Thomas Manton · 16 of 60

Hallowed be thy name. · Part 3

[3.] In discharge of this work, as they must do all for God, so they can do nothing without God. Every morning we should revive the sense of it upon ourselves, as the care of our work and aim, so the sense of our impotency. This day I am to live with God; but how unable am I, and how easily shall I dishonour him!’ The way of man is not in himself,’ Jer. x. 23. When a Christian goeth abroad in the morning, he must remember he is at Christ’s dispose; he is not to do as he pleaseth, but to be guided by rule, and act for God’s glory, and fetch in strength from Christ: Col. iii. 17, ‘Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.’ Not only in our duties or immediate converses with God, but in our sports, business, recreation. What is it to do things in the name of Christ,—that is, to do it according to Christ’s will and command? He hath allowed us time for recreation, for conversing with God, and calling in Christ’s help, and aiming at his glory. If we have anything to do for God, we must do it in his own strength, in every word and deed.

[4.] You are directed again, when the glory of God and sanctifying of his name either sticks with us, or sticks abroad, God must be specially consulted with in the case. When our hearts are backward, then. ‘Lord, open thou my lips;’ Lord, affect me with a sense of thy kindness and mercy. When it sticks abroad, when such events fall out, as for a while God’s name is obscured, and seems to be clouded, ‘Lord, what wilt thou do for thy great name?’

III. Having opened the order of the words, and the reasons of putting up such a request to God, I now come to the sense of the petition, ‘Hallowed be thy name.’ Four things will come under consideration:—

1. What is meant by the name of God.

2. What it is to hallow and sanctify it.

3. I shall take notice of the form of the proposal, ἁγιασθητω, Hallowed.

4. The note of distinction, thy name.

First, What is meant by God’s name?

1. God himself.

2. Anything whereby he is made known.

[1.] God himself. Name, by an Hebraism, is put for the person itself. Thus: Rev. iii. 4, ‘Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments;’ that is, many persons; so: Acts i. 15, it is said there, ‘The number of the names together were about one hundred and twenty,’ that is of persons. So it is used in the present case. God’s name is put for God himself: Ps. xx. 1, ‘The name of the God of Jacob defend thee!’ That is, God himself. So: Ps. xliv. 5, ‘Through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us;’ that is, by thee. And to believe in the name of Christ is to believe in Christ himself. Name is put for person, for the immediate object of faith is the person of Christ: John i. 12, ‘To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’

[2.] Anything whereby he is made known to us, Nomen quasi notamen. As a man is known by his name, so God’s titles and attributes, his ordinances, his works, his word, are his name, chiefly the two latter. For his works, they are a part of the name of God: Ps. viii. 1, the burden of that psalm is twice repeated, ‘O Lord, our Lord, how great is thy name in all the earth!’ By the name there, is meant God made known in his works of creation and providence, for he speaks there of sun, moon, and stars, which proclaim an eternal power to all the world; and he speaks of such a name as is in all the earth. And, Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20, ‘He hath not dealt so with any nation,’ and given them his word, statutes, and ordinances; every one hath not that privilege. But, ‘How great is thy name in all the earth!’ That is, how manifestly art thou made known by thy works! But above all, by name is meant his word: Ps. cxxxviii. 2, ‘Thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.’ There is more of God to be seen in his word, than in all the creatures of the world, and in all his other works besides. We understand more of God than can be taken up by the creation. It helps us to interpret the book of nature and providence; there we have his titles, attributes, ordinances; there we have his greatest work, in which he hath discovered so much of his name, the mystery of redemption, which is not elsewhere to be known. Thus by the name of God is meant God himself, as he hath made known himself in the word. We desire that he may be sanctified, that he may with honour and reverence be received everywhere.

Secondly, The second thing to be explained, what is meant by hallowed? In scripture God is said sometimes to be magnified, sometimes to be justified, sometimes to be glorified, and sometimes to be sanctified. Now it is not here said, Magnificetur nomen tuum, or glorificetur, but sanctificetur—let thy name be sanctified. All these terms do express how God is to be honoured by the creature, and they have all distinct notions. God is said to be magnified: Luke i. 46, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord.’ To magnify God argueth a high esteem or a due sense of his greatness. Again, God is said to be justified: Luke vii. 29, ‘The people and the publicans justified God.’ What is it to justify God? To justify is to acquit from accusation, and when that word is applied to God, it signifieth our owning of him notwithstanding the prejudices of the world against him. To glorify God is to make him known to others, and to bring him into request with others, for glory it is clara cum laude notitia, a public fame or knowledge of excellency. Thus Christ saith, John xvii. 10, ‘I am glorified in them;’ speaking of his apostles, because by their means he was made known to the world. All these are included in the word of the text. Yet there is somewhat more intended by to be sanctified. When is God then said to be sanctified?

To hallow and to sanctify is to set apart from common use, and so to sanctify the name of God, is to use it in a separate manner, with that reverence and respect which is not used to anything else. So that when we pray that God’s name may be hallowed or sanctified, we desire that, according as he hath made known himself in the word, so he may be known, reverenced, and esteemed in the world. Known to be the only true God: 1 Kings xviii. 36, ‘Let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel,’ and accordingly worshipped and glorified in the hearts and lives of men.

The third thing to open is the form of proposal, ἁγιασθητω. It is not sanctificemus, let us hallow, but sanctificetur, let it be hallowed, for in this form of speech, all the persons concerned in this work are included—God, ourselves, and others.

[1.] God is to be included in the prayer, that we may express our sense of his providence working all things for the glory of his holy name, yea, discovering his excellency, showing himself to be the holy God: Ezek. xxxviii. 23, ‘I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that 1 am the Lord.’ The Lord magnifieth himself by the more eminent effects of his care and providence, but he sanctifieth himself chiefly by blessing and defending the godly, and by punishing and afflicting the wicked, for thereby he declareth his holiness, the purity of his nature, and his love to saints; so that when we say, ‘Hallowed be thy name,’ we mean, Lord, declare thyself to be a holy God, by putting a distinction between men and men in the course of thy providence, and owning thy people from heaven.

[2.] We include ourselves when we say, ‘Hallowed be thy name,’ for it is especially the duty of God’s people: Isa. xxix. 23, ‘They shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.’ It is our duty, by our religious carriage, to evidence that we have a holy God. This must be our first care, that we ourselves be sanctified, and to sanctify our sanctifier, the Holy One of Israel. Some, they would have God glorified by others, but do not look to themselves how they sanctify God. Now God hath made this to be a great part of our care, that his own people should not only magnify and glorify him, but sanctify him; therefore he rather makes them good than great. When he would make men great, then he shows his magnificence, to be the almighty disposer of the riches of the world; but when he makes them good, then he expects to be sanctified, that his people should discover that he is a holy One; that he is holy in himself, for we add nothing to him when we sanctify him, but only discover him to be such a one. In short, God sanctifieth us effectively by working grace and holiness in us, and we sanctify him relatively, objectively, declaratively, declaring him to be a holy God, and that we are a people belonging to this God.

[3.] The speech is so formed that others may be included, and that we may express our sense of their dishonouring God, as a thing that is grievous to us, that we may show how near it goeth to our heart to see the ignorance, atheism, and blasphemy that is in the world. They would have the holy God to be sanctified abroad, either by the conversion of men, or by their punishment. And so it is meant: Isa. v. 16, ‘God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.’ That is, his holiness and hatred of sin shall appear, either in the conversion of obstinate sinners, that God may be sanctified by them, or else for punishment, that God may be sanctified upon them.

Fourthly, The next thing is the note of distinction, ‘Hallowed be thy name,’ not ours. There seems to be a secret opposition between our name and the name of God. When we come to pray, we should distinctly remember whose name is to be glorified, that God may be at the end of every request. We beg of God many times, but we think of ourselves; our hearts run upon our own name, and upon our own esteem. How often do we come to him with a selfish aim, as if we would draw God into our own designs and purposes! None are so unfit to glorify God, and so unwelcome to him, as those that are so wedded and vehemently addicted to their own honour and esteem in the world. Therefore Christ, by way of distinction, by way of opposition to this innate disposition that is in us, he would have us to say, ‘Hallowed be thy name.’ That which gives most honour to God is believing: Rom. iv. 19, 20, Abraham was ‘strong’ in faith, ‘giving glory to God.’ Now, none so unfit for the work as they that seek glory for themselves: John v. 44, ‘How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?’ Affectation of vainglory, or splendour of our own name, is a temper inconsistent with faith, which is the grace that gives honour to God. I say, when we hunt after respect from men, and make that the chiefest scope of our actions, God’s glory will certainly lie in the dust; when we are to suffer ignominy and abasement for his sake, the care of God’s glory will be laid aside. The great sin of the old world was this: Gen. xi. 4, ‘Let us make us a name.’ There are many conceits about that enterprise, what that people should aim at there in building so great and so vast a tower, before God confounded their tongues. Some, interpreting that place, ‘Let us build us a tower even to heaven,’ think this was their intention, to make a way into heaven. But it is not likely they would be so foolish that had so late experience of the flood, and, when the ark rested upon the top of the highest mountains, found themselves to be at so great and vast a distance from heaven. Some think it was (as Josephus) to secure themselves from another flood; but that was sufficiently done by God’s promise, who had engaged to them he would no more destroy the earth by water; and if that were their intention, why should they build in the plain, between the two rivers of Tigris and Euphrates? Moses gives the main reason there, that they might have an immortal name among posterity. But now see how ill they reckon that do reckon without God. Those that are so busy about their own name, how soon will God blast them! When in any action we do not seek glory to God, but ourselves, it is the ready way to be destroyed. This was the means to bury them in perpetual oblivion. Nebuchadnezzar, when he re-edified the city, Dan. iv. 30: ‘Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?’ How doth God disappoint him, and turn him out among the beasts! Thus are we sure to be disappointed and blasted, when our hearts run altogether upon our own name. But now Christ saith thy name; when we are careful of that, this is the way to prosper.

From the words thus illustrated, I shall only observe:—

Doct. That God will be so glorified in the world as that his name may be hallowed or sanctified.

Here I shall show:—

1. How many ways God’s name is sanctified.

2. Why God will be so glorified as that he may be sanctified.

First, How many ways is God’s name sanctified? I answer, either upon us, or by us.

[1.] Upon us, by the righteous executions and judgments of his providence: and so God is sanctified when he doth by a high hand of power recover and extort the glory of his holiness from the dead and stupid world; as by that notable stroke of the Bethshemites, when fifty thousand were slain for peeping into the ark: 1 Sam. vi. 20. This was the result of all: ‘Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?’ There he discovered himself to be a holy God, to be one that hath a high displeasure against the creature’s disobedience. Now when he doth by a high hand extort this from the wicked, or from his children, then he sanctifieth himself upon us.

[2.] By us. And so he is sanctified in our thoughts, words, and actions; in our heart, tongue, or life.

1. In our hearts: 1 Pet. 3, 15, ‘Sanctify the Lord God in your heart.’ How is God sanctified in our hearts?

[1.] When we have awful thoughts of his majesty: Ps. cxi. 9, ‘Holy and reverend is his name.’ Not only when we speak of the name of God, but when we think of it, we should be seriously affected. But,

[2.] More especially God is sanctified when, in straits, difficulties, and dangers, we can bear ourselves upon the power and sufficiency of God, and go on resolutely and cheerfully with our duty, notwithstanding discouragements. This is to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts. I shall prove it by two places where the phrase is used; one is, 1 Pet. iii. 15, ‘Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.’ Mark, the Christians that did profess the name of God, which spake of God as their hope or object of their religion, were in great danger. Now what direction doth he give them, that they might not be afraid, but bear up? For he speaks before: ‘Be not afraid of their terror, or be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.’ See the same phrase used for the same purpose: Isa. viii. 13, ‘Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.’ He opposeth it plainly there to carnal fear: ver. 12, ‘Say ye not a confederacy to all them to whom this people shall say a confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid; but sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and let him be your fear.’ How comes this direction to be used in the present case? Thus; to sanctify is to set apart; and to sanctify God is to set apart, as the alone object of fear and trust, that he alone is to be feared and trusted, so that we can see no match for God among the creatures; therefore we are to embolden ourselves in the Lord, and go on cheerfully, when we can counterbalance all fears and dangers with his surpassing excellency. To glorify God is to do that which simply and absolutely tendeth to the manifestation of his excellency, without any relation to the creature; but to sanctify God is to set God above the creature, to do that which tends to exalt his greatness and excellency from and above all terrors, and all the discouragements that we can have from the creature; it is to. ascribe that greatness, that power and glory, to God alone, which, cannot be ascribed to anything else, and so to go on cheerfully with our duty, whatever difficulties we meet with. Thus Moses was chidden, that was amazed with present difficulty: Num. xx. 12, ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel; therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.’ Because they were discouraged, and thought they should never carry on their business, therefore God saith, ‘Ye believe not to sanctify me:’ you sanctify not God, or set him aloft, as the alone and supreme object of fear and trust. It is a practical acknowledgment of God’s matchless excellency. Thus we sanctify God in our hearts.

2. God is sanctified with our tongues, when we use God’s name, titles, ordinances, and word, as holy things; when we speak of the Lord with reverence, and with great seriousness of heart, not taking his name in vain; especially when we are deeply affected with his praise. It is no slight thing to praise God. God’s people, when they have gone about it, see a need of the greatest help: Ps. li. 15, ‘O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.’ And Ps. xlv. 1: ‘My heart is inditing a good matter;’ my heart fries or boils a good matter: when we will not give God dough-baked praise, nor speak of his name slightly, but so as becomes his greatness and surpassing excellency.

3. In our actions. Our actions may be parted into two things,—worship, and ordinary conversation.

(1.) In our worship, there God especially will be sanctified. Lev. x. 3, ‘I will be sanctified in all that draw near unto me.’ God is very tender of his worship: sancta sanctis, holy things must be managed by holy men in a holy manner. Therefore, what is it to sanctify God when we draw nigh to him? To have a more excellent frame of heart in worship than we have about other things. As in prayer, the frame of our hearts must not be common; we must not go about it with such a frame of heart as we go about our callings, worldly business, and converses with men: but there must be some special reverence, such as is peculiar to him. When we draw near to God in the word, he will be sanctified. The word must be received with meekness, and by faith applied to our souls, as an instrument designed to our endless good. When we have a peculiar reverence for God, and a respect to God in all our approaches; Eccles. v. 1, ‘Look to thy feet when thou goest to the house of God:’ we must not go about these holy services hand over head, but with great caution and heed. Thus is God sanctified in worship, or in our immediate converse with him.

(2.) In our ordinary conversation. Then God is sanctified; when our life is ordered so that we may give men occasion to say, that surely he is a holy God whom we serve. By two things you may know you sanctify God in your conversations: when you walk as remembering you have a holy God, and when you walk as discovering to others you have a holy God.

[1.] When you walk as remembering yourselves that you have a holy God, therefore you must be watchful and strict. It is notable, when the Israelites were making a hasty promise, Joshua puts them in mind, chap. xxiv. 9, ‘You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God.’ So we should remember when we give up ourselves to God, he is a holy and jealous God, that is narrowly observant, and he will not be put off with anything that is common.

[2.] As discovering you have a holy God. A carnal worshipper profaneth the memory of God in the world. But now a Christian that walks according to his holy calling, that is holy in all manner of conversation, he discovereth what a God he hath. 1 Pet. ii. 9, ‘That ye should show forth the praises of him, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.’ We are not only to conceive and make use of them to beget fear and reverence in our hearts of the all-seeing God, but are to show them forth, to evidence them to others. We should discover more than a human excellency, that so those which look upon us may say, These are the servants of the holy God.

Secondly, For the reasons why God will be so glorified, that he may be sanctified.

1. Because this is the glory that is due to his name. Ps. xcvi. 8, ‘Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name.’ Every glory will not serve the turn, but such glory as is proper and peculiar for that God we serve. It is a stated rule in scripture, that respects to God must be proportioned to the nature of God. God is a spirit, therefore will be worshipped in spirit and truth. God is a God of peace, therefore lift up your hands without wrath and doubting. God is a holy God, therefore will be sanctified. They which worship the sun, among the heathens, they used a flying horse, as a thing most suitable to the swift motions of the sun. Well, then, they that will glorify and honour God with a glory due to his name, must sanctify him as well as honour him. Why? For God is ‘glorious in holiness.’ Exod. xv. 11. This is that which God counteth to be his chief excellency, and the glory which he will manifest among the sons of men.

2. This is that glory which God affects, and therefore the saints will give it him, Isa. vi. 3. The holy angels, what do they cry out when they honour God? They do not acknowledge his power and dominion over all creatures as Lord of all; but they give him his peculiar glory, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ So David, Ps. ciii. 1, ‘Bless the Lord, my soul; yea, all that is within me, bless his holy name.’ That is the notion upon which he pitcheth, he would praise God with such praise as is welcome and acceptable to him.

3. This is the attribute which is most eclipsed and most blotted out in the hearts of the sons of men, because of God’s patience, because he doth not take vengeance of all the sins of men: ‘Thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thyself,’ Ps. 1. 21. Certainly if men did not blot and stain God in their thoughts, if they did not fancy an unreasonable indulgence, such as is not comely and proper to his majesty, they could not go on in sin, and think God could be so pure; therefore he will be so glorified, that he may be sanctified.

Use. To press us so to glorify God, as we may also sanctify him. Let this be your care. To quicken you, remember—

1. God is much offended with his people that do not sanctify him. Moses and Aaron, as choice and as dear to God as they were, yet you know what the Lord saith, Num. xx. 12, ‘Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel; therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.’ When Moses and Aaron murmured, and spake unadvisedly, and did not sanctify him, nor carry God’s excellency aloft, they shall not enter. And God remembereth this a great while after, in that, Deut. xxxii. 51, ‘Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel, at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel, thou shalt not go into the land which I give the children of Israel.’ Well, then, though God’s children should get to heaven, yet if they do not sanctify God they will want many a privilege. God will remember this against them; for he takes it ill when his people will not sanctify him as becoming his peculiar excellency.

2. If you do not sanctify God, then you pollute God, and stain his memory in the world: Ezek. xxxvi. 20, ‘Ye have profaned my holy name among the heathen.’ How is God polluted? Not intrinsically; God cannot receive any pollution from us. It is here, as in that case, ‘A man that lusteth after a woman, hath committed adultery already in his heart.’ Mat. v. 28. The man pollutes the woman in his heart, while she remains spotless and undefiled. So in this case we blemish God in appearance, as much as in us lies we pollute and blot God, though he remains pure and undefiled. You make heathens think as if you had an unholy God. Well, then, glorify God.

For directions:—

1. Be holy. The praise of the wicked is a disgrace to him, it is an obscuring of his praise: 1 Pet. i. 15, ‘As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.’

2. Study his name, if ye would sanctify his name: Ps. ix. 10, ‘They that know his name will put their trust in him.’

3. Submit to his providence without murmuring. When we can speak well of him, though he seem to deal most hardly; as the Bethshemites, when there was such a slaughter made among them, fifty thousand slain; they do not say, murmuringly, Who can stand before this severe, cruel God? but before ‘this holy God?’ They own his holiness in the dispensation, though it were so dreadful, 1 Sam. vi. 20. It is a great glory to God when you own him as just in all his ways, when he deals most hardly. Whatsoever be our lot and portion, yet he is a holy God. But to cavil and murmur, it is to tax and blemish God before the world.

4. Live to public ends, that is, to draw God into request with others. Let this be the aim of your conversation, not only to get holiness enough to bring you to heaven, but to allure others, and recommend God to them, that by the purity and strictness of your conversation you might gain upon others, and bring them to be in love with God, and acquainted with him.

And lastly, Be sensible when God’s name is dishonoured by your selves and others, not enduring the least profanation of it.