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 fill whole volumes! And what a pity that the generality of Christians should run over this admirable prayer, with so little sense of what they are saying, and with dispositions so opposite to the import of those sacred petitions!

Consider 2dly, that in the beginning of this divine prayer, we call God our Father; and we are authorized to call him so by the Son of God himself. Stand astonished, my soul, at this high favour: what greater dignity can any creature be raised to, than to be called and to be a child of God? to have him for our Father, who made heaven and earth, and who fills heaven and earth with his infinite majesty? O my soul, see thou never degenerate from this dignity of a child of God, by behaving thyself unworthy of such a Father. See thou never more make thyself a slave to sin, or Satan: O child of heaven, lie no longer groveling in the mire of the earth. In this prayer we are taught to address ourselves to our Father, who is in heaven, to the end, that we may reflect whither we are to direct our thoughts when we pray and that we may not suffer any attachment to the things of the earth, by love and affection, to hinder them from freely flying up to heaven. My soul, where are thy thoughts in the time