world's government, throughout all the ramifications of apparent chance, and of the perverse designs of the unprincipled and ungodly, so as best to further the everlasting happiness of those who lay hold on the Redemption provided for them ;-insomuch that if we will but hallow his name by believing his promises, and returning in some degree His unutterable love, we may with the most triumphant confidence exclaim, "All things are ours; whether life or death, things present or things to come: all things are ours, and we are Christ's, and Christ is God's1!"

One word permit me in conclusion. The first thought the Lord's Prayer suggests is, the love of God to us"Our Father." The first petition it offers is for grace that we may know and feel and reciprocate that love"Hallowed be thy Name." Without the conviction that God does indeed love us, we cannot pray hopefully; without the predominating wish to love him in return, we cannot pray acceptably. Our first desire, if we really be God's dear children, will be for God himself; and all the changes and chances of this mortal life, all the vicissitudes of health and sickness, wealth and want, all our domestic afflictions and all the more painful trials of which our intercourse with our fellow-men is so lamentably fertile,— all these things are designed to lead us to our highest good; to the only support that can never fail, the only friend who never can betray; and to make us join 1 1 Cor. iii. 21-23.

with the sober fervency of deep conviction in the ejaculation of the Psalmist; "Lord, whom have I in heaven but Thee and there is none on earth I desire like unto Thee 1!"

1 Psal. lxxiii. 25.

NOTE.

Ἐχαρίσατο αὐτῷ ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα. The τὸ in this passage is plainly resumptive, and therefore requires the definite article to be understood before voua: where indeed some MSS. have it expressed; probably from the transcribers feeling that it is necessary to complete the sense. To enable the merely English reader to understand this, the passage as it runs in the best MSS. without the definite article before ovopa, may be thus most literally translated: "Gave him (a) name, the one (i. e.) above every name;" which is plainly equivalent to, "Gave him that name which is above every name."

It is plain that the name thus definitely spoken of in the 9th verse, is referred to again as the name by which Jesus Christ is confessed in the 11th verse, viz. Kúpios; so that thus the word Kúpos in v. 11 is confined to its usage in the Septuagint to express, the word invariably used by the Jews in speaking, instead of the ineffable, the true pronunciation of which last is therefore unknown, as the vowels written with

אֱלֹהִים or אֲדֹנָי it are not its own, but those either of

This is but one of a number of cases in which more accurate knowledge of Greek syntax, than was possessed by the translators of our Authorized Version, detects or brings out more clearly some assertion of the Divinity of our Blessed Lord.

SERMON II.

ST MATTH. vi. 10.

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."

On the last occasion on which I addressed you, I endeavoured to explain the opening words and first petition of the Lord's Prayer. I called your attention to the fact, that though it is evidently addressed to God, the name of God is not once mentioned in that prayer: and I attempted to shew the deep significance of this remarkable suppression of his name, and to unfold the full meaning of that endearing title which is substituted for it: as not merely importing the affection of the Deity towards mankind in general, but describing his true and very relationship with those amongst mankind who are in Christ. And after thus exhibiting the real magnitude of the privilege we are instructed to assert as often as we pray to our Maker in the words of our Redeemer, I proceeded to examine the first petition. And here, considering that in scripture phraseology the name of God denotes God in so far as he is revealed to us, and recollecting that in this very prayer he is specially revealed to us as our Father,

we perceived that the words "Hallowed be Thy Name" do specially and most appropriately beseech God that he would incline our hearts to love and venerate him with affection the same in kind as that we should bestow upon an earthly parent, though infinitely higher in degree: the same in kind, because God stands in the same relationship to the Christian which exists between an earthly parent and his child: infinitely higher in degree, inasmuch as the love we are called on to reciprocate infinitely transcends the possible affection of any earthly parent, whilst it wields all the resources of Divinity for the accomplishment of its beneficent designs.

On the present occasion we purpose contemplating as briefly as the nature of the subject will permit, the second and third petitions of this prayer: between which and the first there is an easy and evident connexion. Few ideas are in fact more nearly cognate than the ideas of filial affection and dutiful obedience: so closely indeed are they connected that it is impossible to conceive the former to exist where we do not find the latter: and hence the expressions which denote them are often interchanged: filial love is continually called by the name of duty; whilst on the other hand the dutiful obedience of a good citizen to his country and its laws is constantly expressed by all the epithets of filial affection. Such at least is the phraseology which the masculine sense of our ancestors did not disdain to use in times when words expressive of love and tenderness were employed with a less sentimental profusion than at present. Keeping then this natural conjunc