Page:Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.djvu/34

 the name of God, in an eminent sense is the Holy Word his name.

In this sense, then, by hallowing the Lord's name, is meant, to revere and regard as holy and most holy the Divine Word; to look upon it as being the Lord's visible presence, as it were, with us in our households; to go to it daily for light and instruction, and to listen to its teachings as to the Lord's own voice, for truly it is the voice of the Lord: "Thus saith the Lord" is its constant affirmation. The doctrine of the New Church teaches that the Divine Word is the great medium, both of conjunction with the Lord and of communication with heaven; that it is, as it were, the golden chain that links earth to heaven and to the Lord; that when it is read even in the letter, in a spirit of humble devotion, the effect is to bring angelic and heavenly influences round the mind of the reader, tending to deviate the understanding and warm the heart; while at the same time, the Lord himself, who dwells in the midst of his Word, acts upon the spirit with a regenerating influence. The true way, moreover, to love the Lord, is to keep the precepts of his Word: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them," saith the Lord, "he it is that loveth me." To hallow the Lord's name, then, in this sense, is to understand these truths in regard to the Divine Word, to believe them, to feel them, and to act upon them. He who, understanding the power, the grandeur, the divinity of the Holy Word, and having too some knowledge of the interior sense that fills and sanctifies the letter, goes each morning to the sacred