Wesley Corpus

Therefore should we "serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto him with reverence." Therefore should we think, speak, and act, as continually under the eye, in the immediate presence, of the Lord, the King. 7. "Hallowed be thy name." -- This is the first of the six petitions, whereof the prayer itself is composed. The name of God is God himself; the nature of God, so far as it can be discovered to man. It means, therefore, together with his existence, all his attributes or perfections; His Eternity, particularly signified by his great and incommunicable name, JEHOVAH, as the Apostle John translates it: to A kai to W, arch kai telos, o vn kai o hn kai o ercomenos, -- "the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end; He which is, and which was, and which is to come;" -- His Fullness of Being, denoted by his other great name, I AM THAT I AM! -- His omnipresence; -- His omnipotence; who is indeed the only Agent in the material world; all matter being essentially dull and inactive, and moving only as it is moved by the finger of God; and he is the spring of action in every creature, visible and invisible, which could neither act nor exist, without the continual influx and agency of his almighty power; -- His wisdom, clearly deduced from the things that are seen, from the goodly order of the universe; -- His Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, discovered to us in the very first line of his written word; bara' 'elohim -- literally, the Gods created, a plural noun joined with a verb of the singular number; as well as in every part of his subsequent revelations, given by the mouth of all his holy Prophets and Apostles; -- His essential purity and holiness; -- and, above all, his love, which is the very brightness of his glory. In praying that God, or his name, may "be hallowed" or glorified, we pray that he may be known, such as he is, by all that are capable thereof, by all intelligent beings, and with affections suitable to that knowledge; that he may be duly honoured, and feared, and loved, by all in heaven above and in the earth beneath; by all angels and men, whom for that end he has made capable of knowing and loving him to eternity.