in the World; and so he may be magnified, no matter what becomes of us, and our Interest and Concernment. Phil. 1. 20. The Apostle expresseth there a kind of Indifferency; So Christ shall be magnified in my Body, whether it be by Life or by Death. O then it is a sign you make it your purpose, drift, and care, when you are contented to do or be any thing that God will have you to be or do. This holds good, not only in temporal Concernments, when you are content to want necessary Food, &c. But it holds also in Spiritual Concernments: As to sense of Pardon; tho God should suspend the Consolations of his Spirit, yet if it be for the Glory of his Grace, I am to be content: Nay, in some Cases God's Glory is more to be cared for than our own Salvation, if they two could come in competition; but that case never falls out with the Creature; our Salvation is conjoined with the Glory of God. But yet in supposition, if it should, as Paul and Moses puts the Supposition, Exod. 32. 32. Blot me, I pray thee out of the Book which thou hast written: So God might be honoured in saving that People. So Rom. 9. 3. For I could wish that my self wer• accursed from Christ, ⟨p. 144⟩for my Brethren, my Kinsmen according to the Flesh. It was not a rash Speech, a thing spoken out of an unadvised Passion; see but with what a serious Preface it is ushered in, vers. 1. God is my Witness I lye not, my Conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost: He calls God to witness, this was the real disposition of his Heart, and he speaks advisedly, and with good deliberation.