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sanctification of God's most holy Name. I have to set before you the duty of hallowing and sanctifying it; which is best done by reverently inquiring into the mysteries which are contained under it; mysteries which our religious world think are better left alone, because they have no deep feeling of the power and might of that Name into which we were baptized. But what are we that we should remain ignorant of the Name which hath been named over us? It is a low-minded, mean-spirited, dishonourable lethargy on our part; and towards God, who hath revealed himself to be known, it is the most shameful ingratitude. What else but to know and sanctify his name, doth He continually give throughout the Scriptures as the end of all his mighty acts? If then, to know the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost be so dutiful in us, and acceptable to God, and withal the best antidote to the blaspheming and dishonouring of it, I do entreat you, my beloved, to be earnest in spirit, that God would open and reveal to us in all ways, but especially by his own ordinance of preaching, the mysteries which lie hid in his great Name. Of which mysteries, I have already shewn some that lie enwrapped in that name "Father," and do purpose, when I shall have duly fulfilled this our introduction to a new year, to take up the mysteries shut up in the name of "the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ."

To all which discourses give reverent heed at all times; and above all other subjects, prize the subject of the blessed Trinity; above all knowledge, to know his holy Name; above all service, to worship and magnify it for in that Name is surely shut up all that man can know, and all that he can desire to know.

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SERMON IV..

DISOBEDIENT TO PARENTS.

2 TIM. iii. 1, 2.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be......disobedient to parents.

To understand the changes which have passed upon the church, it is necessary to transport yourself a generation or two back; and having become familiar with the spirit of that time, so far as can be ascertained from the conversation of old people, and the perusal of written books, the recollection of traditions, and the inspection of other monuments which survive the wreck of time, to draw it into comparison with the spirit of the times in which we live. To the faithful and true striking of this balance, much wisdom is necessary; for in conversing with old people, you must make allowance for the hallucinations of age, and the halo of glory with which the season of youth is surrounded. And in studying the monuments of a former time, it requireth much skill indeed to recompose their fragments into a true picture of the living

and moving persons to whom they belonged. These are the difficulties which attend the right judgment of times past. And to make up a true judgment of times present, there are difficulties of an almost equal amount, though of a very different kind: which are, first, the vanity of our own age, reflected from our ownselves, which form part of it; secondly, the collected vanity of all the living who speak and who write of it; thirdly, the exaggeration of things near at hand; and, fourthly, the oblivion of things now gone by all which together do mightily warp the estimation which men commonly make of the times in which they live. Of all those difficulties which beset our undertaking, I am most fully aware, and desire to bear them in mind, and with the more humility to submit myself to the teaching of the Holy Ghost. For though I have conversed much with old men, and, I may say, delighted to give them reverence, and lived the most part of my youth at their feet listening to their account of former times; and though my reading and study have been much amongst the writers of the former ages of the church, I am not ignorant that there ofttimes ariseth from this very familiarity with the olden times such an admiration of antiquity, as to make us unjust to the times in which we live. Vanity and pride and malice, also, lead us to identify ourselves with the illustrious dead, in order that through the shade of their greatness we may wound the illustrious living. On all

which accounts, I do feel the task I have undertaken, of shewing these to be the characteristics of the times in which we live above the times of our fathers, or any other times of the church, to be one of a very perilous and responsible kind; and therefore, cleansing myself of all malice or partiality towards the present, and of all predilection to a former age, I desire devoutly to submit myself to the teaching of God's Spirit, and to shew forth unto you what he sheweth unto me.

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How far the feature in the text, "disobedience to parents," is a character of the times in which we now live, each one, perhaps, will best settle for himself, by comparing the reverence of his own children, or the children whom he knows, with the reverence which he bore to his parents, or the marks of reverence and obedience which he remembers to have heard his father speak of. For my own part, so far as my means of observation have extended, I can freely declare before God, that the deterioration of the age in this capital point can hardly be over-estimated or over-stated. I call it a capital point, because it is that from which all reverence of a superior floweth as its fountain-head, and in the right occupation of which ariseth all obedience, whether to the magistrate or to God. I do not say that in the nature of things it is before our duty to God; because it is itself secured by the sacrament of baptism, which is a Divine ordinance; but I do

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