A practical exposition of the Lord's-Prayer

1. Partly by the work of your own Thoughts. The End is first in Intention, tho last in Execution. When you are praying for a public Mercy against an Enemy, what runs in your Thoughts? Revenge, Safety, and your own personal Happiness, or God's Glory? What wilt thou do, O Lord, unto thy great Name? Josh. 7. 9. Are you pleasing your selves, with Suppositions of your Escape and Deliverance, and reeking your Wrath upon your Adversaries? So in Prayer for Strength and Quickening, what is it that runs in your Mind? Are you entertaining your Spirit with Dreams of Applause, and feeding your Minds with the sweetness of popular Acclamation?

1. Partly by the work of your own Thoughts. The End is first in Intention, tho last in Execution. When you are praying for a publick Mercy against an Enemy, what runs in your Thoughts? Revenge, Safety, and your own personal Happiness, or God's Glory? What wilt thou do, O Lord, unto thy great Name? Josh. 7. 9. Are you pleasing your selves, with Suppositions of your Escape and Deliverance, and reeking your Wrath upon your Adversaries? So in Prayer for Strength and Quickning, what is it that runs in your Mind? Are you entertaining your Spirit with Dreams of Applause, and feeding your Minds with the sweetness of popular Acclamation?

2. By the manner of praying, absolutely for God's Glory, but for all other things with a sweet Submission to God's Will. Joh. 12. 27. Father, save ⟨p. 146⟩me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy Name. Then came there a Voice from Heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. Christ is absolute in the Request, and he receives an Answer. Is this enough? Do you mainly press God with this, that he might provide for his own glorious Name, that his Name might not lye under Reproach? But now carnal Aims do make Affection impetuous and impatient of check and denial. Rachel must have Children, or dye. When the Heart is set upon earthly Success, Pleasure, or Comfort, then they cannot brook a denial without Murmuring. The Children of God only accept of God's Glory, and in all other things they leave themselves to God's disposal, and therefore this is the main thing.