♦»' 
 
X ' , *• ^ «^ / «^»-'*'^^^«-^_>^ 
 
 THE 
 
 PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 ISRAEL'S IRON AGE : Sketches from the Period of the 
 
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 MOHAMMED, BUDDHA, AND CHRIST. Four 
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THE 
 
 
 PRAYER THAT TEACHES 
 TO PRAY. 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 MARCUS^bODS, M.A., D.D., 
 
 Author of " IsraeTs Iron Ag-e," " The Book of Genesis,^' " The 
 Parables of Our Lord" etc. 
 
 SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIX. 
 
Butler & Tanner, 
 
 The Selwood Printing Works, 
 
 Frome, and London. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I, 
 
 FAQS 
 AFTER THIS MANNER THEREFORF PRAY YE : OUR FATHER, 
 
 WHICH ART IN HEAVEN, 2 
 
 II. 
 HALLOWED BE THY NAME, 25 
 
 III. 
 THY KINGDOM COME, 50 
 
 IV. 
 THY WILL BE DONE IN EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN, . 76 
 
 V. 
 
 GIVE US THIS DAY CUB DAILY BREAD, .... 99 
 
 VI. 
 AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS, 1 22 
 
 VII. 
 
 AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US 
 
 FROM EVIL, .... . . . 151 
 
After this manner tlierefore pray ye : Our Father, whicH 
 art in heaven, Hallow^ed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 
 Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this 
 day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we for- 
 give our debtors. And lead us not into temptation; but 
 deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and tU? 
 power, and the glory, for ever. Amen, — Matt. vi. 9-13. 
 
"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father "which 
 art in heaven." 
 
 Far better than all instructions and precepts 
 about prayer is this simple model. Using this, 
 we learn both how to pray and what to pray for. 
 And when we have learned this prayer, it will be 
 time to consider how we shall expand the teach- 
 ins of our Lord. If it is " after this manner " we 
 are to pray, then who can restrain prayer on the 
 ground of lack of time for devotion ? This is the 
 " five words with understanding'" preferable to ten 
 thousand of formality or repetition. Here is no 
 vain and heathenish babbling, as if the length 
 of onr prayer were to measure the value of its 
 answer ; nor any explanatory repetition, as if God 
 
2 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 did not know what tilings we have need of. But 
 there is here only a straightforward laying before 
 God of one desire after another. Simj^licity and 
 brevity are discernible at a glance, and are taught 
 at the first lesson. ' 
 
 But if it is " after this manner" we are to pray, 
 then who can restrain prayer on the ground of 
 mental inability to pray ? For here are desires 
 presented before God with the barest possible 
 clothing of words. Elaborate language, then, is 
 no essential of prayer; nor yet ingenious thought, 
 nor the observant penetration of spirit which dis- 
 covers the minute or hidden wants of man. Only 
 so much language is required as makes the desire 
 audible. We are backward in prayer, not because 
 it is too difficult, but because it is too simple for 
 us. It is so unlike our other ways of gaining 
 and getting, that we are always trying to make 
 it something more than it is, an asking for what 
 we want. And to every man this model prayer 
 says, '^ If you want nothing from God, then do 
 not pray — you cannot pray ; but whatever yov> 
 want from Him^ ask for, and you pray." 
 
 This prayer, however, is a model as much for 
 its matter as its manner. So that we ought not 
 only to imitate, but use it. We are not to be satis- 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 3 
 
 fied if oiir prayers have some general rer^emblaiice 
 to it, but we are to use the very words taught us 
 by our Lord. Does some one think that it may 
 do well enough for beginners, or for ordinary oc- 
 casions, or to eke out some petitions of our own 
 devising, but that an advanced spiritual condition 
 demands something fuller and richer ? So appar- 
 ently thought one of our Lord's disciples, for we 
 read in the narrative of Luke that, when the dis- 
 ciples saw Christ pray, one of them asked to be 
 taught to pray ; hoping, probably, to receive some 
 fuller, more striking, more sublime petitions. But 
 what says our Lord ? Not only, as here, " After this 
 manner pray ye ;" but, " when ye pray, say:' And 
 there is no getting past the evident precept here 
 delivered, that we ought habitually to use these 
 words. And as we use them, we shall find that 
 though we learnt them at our mother's knee, it 
 takes a lifetime to fill them with their meaning, 
 and eternity to give them all their answer. If 
 these be our leading and guiding desires, it mat- 
 ters less what else we are seeking. Bat if these 
 be not at all among our desires, then we are not 
 being led in the best direction, and have yet to 
 learn what these petitions include, and how de- 
 sirable their contents are. To let this prayer lie, 
 
4 THE PRAYER TEAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 with all the riches of its promise in our view, and 
 not to use it, is to be cruel to our own souls as 
 Saul was to his men, when he commanded that 
 none should put forth his hand to take of the 
 honey that was dripping from the trees of the 
 wood, which taken would enlighten the eyes and 
 give strength to the faint. Are we anxious to 
 know what future lies before us ? Let us pray 
 this prayer and we become prophets of our own 
 future, surely knowing that these are the things 
 which shall be ; for by commanding us so to pray, 
 our Lord has given us sure pledge of the fulfil- 
 ment of these things. Here, then, we have the 
 future of the Church, the future of those on whom 
 God delights to show the wealth of His love. We 
 have it here, as it lies now in the desires of those 
 who are tending towards it through the unlikely 
 and unpromising things of this w^orld. And if 
 w4th one heart and mind we were desirincr these 
 things, would they not be more speedily accom- 
 plished, the obstructions of the world sooner con- 
 quered, and our own blessedness and triumpli in 
 God more rapidly achieved ? This prayer, taught 
 by our Lord, and wrought by His Spirit in the 
 desires of His people, is the bond of attraction 
 ilrawing earth steadily towards heaven ; drawing 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 5 
 
 it witli a momentum ever increasing as ilie dis- 
 tance becomes less, and as these common desires 
 tind a hold in a greater number of hearts. 
 
 Of the arrangement of this prayer many things 
 have been noticed — some fanciful, some just. It 
 has been compared to the law of the Decalogue, 
 inasmuch as, like it, this prayer has two tables^ 
 the first pertaining to the things of God, the 
 second to the things of man. There has also been 
 noticed (if not with more justice, at least with 
 more meaning) a reference to the Trinity through- / 
 out ; the first petition of either part of the prayer < 
 referring to God as Creator and Preserver ; the 
 second petition of either part referring to God as 
 Eedeemer ; and the third to God the Holy Spirit. 
 This has considerable foundation in the form of 
 the prayer, and not a little significance with re- 
 gard to the completeness of the blessing we should 
 seek. But the obvious division is the useful one 
 to bear in mind. Tliere are two parts. In the 
 first part the object of worship rivets the thought 
 that has been turned towards Him, and those de- 
 sires which concern His great purposes are first 
 uttered ; and only after that follows the second 
 part, in which the attention turns to our own con- 
 dition and wants. The petitions . oijh e first part 
 
 \ 
 
 ; 
 
6 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 are inseiJarable from one another \ each includes 
 the one which follows ; the name of God must be 
 recognised and hallowed before His kingdom can 
 be established, and only when His kingdom has 
 come can His will be done. And, indeed, all these 
 petitions are included in the very invocation, when 
 we say, " Our Father which art in heaven ;" for 
 when we say this with our hearts, we already 
 hallow the name, own the authority, and submit 
 to the will of God. And, again, the first part of 
 the prayer paves the way for the second, and in- 
 troduces it ; for the things which we imjjlore in 
 the first part are not to come to pass irrespective 
 of our condition. . We are men ; if, then, the will 
 of God is to be done by us on earth, we must be 
 maintained in life. We are sinners ; if, then. His 
 kino-dom is to come to us, our sins must be for- 
 given, since nothing that defiles can enter that 
 kingdom. If all the petitions of the first part are 
 to be answered, and if our calling God "Father" 
 is not to be in word only, then we must depend 
 on God to give us the guidance of His wisdom, 
 and to rescue us from the power of the Evil. 
 
 Let us try, then, to learn what is contained in 
 this invocation, and to see how it implies every 
 good disposition for prayer, and includes every 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 7 
 
 encouragement, remembering that as much that 
 we say is determined by the tone, and that as 
 some words in our common speech, such as 
 "mother," "father," are ijeculiarly elastic, con- 
 taining as much meanhig as the heart which uses 
 them can pour into them, so we have to learn to 
 give to these words, " Our Father," the tone (i 
 Christ ; and as we learn this, we shall find that 
 we never do fill them to the full, that they rather 
 still extend beyond our actual feelings, and show 
 us that there is more to be striven after. Indeed, 
 if there be any who thinks he has exhausted 
 these words, who has never trembled at the glory 
 and the promise that are in them, who has never 
 hesitated, even on his knees, before he has dared 
 to take them and use them as his words, is not 
 he still using them merely as a form, not believ- 
 ing, perhaps never having even conceived, that 
 there is a reality which they depict ? 
 
 The first thing to be noticed about these words 
 is, that they are new in the Bible and in tlie 
 world, put now for the first time into the mouth 
 of man. They begin New-Testament prayer. 
 They evidence that a change is passing ; that as 
 men are now expected to he more than formerly, 
 havino^ clearer declarations of the will of God, so 
 
8 THE PRaYER that TEACHES TO hit AY. 
 
 they are invited to richer encouragement, having 
 clearer exhibition of the nature of God. " The 
 true light now shineth." God has passed through 
 the clouds and darkness that are around His 
 throne, and has dwelt with us, that we might 
 " acquaint ourselves with God." What was given 
 long before as a promise, "Thou shalt call me My 
 Father," is now fulfilled. In all the fervent con- 
 fidence of David we never find him utterino- these 
 words, " My Father." And wherever we do find 
 God spoken of as the Father of Israel, this title 
 seems to refer to the kindness of God as their 
 guide and defence, or to His creating and pre- 
 serving power. Thus Malachi explains the cause, 
 " Have we not all one Father ? " by " Hath not 
 one God created us ? " And even in this sense 
 we do not find it used in the form of address. 
 The nearest approach to it that we find is that 
 most moving prayer recorded in Isaiah, in which 
 the orphaned and desolate peoj)le reassure them- 
 selves of God's favour in these words, "Doubt- 
 less thou art our Father, our Eedeemer;" but 
 by the last part of the same supplication we see 
 that little more is meant even here than to call 
 upon God as a faithful Creator, who has indeed 
 entered into some peculiar connexion with them, 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 9 
 
 for it is said, " Thcu, Lord, art our Father; we 
 are the clay, and thou our potter, and we are all 
 the work of thy hand ! '' In this there is a dim- 
 ness which the birth of Immanuel scatters. There 
 is a feeling after the indissoluble bond, but in the 
 humanity of our Lord we see the union formed. 
 It was for Christ the Son to give us this liberty 
 of calling God " our Father/' 
 
 So that there is something more here than the 
 mere acknowledgment of God as our Creator and 
 Keeper. There is a recognition, distinct and 
 necessary, of the Son of God and His work, and 
 through Him we aspire to an intimacy which 
 the Creator has not with any mere creature. By 
 Christ we are lifted to quite a new level and rank 
 before God. We still have God as our faithful 
 Creator, who will supply all our necessities. The 
 Creator is included in the Father ; but in the 
 Father we have, over and above, the assurance 
 that our connexion with Him is one of love and 
 of lasting relationship ; that we shall not be suf- 
 fered to go adrift, but shall be brought up into 
 His likeness, and shall live with Him ; and that 
 the ground on which this relationship is estab- 
 lished is one of unutterable dignity, the Son of 
 God having become our brother, our nature being 
 
10 TEE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 now worn by the same person as wears the nature 
 of God. If, therefore, we do not acknowledge 
 Christ in saying, " Our Father," this epithet is 
 either profane, misty, or heathenish. The heathen 
 called God Father, seeing the goodness, but not 
 understanding the majesty, of Him on whom they 
 called. And there is among ourselves a confused 
 idea of the love of God, and of His desire to bless 
 us, which seems to justify our calling God, as by 
 a fio;ure, "Our Father." But it is no such con- 
 fused and delusive figure that Christ sets before 
 us, but a reality. It is a fact accomplished, that 
 God has become man ; a present reality, that God 
 is man. The Son of God bas become Son of Man, 
 and for this very purpose — " that we might receive 
 the adoption of sons ;" that we might claim the 
 same Father as Christ claims. 
 
 These words, then, which the Son puts into 
 our lips, again and again raise our hearts to the 
 belief, that not only may we expect for His sake 
 many blessings from God, so that it shall be a 
 very apt simile to call Him Father, but that God 
 enters into a relationship with us in Him, and be- 
 comes for ever connected with us in a way that 
 secures that all blessings shall be ours. It is not 
 on account of what we receive from God that we 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 1 1 
 
 are to think of Him with filial gratitude, and 
 count Him a Tatlier ; but because He is in very 
 truth our Father, we shall receive all things at 
 His hand. The relationship is to be first in our 
 minds, deeper also in our afi'ections ; and, this 
 being so, hope will be easy and humility natural. 
 This is what humbles us and raises us up to be- 
 lieve that God has connected Himself with us. 
 Supposing that nothing ever came of this relation- 
 ship, still it must remain, and remain for ever. 
 Our relationship to God has been established ; 
 the Elder Brother of our race calls God Father ; 
 and irrespective of all that may result from it, 
 this relationship is satisfying to man. Our 
 natures are bound to that of God in the person 
 of Christ ; and so long as that person remains 
 undestroyed we remain related to God. There 
 is, of course, no earthly relationship which fully 
 sets forth this our connexion with God. It is a 
 separate, singular reality, and it must be conceived 
 of separately in its own reality. Other relation- 
 ships may help us to understand it ; but while it 
 is only considered under earthly figures, we are 
 in dano;er of foroettino- that underneath there lies 
 the substantial reality of our sonship. And this, 
 instead of being less true than earthly relation- 
 
12 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 ships, is the one relationship which when a man 
 enters into he ceases to be homeless and a wan- 
 derer, a fugitive and vagabond upon the face of 
 the earth, and from the face of God — ceases to be 
 a mere withered leaf borne helpless on the wind, 
 whose origin none cares to trace, and whose des- 
 tiny none turns to see. He has found his place in 
 the universe, he has found a hold and a hope ; and 
 however in himself unstable, weak, and incapable, 
 he rests enduringly in the unchangeable Father. 
 He has been outside, thinking the world a strange, 
 cold, barren, friendless, and unsatisfying place ; 
 he has wandered about, not seeing " through the 
 thick cloud," and still less dreaming that One was 
 seeing and caring for him, and now he finds he 
 has a Father — One to love. One to serve. One to 
 glorify. One to worship * 
 
 But is it so sacred a ground as this that we 
 are to tread in each day's ordinary approach to 
 God ? No other path is open. The only prayer 
 our Lord will teach begins, " Our Father/' These 
 words it is easy to use in the figurative sense, 
 
 * " I looked on my right band, and beheld, but there was 
 no man that would know me : refuge failed me ; no man 
 cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, Lord : 1 said, Thou 
 art my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living." — 
 Ps. cxlii. 4, 5. 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 1 3 
 
 for we can all readily acknowledge that God has 
 been kind, and acted towards us like a Father. 
 But this sense wins us nothino^. It oroes round, 
 like a thief or a robber, seeking another entrance 
 to the favour of God than the door that He has 
 Himself opened in Christ, and therefore it brings 
 us no nearer God, but only misleads us. And 
 there is no need that we seek for another en- 
 trance, for the door is wide enough. It lets in 
 every one that would pass through it. The one 
 thing that we have to show as our passport by 
 this gate is our humanity. If we say that we 
 are born of woman, as Christ was " born of a 
 woman," then His Father owns us. This is all. 
 There is no man who may not use this prayer. 
 And there is no man who is more entitled to use 
 it than another. For the title does not lie in the 
 petitioner, but in Christ. These words do not 
 say, " If you are of kindred spirit with Christ, if 
 you can depend upon the resolves you have made 
 to live a pure and holy life, if you have often 
 used this prayer already, then come, and with 
 freedom and boldness call God Father;" but 
 they go out to the ends of the earth, they look 
 upon all human conditions, they consider the fair 
 and the foul, the stately, noble, and promising in 
 
14 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 human character, and also all that is wrecked 
 and lost, and they say, " If you are human, if 
 you wear the nature worn by the Son, if you are 
 born of woman, then no matter whatever else 
 you are, come, and say, 'My Father/" 
 
 These words may be abused. A man may 
 shrink from this holy relationship, and yet call 
 upon God. Of course he gains nothing by it ; 
 the favour of God has never been stolen into 
 under cover of deceit. He knows who come to 
 Him through Christ, and who only name the 
 name of Christ. But we may deceive ourselves. 
 And therefore we are to listen to conscience, 
 which tells us that a likeness of character is 
 expected between father and child. This like- 
 ness is found in all who call God Father in truth. 
 Such an assimilation Christ supposes, saying, in 
 this same Sermon on the Mount, *' Love your 
 enemies, do good to them that hate you, that ye 
 may he the children of your Father which is in 
 heaven." But to recognise, own, and call upon 
 our Father is the first and most grateful promise 
 of likeness to Him. And as th« earthly parent 
 feels a new bond to his child, when the child, in 
 its first efforts at language, calls upon him and 
 claims him as his father, so the first move* 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 1 5 
 
 ment of the Spirit of holiness within the child of 
 God teaches him to cry, " Abba, Father," and, 
 imperfectly though it be spoken, God hails it as 
 the sign of holiness begun, and as the earnest of 
 likeness to Himself. 
 
 This same idea is carried out by the epithet 
 attached ; for we say not merely, " Our Father," 
 but distinctively, " Our Father which art in hea- 
 ven." And as the ideas of holiness and power 
 are those which all men naturally associate with 
 " heaven," we are to bear in mind mainly these 
 two things about Him to whom we pray — that 
 He is holy, and that He is powerful. No doubt 
 there are other ideas which are also susjo-ested to 
 our thoughts as these words pass our lips. No 
 doubt, by praying to Heaven, we acknowledge 
 that earth is not sufficient for us ; that the 
 things of earth are gifts, not here of themselves, 
 but sent by God, and that " a man can receive 
 nothing, except it be given him of Heaven." We 
 look to Heaven as the source of all power ; when 
 the heavens hear the earth, then the earth yields 
 her fruit. This expression helps us further in 
 prayer, by giving to God a distinct habitation. 
 Our prayer would be much more difficult were 
 we permitted to say nothing more than, '' Our 
 
1 6 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 Father." Our minds are by far too weak to 
 grasp the idea of an omnipresent spirit. It is 
 true, as it has been said, " Where God is, there 
 is heaven — and where is God not?" But ought 
 we not rather to say, " Whither Christ has 
 ascended, and now lives with His human body, 
 there is heaven, and the presence of the Father 
 for us?" Unless so, unless we concentrate hea- 
 ven in the person of Christ, and believe in His 
 bodily appealing before God for us, then are we 
 set to a harder task in our worship than were 
 ever the ancient people of God. W^e need such 
 an aid as is here given to keep the distinct per- 
 sonality of God before us. We are not to mingle 
 Him with His creation, but are to pray to one 
 who is separate from all He has made. So the 
 Bible tells us of heaven, where His throne is set. 
 Of the reality and position of this dwelling-place 
 of God it is enough for us to know that Christ is 
 there. Knowing this, God cannot be lost to us. 
 Wherever man is, there is a heaven above him ; 
 and from the spot he stands on, he may appeal 
 to God through Him that is the Way. It is not 
 to an idea of our own we appeal, but to a separ- 
 ate, definite person, who hears when we say, 
 " Thou." We do not make His presence bv fall- 
 
O UR FATHER WHICH ART IN HE A VEN. 1 7 
 
 in^ ou our knees ; He was before we prayed, and 
 was present before we realised His presence. 
 
 But the leading idea put into our minds by 
 our Lord is, that as God will help us as our Fa- 
 ther, so can He as being in heaven. As David 
 says, " Our God is in the heavens, he hath done 
 whatsoever he hath pleased." From the dark- 
 ness of earth we pray to Him who is in the light 
 of heaven ; from the confusion of earth and its 
 perplexity, we pray to Him who sits above, see- 
 ing to the end, and ordering all things ; from the 
 trouble and weakness of earth we cry up to the 
 " blessed and only Potentate, God over all, blessed 
 for evermore." It is good for us to remember 
 that there even is a heaven as well as an earth ; 
 a place where God's rule is seen, and where all 
 is harmonious, well-ordered, steady, peaceful, as 
 the blue vault that symbolises it. But how much 
 better to direct our prayer into that kingdom, to 
 its centre and throne, and thus to fasten and 
 secure our hopes in the world above, where there 
 is no more curse, and where they dwell who even 
 now have overcome. This is our comfort, that 
 while we are involved in this world we can ap- 
 peal to One who is above it. and uncontrolled b_y 
 it. Or this might be our comfort, did we not 
 
1 8 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES Tl PRAT. 
 
 bring God also down to earth, and either luse 
 sight of Him amid its confusion, or bind Him 
 helpless with His own laws. "Our prayer will 
 not proceed in faith until we raise God high 
 above us and all that w^e know, to the very 
 supreme of power. When the utmost skill and 
 strength of the child have failed, he runs to his 
 father, never doubting that with him is more 
 skill and sufficient strength. And we must learn 
 to cease from measuring the power of God by 
 our own, and reasoning from the one to the 
 other. We must learn to set God above His 
 own laws ; not that He will reverse them, but 
 use them as we know not how. We are not to 
 think that, where w^e see no possibility, God sees 
 none ; that, when all human skill has been fruit- 
 lessly spent, there is no more that God can do ; 
 that, when everything goes wrong with us, and 
 we are ready to sit down and w^ait for ruin, there 
 is no help for us in God. Too often we pray to 
 a God whom we do not set in the heavens, to 
 whom we do not in fact ascribe as much wisdom 
 and power as we do to men, whose help we do 
 not as fully trust in as w^e should in the combined 
 help of some on earth we know of, whom we 
 scarcely trust in much more than in ourselves, 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 1 9 
 
 else we should not be found despairing when we 
 see no remedy for our ills and when our own 
 strength is exhausted. 
 
 Again, this invocation sets before us a God of 
 heavenly holiness as well as of heavenly power. 
 In the God to whom we pray centres all influ- 
 ence for good, and from Him proceeds no evil. 
 Every exercise of His power has been, and con^ 
 tinues to be, on the side of good. " He cannot 
 be tempted." No circumstances can combine to 
 make Him favour evil-doins: or neolect well-do- 
 ing. It is of His nature to help, to give, to bless 
 to the utmost. Free from all suspicion, because 
 He knows what is in us. He appreciates the 
 feeblest beginnings of good, cherishes and fosters 
 into life what man would count dead and lost, 
 knows nothing of the grudging, of the malice, of 
 the captiousness of man, but watches how He 
 may encourage us in the slightest efforts towards 
 the right, watches how He may insinuate 
 His help, and in proportion to His own free- 
 dom from all taint or shadow of evil, deals, 
 delicately with the sinner in all His way, until 
 our eyes begin to open to the perfect recti- 
 tude, simplicity, and loveliness of His charactern 
 and we see that in Him there is help for us in 
 
20 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 all good, and deliverance from all evil. And 
 when we see something of the holiness of God, 
 we shall be careful to restrain such desires as are 
 inconsistent with His purposes, but shall very 
 boldly expect that He will "hear the right." 
 
 It need scarcely be said, that the word " our," 
 by which we are here taught to address God, can 
 by no means prohibit or discountenance the indivi- 
 dual and private use of this prayer. But our 
 Lord, viewing the need of the whole body of His 
 people, gives one prayer for all, and it is when 
 we pray together and for the things we need in 
 common with all men who have lived through 
 this world, that we feel the certainty of our 
 being heard grow to its height. We then but 
 swell the common voice which has gone up to 
 God in all times and from all corners of the 
 world, winch has passed to Him from the un- 
 hardened lips of the child, and which He has 
 caught up from the broken utterances of the 
 dying ; which has been sighed as a forlorn hope 
 by the despondent and oppressed, when all other 
 hope seemed vain, and which is gradually risen 
 to, through other prayers, as the highest and 
 most hopeful utterance of Christian faith — an 
 utterance which, like the highest flight of angels 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. 21 
 
 on Jacob's ladder of prayer, carries the soul out 
 cf sight of earth, and, giving it the vision of the 
 things of Grod, teaches it what is worthy to be 
 desired. Kound this prayer the desires of all the 
 faithful cluster, and here we enjoy the com- 
 munion of saints. Praying in remembrance of 
 that great company of our fellow-men in whom 
 we see more legibly and variously written all the 
 sorrows and anxieties, all the pains and sins, 
 that are incident to our common humanity, we 
 learn what are indeed our deep and urgent needs. 
 No more blinded by our own peculiar and imme- 
 diately present circumstances, we learn to see 
 through them to the wants which lie at the 
 ground of our nature, and always exist. And 
 thus we are taught what to pray for, both by the 
 company in which we pray, and by the nature of 
 Him to whom we pray. Praying with our fel- 
 low-men, and excluding no most distant charac- 
 ter, nor saddest condition, nor deepest necessity, 
 our hearts expand to desire those larger blessings 
 which embrace our whole beings, and do not 
 limit prayer to those particular benefits which 
 touch only what is peculiar in our present case. 
 And praying to the holy and loving God, our 
 hearts renounce evil and earthly desires, and rise 
 
2 2 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PR A Y. 
 
 to things that are worthy to be given by the 
 Father of glory. 
 
 The propriety and breadth of this invocation 
 are thus readily appreciated. To use it rightly, 
 with the understanding and the spirit, is to be- 
 gin prayer as we ought ; confidently and lovingly, 
 because we pray to "Our Father;" humbly, 
 because we call God " Father " only through the 
 humiliation of the Son ; hopefully, because all 
 power is with Him ; carefully, because He is 
 holy. When we are drawing near to God, as if 
 we were hardly used, as if our misery were giv- 
 ing us a claim, as it gives God occasion of mercy, 
 then this " Our Father '* reduces our spirits to a 
 lowly and suitable thankfulness. I cannot be 
 hardly dealt with if I can say to God, " My 
 Father." When we are drawing near recklessly, 
 more because the time of prayer has come roimd 
 than because the heart is hungering after the 
 things of God, does not this '' Our Father" bring 
 before our thoughts all the toil of Christ on our 
 behalf. His incarnation and His passion. His 
 ascension and His ceaseless appearing before 
 God for us, and forbid us to use lightly what is 
 so earnest a matter to Him ? Wiien we would 
 gladly have the blessings of God's bounty and 
 
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. ^Z 
 
 the security of His favour, bufc would rather 
 have these at a distance from Himself, than come 
 into any connexion with Him which would 
 oblige us to lead a holy life, does not this " Our 
 Father " profitably remind us, that relationship 
 close, enduring, and assimilating, must be the 
 beginning of all hope and blessing ? When we 
 are entering on an act of devotion, as if it were 
 a niere exercise of the spirit, in which none is 
 concerned but itself, this invocation reminds us 
 that prayer is something more than ''a posture of 
 the soul," a beneficial state of mind, an under- 
 going of certain trains of thought and emotion, 
 that it is address to another, transaction with a 
 personal, present, living God. In short, this 
 introduction suits itself to every praying spirit, 
 attractino- and encourao-ino; and fillinsi: with all 
 suitable thoughts and feelings. 
 
 Let US, then, use this common prayer with 
 intelligence, striving always to fill it more fully 
 with meaning and desire. Let us wait for no 
 other introduction than that which is given us 
 here ; and, seeing that it is no stranger who asks 
 for our worship, let us believe that thus He 
 would have us get over that great difficulty of 
 drawing near to Him suitably, and let us ask 
 
24 TEE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PR A Y. 
 
 from Him, than whom none is nearer, none more 
 intelligent of our condition, none more consider- 
 ate, none more painstaking about us. And as 
 we have the faculty of love to attach us one to 
 another, which makes solitude wearisome and 
 friendlessness terrible, so we have this faculty of 
 worship; which is relieved and finds its object, 
 when we return from our distance and banish- 
 ment, and fall down before God, and say, '^ Our 
 Father which art in heaven." This is love, and 
 admiration, and trust, the most absolute. This 
 is the ultimate repose of the spirit, beyond which 
 nothing is desired, nor can be conceived. This 
 is the feeling which at last says, " It is good for 
 us to be here ; here let us dwell, even in thee, 
 Lord, who art our dwelling-place in all genera- 
 tions.*' 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 2$ 
 
 H. 
 
 *' Hallowed be tliy Name." 
 
 Of the petitions which are included in this 
 prayer, none has been less prayed than this 
 which our Lord sets first. Many a man has 
 cried earnestly and sincerely enough, " Give me 
 this day my daily bread ; " many with deeper 
 earnestness, and out of a more appalling helpless- 
 ness, have cried, "Deliver us from evil;" but 
 few have learnt to have this petition deepest in 
 the heart and readiest on the lip, " Hallowed be 
 thy name." At all times we recognise it as very 
 proper, but rather as a doing of homage to Him 
 we invoke than as the first soaring petition, in 
 which the spirit, feeling its liberty and rejoicing 
 in the wealth of its prospect, rises at once to the 
 very summit of all desire. Is there not this 
 feeling still in our hearts, (and is it not one that 
 must be got rid of,) that to desire God's glory, 
 and pray for it before we tell the wants which 
 
26 
 
 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PR A Y. 
 
 are gnawing our spirits with very sensible agony, 
 may be a seemly and decorous order, but is cer- 
 tainly not the natural one ; that, if it be right to 
 seek the glory of God first, this must always be 
 with us an artificial order ; that the habit of our 
 minds is so constantly to make for our own good 
 that it can only be by constraint and correction 
 we can reverse this habit, and seek other things 
 as heartily ? Now^ prayer demands that the very 
 order of it be sincere, that we do not set first 
 among our petitions what ranks among the last 
 of our desires, nor think to propitiate God by an 
 artificial introduction wrought up beyond our 
 feeling. The aid of the Spiiit is afforded us that 
 the deep-seated longing for the glory of God, 
 which has seemed impossible to us, may become 
 not only possible, but habitually predominant. 
 
 However, that we may not set before ourselves 
 a higher attainment than God has set, and higher 
 therefore than we can achieve, and so, instead of 
 rising, sink into a despairing helplessness tnat 
 gives up all effort, let us remember that God's 
 glory and our own good are so connected that we 
 cannot desire the one without also, at least in- 
 directly, desiring the other ; as little as a soldier 
 can eagerly advance the glory of his commander 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 27 
 
 without thereby advancing himself. And as there 
 are times when the only way to secure the good 
 of the cause in which he serves is to give his 
 whole thought to the providing for his personal 
 safety, and when he is so tumultuously and press- 
 ingly surrounded with dangers, that it were idle 
 to ask him to think of anything else, or desire defi- 
 nitely anything else than his own deliverance and 
 victory, so there are times when a man's personal 
 wants so throng before him, and when his own 
 condition is so critical, that to ask him to pray 
 for anything else than personal help and deliver- 
 ance would be useless and wrong. For what so 
 desirable as that a man be brought to God by the 
 intense agonising desires of his own heart, and 
 should own, out of his personal and unmistak- 
 able experience, that with God are blessings which 
 must be had now, and before anything further 
 can be thought of ? But this prayer, while by 
 its individual petitions it satisfies these occasional 
 moods, is specially adapted to our ordinary con- 
 dition, and teaches that to an unperturbed mind, 
 calmly surveying the desirable state of things, 
 the glory of God will appear to be the compre- 
 hensive and prime blessing, which, if secured, all 
 else will go well. We are to desire it not as 
 
28 
 
 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 something different from, but as including our 
 own good ; nor yet are we to desire it for this 
 one reason only, that it includes our own good, 
 but in view also of all that other good which is 
 besides embraced in it. The right condition of 
 things, the well-ordered and firmly-established 
 condition, in which we may eternally abide with 
 security, gladness, scope, and highest energy, is to 
 be attained by this prayer ; surely, then, first of 
 all must God, the centre and head of all, get His 
 place in the world. Should we believe that this 
 was a prayer to be trusted to, did it open with 
 any other, any lower petition? Is not this at 
 least a good beginning, a sure foundation? Is 
 not this that which all men, at all times, may 
 agree to desire ? 
 
 But though these words, " Hallowed be thy 
 name," are a distinct petition, and not a mere 
 appendix to the invocation, yet without the invo- 
 cation we cannot understand nor use this first 
 petition. For to think of God as we naturally 
 do, and pray that His name may be hallowed, is 
 impossible. The names by which our untaught 
 hearts would call God are such as these, distant, 
 inexorable, unsympathising, grudging ; inhabiting 
 quite another world than ours ; separate from, and 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 29 
 
 even ignorant of, all influences which move us ; 
 having a will to humble and tyrannise over and 
 baffle us. If such be the names which best re- 
 present our idea of God, then of course we cannot 
 pray, " Hallowed be thy name." But such is 
 not the God to whom we have been introduced 
 by Christ ; He has taught us to say " Our 
 Father ;" He has come and, without upbraiding, 
 has convinced us how totally we have misunder- 
 stood God. He has taken the veil from our 
 hearts, and the fixed aspect of eternal and un- 
 alterable love moves us to humility and wonder- 
 ing devotion. He shows us how, while we have 
 been forgetting God, He has been thinking upon 
 us ; how, while our thoughts toward Him have 
 been full of suspicion, and weariness, and aver- 
 sion, His towards us have been " precious," fraught 
 with inefiable compassion, forbearance such as 
 the patience of God could alone exhibit, and a 
 marvellous goodness which has taken up every 
 feature of our necessity, and being still unex- 
 hausted by this great draught upon it, has liber- 
 ally and rejoicingly showered upon us lavish and 
 unthought-of blessings. He has shown us above 
 all, that, while we have been seeking to sever 
 ourselves from God, He has been connecting 
 
30 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 Himself with us, so that no interests can be dearer 
 to Him than ours; that ''hitherto hath the 
 Father worked" and the Son for the unconscious 
 and helpless younger brethren ; and that His 
 care being to provide for us, His purpose to 
 prosper us, His glory our well-being, and His 
 Son our elder brother. He would have us know 
 Him by this name, " Our Father." And when 
 we are moved by the Spirit of adoption to call 
 God by this name, and to believe that there is 
 one family in heaven and on eartli, called by the 
 name of the Son of man who came down from 
 heaven ; when we look to the face of this Father 
 and see in its loving wisdom and majesty and 
 trui?li that verily He is also God ; wdien we survey 
 the excellences which belong alone to Him whose 
 love thus embraces us as in a sure dwelling- 
 place, then glorying, we glory in God; and 
 saying, " Our Father which art in heaven," we 
 say in the same breath, in the same burst of 
 feeling, "Hallowed be thy name." We need 
 nat the old admonition, " If I be a Father, where 
 is mine honour?" For the time, at least, we 
 have the feelings of God's children ; and what 
 so dear to the heart of the child as the honour of 
 his father's name ? As we approach and address 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 3 1 
 
 Him our hearts fill and swell with a sense of His 
 boundless might and marvellous counsel, of His 
 supremacy in dominion and in excellence, so 
 different from all else that He is seen to have 
 right to His name, " I am, and there is none 
 else beside me," and yet — "Our Father;" so 
 separated from all besides tliat He and they can- 
 not be named under the same kind of existence, 
 and yet " Our Father." How can we but long 
 that all men should revere this name, and should 
 come to such knowledge of it as to live by it ? 
 
 But what precisely are the feelings we express 
 when we say, " Hallowed be thy name?" Is the 
 name of God of similar use and meaning to the 
 name of a man ? A man's name is that by which 
 we speak of him to distinguish him from every 
 one else. Wlien we use the name of any one, it 
 calls up to our minds a certain character, not 
 always according to truth, but according to our 
 idea of the man. And so, when we hear or use 
 the name of God, there is also present to our 
 minds a certain character ; too often a character 
 made up of the ideas which we have thought- 
 lessly suffered to cluster round the name ; some- 
 times, however, a character which does on the 
 wdiole agree with what God has taught us to 
 
32 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 believe about Him. The name of God is not 
 God himself, neither is it our idea of God, but it 
 is that expressed idea of Him which He himself 
 would have us to possess, and which may be 
 gathered from His own revelation. The name 
 of God is not the nature of God, nor His rela- 
 tionship to us ; but if the conception which God 
 would have us to cherish of Him can be summed 
 up in one word, then that word is the name of 
 God. When it is said, " Some trust in chariots, 
 and some in horses, but we will remember the 
 name of the Lord our God," the meaning is, that 
 confidence could be best maintained by remem- 
 bering what God had taught concerning Himself. 
 When it is said, " They that know thy name will 
 put their trust in thee," it is meant that whoever 
 has that idea of God which He himself by His 
 dealings and teaching has warranted, will trust 
 in Him. These dealings and teaching are not 
 themselves the name, but rather the utterance of 
 the name. From all that God has done and said 
 gather up the various features of His character, 
 and express these, and in that expression you have 
 the name. The name of God is that which we 
 can contemplate and say, " God is that/' 
 
 This name we are not left to find out for our- 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 33 
 
 pelves, rroru tne tirst; it iias oeen the care oit* God 
 •* to spell out Himself to us. sometimes by one per- 
 fection, and sometimes by another." One feature 
 alter another of His character has been revealed, 
 until at length ail has been shown us in Him who 
 is " the express image of His person." Hint upon 
 hint was given of the loving purpose of God to 
 man, until all was told in the Word who declared 
 the Father. Nearer and nearer did heaven seem 
 coming to earth, closer and closer did God involve 
 His glory with human interests, till the Son came 
 and showed us " the. Father." Nothing now can 
 be added to this name ; in it all that God is to 
 us is summed up, and all that He is in Himself is 
 implied in it. He jealously guarded His former 
 names, and called the attention of men to each 
 addition to His name, that the glory of this final 
 name might be understood and received. To 
 Moses He says, " I appeared unto Abraham, unto 
 Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God 
 Almighty ; but by my name Jehovah was I not 
 known to them," intimating as distinctly as may 
 be that now He is about to reveal something more 
 of His character. When He gave this name. He 
 was about to bring out of an idolatrous country, 
 and plant in the midst of an idolatrous world, a 
 
34 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO FJRAY. 
 
 people in whom trie knowledge of the one God 
 was to be maintained for all generations. And 
 so He calls Himself now by a name distinguisii- 
 nis: Him from all usurpant gods. He calls Him- 
 self Jehovah, the I Am, the living God, who alone 
 has life in Himself, the eternal and unchangeable 
 One, which is, and which was, and which is to 
 come. So hallowed was this name by the Jews, 
 that they would not pronounce it ; nor do we. 
 wonder at their awe when we read their books, 
 and see what God himself made of this name. 
 There, at the end of warnings that are terrible to 
 read, come these words as the seal, " I Jehovah ;" 
 He who would be of the same mind to all genera- 
 tions, whose threatenings could not be vain, but 
 were the expression of an eternal decision, of 
 judgment passed with all time present to His 
 eternal, all-embracing vision. And at the end of 
 promises reaching far into the future, and speak- 
 ing of things far different from the then present, 
 come again these words as tli« firm ground of all 
 assurance, the siojnature of God, " I Jehovah/' 
 Tnis name was the fountain of all authority, and 
 the irnarantee of ail contidence : a name asser'"ing 
 tor its owner, what no other name ever did. the 
 excmsive proprietorsnip of life ; a " glorious ana 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 35 
 
 fearful name," which set itself above every name, 
 and inhabited a glory of its own. But this name 
 was then given not only to preserve those who 
 hallowed it from the hallowing of any names 
 which were unworthy of worship, but to be a 
 constant comfort and near refuge to them in all 
 their wanderings. Jehovah is the eternal, the 
 only God, because He only hath life, but also the 
 only dwelling-place of His people, because He 
 only is unchangeable. They had to be taught, as 
 we have to be taught, that not in this place nor 
 in that, but in God is the true rest. And so, 
 while they were led from place to place, they had 
 God dwelling among them by striking symbol, 
 and they had the name of the Eternal and Un- 
 changeable, keeping them in mind that He who 
 led them changed not nor ever passed away. 
 
 But to this was to be added a further name. 
 To know God as a rest and a home, even this was 
 not enough. It might seem at first sight to be 
 enough to know Him as the " I AM," who has life, 
 independent of all origin, independent also of all 
 accidents and contingencies, who possesses the 
 only true existence, and without whom nothing 
 else can be ; it might seem enough to know Him 
 as the '' I AM," the eternally Present, with whom 
 
36 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY, 
 
 is neither past nor future, whose name is " I AM,"' 
 because in Him is no revolution of years nor suc- 
 cession and lapse of times. If He " is " now all 
 that He ever has been, all tliat He ever shall 
 become ; if all time as well as all place is em- 
 braced in His existence ; if by the name He has 
 oiven us of Himself He has taught our faculties 
 to strive to annihilate time and its changes and 
 rise to His eternity, to resist our sinkings and 
 waverings of faith and our varying moods, and to 
 live now in all the peace and joy of a life that 
 we have in the Eternal ; if He has taught us thus 
 tliat with Him there is and can be " neither vari- 
 ableness nor shadow of turning ;" if He has taught 
 is also to be independent of place, and has shown 
 to us Himself as the One that is still with us, in 
 whom we live, and who still brings us to the 
 place that yields us the life He intends ; if He 
 does all this, is there more that He can do? 
 Over the virgin mother's babe He pronounces a 
 name which so fills the heart that it excludes all 
 others. " Behold, I send a messenger before thee, 
 to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into 
 the place which I have prepared ; obey His voice, 
 for my name is in Him." And the name that is 
 in Him is "Our Father," no longer a name that 
 
HALLOWED BE TIIY NAME. 37 
 
 needs to be interpreted by accompanying symbols, 
 but a name that "is in" the living person of Jesus 
 Christ, and that we read as often as we look to 
 Him ; no longer the dwelling-place merely, but 
 the Father in whom we are secured of refuge and 
 rest ; no longer the Almighty to whom we may 
 appeal with sure hope, but the Father who " Him- 
 self loveth us/' and whose care it is to accomplish 
 our blessedness ; no longer a " fearful name," the 
 utterance of which overwhelms us, and the com- 
 prehension of which is above us, but a name which 
 every child of woman can understand, and whose 
 very simplicity attracts and wins us by its con- 
 descending nearness to ourselves. But this name 
 excludes all other names, only because it contains 
 all that was in them. It comes "not to destroy, 
 but to fulfil." It was this name that the hearts 
 of GoJ/s people were unconsciously yearning after 
 through all other names that were given, until the 
 Son came forth, for whom all revelation of God's 
 nature and relation to us was preparing, and in 
 whom all revelation is summed up, the Word 
 whom God ''has magnified above all His name.'' 
 It is this name, then, which we are to hallow. 
 The prayer runs thus, " Our Father, which art in 
 heaven, Hallowed be thy name." And so it is 
 
3 5 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 of all the petitions : eacli is introduced by an in- 
 vocation to " Our Father." It is our Father we 
 ask to rule us, our Father we ask to forgive us, 
 our Father we ask to lead us. And it is, along 
 with this, to be noted that this is a name which, 
 though at first hearing it speaks only of relation- 
 ship to us, tells also and fuMy of God's nature. 
 The relation it speaks of is one that comes of 
 His attributes. It is not accidental nor arbi- 
 trary, but is so truly the result and free expres- 
 sion of the nature of God, that through it we 
 can read all that it concerns us to know of that 
 nature. And this will be obvious to all who are 
 accustomed to find in the incarnation and cross 
 of Christ the most evident manifestation of God. 
 So that we learn to pray that this name may be 
 hallowed not only because it is our Father's 
 name, but because the name of God is "Our 
 Father ; " that is, we see that the name of God 
 is to be hallowed not only because of His con- 
 nexion with us, but in view also of all the worth 
 which this connexion reveals. Beginning, it 
 may be, with more of gratitude for God's grace 
 to us than of vision of His nature, and springing 
 always from this source of grateful love, this 
 petition yet leads us to all the depths and all the 
 
HALLOWED BE THY JSTAME. 39 
 
 heights of worship. God would have us, first of 
 ail, to worship Him not as the Euler of all worlds, 
 "hut as bound to this world ; not as attendino- to 
 all parts of an infinite universe, but as regarding 
 us ; not, in short, as the Head of all things that 
 are, but mainly and in the first instance as '' Oar 
 Father." He confines our view that we may 
 see more distinctly ; this name does not show 
 any part of His nature nor any portion of His 
 dealings with which we are not concerned, but 
 it runs directly between us and Him, and as 
 through a glass which by confining magnifies 
 and renders distinct, so through t^iis name we 
 are separated from distracting views of God, and 
 led straight to all that He means to kindle our 
 worship. 
 
 Learning what God is, we ask that His name 
 may be hallowed or held sacred, regarded by all 
 as a true and holy thing that is at any cost to be 
 maintained in esteem, and under all temptation 
 still believed in. May the idea of God, which 
 He would have us to possess, be held as the 
 choice possession of our spirits, the treasure on 
 which our hearts rest, and to which they ever 
 return ; may it be held separate from all con- 
 tamination of our own thoughts about God ; and 
 
40 . THE PRAYEK THAT TEACHES TO PBAY. 
 
 may it never be obscured by any cloud of adver- 
 sity tempting us to think that God has changed ; 
 never lost sight of by any careless devotion of 
 our thoughts to other objects and names ; never 
 presumed upon nor polluted as countenancing 
 folly or sin, but cherished still and guarded as 
 *'the holy and reverend name of the Lord." For 
 this is what we all need, the abiding assurance 
 of the reality of God in the excellences of His 
 nature and the grace of His connexion with us. 
 How heartily would this name of God in Christ 
 have been welcomed by those who felt after God, 
 if haj)ly they might find Him ; how would they 
 have welcomed the utterance of God's name in 
 the life of Christ, as giving to them at last the 
 knowledge of what is eternally right and good, 
 pure and holy; as giving them at last one whom 
 they could eternally worship, from whom they 
 could accept law and guidance, and in whom 
 they could trust for all. And this is what we 
 also must find ; if there be One, and who He is, 
 to whom we may ever look up, and whom we 
 may love and worship ; whose actings are not 
 biassed by personal leanings, nor fashioned by 
 the customs or ideas of others, but are true and 
 righteoi's; One who "is light, and in whom is 
 
n ALLOWED BE THY NAME. 41 
 
 no darkness at all ; '* One in whom we ma}^ trust 
 without fear, because He is absolutely good, His 
 love breaking down at no point, interrupted by 
 no suspicion or coldness, yet never leading us 
 astray, nor doing for us what needs to be undone. 
 This is what we need, to learn and not to invent 
 the name of God ; to see His character disjDlayed 
 in a perfect, living person, that we may no longer 
 guess at His thoughts and ways from our own, 
 nor worship our own best idea, but may worship 
 one whom we can call by name ; whose name is 
 written for us, and has become familiar to us, 
 by the actualities of life, and whose name em- 
 bodies and rejDresents to us all that is absolutely 
 and eternally excellent. And who that worships 
 at all has not found his need of a more fixed idea 
 of God ? Who has not learnt that, if he is to 
 worship at all, or pray to some more real object 
 than a Samaritan god, he needs this for his first 
 petition, " Hallowed be thy name ? " This morn- 
 ing I found it easy to worship ; God seemed 
 near and living, as a second Person with me ; 
 His Majesty so patent, that humility was natu- 
 ral, and levity impossible ; His holiness and love 
 so evident, that my soul was rapt from all other 
 objects. I did worship, and I worshipped God ; 
 
42 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 but when the remembrance of the morning bids 
 me this evening seek a renewal of the delight, 
 how different and how hard a task do I set my- 
 self ! What seemed so substantial and living, 
 has become shadowy and ideal only. He who 
 seemed so attractive, that I was prepared to for- 
 sake all and follow Him, has put on the task- 
 master, or the coLl, repulsive indifference of the 
 ruler of other worlds. The name of God has not 
 been hallowed by me ; profane feet have trodden 
 the shrine consecrated to it. The examples of 
 men have pressed out of remembrance the unal- 
 terable holiness of God, and I have lived as if 
 holiness were not expected of me. Eagerness to 
 compete with the world at its own race, has 
 hurried me beyond the voice of God, and the 
 restraining sense of His presence has been sup- 
 planted by indifference and forgetfulness. Once 
 having fallen, I have thought myself unworthy 
 or made myself regardless of God's forgiveness 
 and aid, and have fought my own battles wiping 
 the name of my Father from my heart. I have 
 let go the thought of what God is to me, and 
 have too freely admitted other claims. And now 
 the name that I have so often denied seems untrue 
 in my lips. 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NA3IE. 43 
 
 And not less for life than for worship do we 
 nerd that the name of God be hallowed ; for by 
 a man's thoughts of God is his whole character 
 formed.*^ Let him think of a god who delimits 
 in blcod, and he will delight in the same; let 
 him worship a god imperfect in holiness, and his 
 efforts after holy living will not be many nor 
 severe ; let him think of a god who is pleased 
 with ceremonies, and he will become a formalist ; 
 let him think of a god who can be paid by ser- 
 vice, and he will become a hypocrite ; let him 
 think of a hard master, reaping where he has not 
 sown, and gathering where he strawed not, and 
 he will shirk every duty he dare, and tremble 
 through a life of slavery to a death of confusion 
 and dismay. But let him know God as his 
 Father in Christ, and every influence for good 
 that can be brought to bear upon the human char- 
 acter is enjoyed by that man. This knowledge 
 will be the little leaven leavening the whole mass ; 
 the new centre in the heart round which each 
 regenerated principle within us will take its place. 
 It is an influence all for good, unlike that of the 
 
 * " Upon our thoughts of God, it will depend, in one time 
 or another, whether we rise higher or sink lower as societies 
 and as individuals." — Maurice. 
 
4 \- THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 character of man, wliicli mingles harm with its 
 liealino;. It is the character wliich from tiie first 
 has sustained, and to the last will sustain, all 
 good that is found in man. It is because God is 
 wliat He is, that there has been any holiness ou 
 earth ; because He loveth righteousness, therefore 
 has He created men capable of righteous deeds ; 
 because He has been demanding perfect holiness, 
 therefore have those who hallowed His name bit- 
 terly mourned over their shortcomings, and have 
 still persevered and hoped, because He is their 
 Father. By His name, by the real and holy and 
 aiding personality which that name keeps within 
 our ken, is the inevitable and stimulating idea of 
 duty cherished within us. These words, " Ee- 
 member thy Father in Christ," (which have taken 
 the place of *' Eemember the Lord thy God,"*) 
 when spoken amid the tumult of the soul, have 
 been as the monarch's voice, and have been 
 enough to calm and lay its wild rebellion, to curb 
 its passionate desire, to turn again to its rightful 
 object the attention and homage of the soul. 
 Under the most adverse circumstances, the name 
 of God has still done its work. Through thi.s 
 name God has found entrance to the most har- 
 * See Tholuck ou " The Sermon on the Mount. ' 
 
HALLO WEB BE THY NAME. 45 
 
 (lened lieart, and uttering it over the dead con- 
 sci^^jice tnat has long lain buried under manifold 
 iniquities, Me has quickened it to life and wake- 
 ful activity ; in hearts that have been a prey to 
 all doubt, and whose doubt has been fostered by 
 all impurity of life, this name has enshrined itself, 
 and round it has gradually been formed again a 
 temple of the living God ; and it has still been 
 calmly and lovingly answering the doleful ques- 
 tions of despairing souls, and to those who have 
 either wickedly or in their weakness cried, " What 
 is truth V and " Who will show us any good?" 
 its response has ever been, " Our Father." Hope- 
 fully as the morning star has it risen on the be- 
 nighted and weary; with healing and joy, as the 
 Sun of Eighteousnekss, has it ushered in the ever- 
 lasting "day which the Lord hath made," and 
 from which all darkness is passed away, and in 
 which we see God as He is, and discover the 
 holiness and the hope there is for us in Him. 
 Scattering all false ideas of sin and duty, all false 
 rules of life that have grown with our growth, all 
 blind thoughts of God which keep us murmuring 
 and unbelieving, this name of God has come into 
 the soul and said, " Now our' Lord Jesus Christ 
 tiimself, and God, even our Father, which hath 
 
46 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 loved us, and hath given us everlasting consola- 
 tion, and good hope through grace, comfort your 
 hearts, and stablish you in every good word anrf 
 work/' 
 
 And what the name of God is for individuals 
 it is for communities. If for our own land, or 
 for other lands, we hope for better things than 
 the present, these better things will be brought 
 about, when the name of God is hallowed — wh«n 
 His name is declared to all, and believed by all, 
 and kept jealously and sacredly by all ; when it 
 shines out from the contempt and misunder- 
 standing which overlay it, and is recovered from 
 the suspicion which banishes it ; when it rises 
 above all the representations and tones of man's 
 utterance of it, and appears in its own purity, as 
 if written by the finger of God in the heavens ; 
 when it is acknowledged by all as the highest 
 name, and receives from each a regard which 
 nothing else commands ; when, that is, men learn 
 to look simply and constantly, intelligently and 
 devoutly, to Jesus Christ as the "image of God,'' 
 and will suffer no thought of God to find harbour 
 and influence within them, which is not expressed. 
 in His person. When men own God, and own 
 Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, thon 
 
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 47 
 
 will there be saving health among all nations. 
 \Vlien men come to the knowledge of the only 
 true (iocl and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, 
 then shall they have eternal life. Need it be 
 said that there is nothing else that will reform 
 the world than this, no other head under which 
 ali things can be reconciled, no other centre 
 round which all can gather in love ? Let all men 
 have one common idea of God, and that the true 
 one ; let each man be a true worshipper of the 
 true God ; let each in the solemn and secret 
 chamber of his own soul, where none seeth but 
 our Father who seeth in secret, be owning his 
 responsibility to his God ; let each man lie pros- 
 trate and broken-hearted before the love of God 
 in Christ ; and is there not already *' Glory to 
 God in the highest, and peace on earth ?" How 
 different a world would be that little world with 
 which each of us has to do, and which gives us 
 samples of its sin and its misery, could we say of 
 every one we had to deal with, " I may trust that 
 man to the uttermost ; I inay banish every fear, 
 and all suspicion ; I may expect great things of 
 him, tor I know that far deeper than any earthly 
 influence can penetrate lies written on his heart 
 the name of God, his Kedeemer and Father ; he 
 
4^ THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY, 
 
 knows and acknowledges God, and therefore* 
 acknowledges every right claim, he is already 
 bound by an obligation which no entreaty, no 
 persuasion of mine, could make more binding." 
 
 Let each one, then, look on his own life, and on 
 other lives, and see the blank which God's answers 
 to this petition might have already filled and may 
 yet fill. Let him consider the place which God 
 claims for Himself; let him give heed to His 
 Word, " Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom ; 
 neither let the mighty man glory in his might ; 
 let not the rich man glory in his riches ; but let 
 him that glorieth glory in this, that he under- 
 standeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord 
 which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and 
 righteousness in the earth/' And let him pray, 
 " From me, then, Lord, remove all ignorance of 
 thee, and all unworthy thoughts of thee ; keep far 
 from me all that is forgetful, irreverent, profane ; 
 cast forth from my heart all that opposeth and 
 exalteth itself above all the name of God or that 
 is worshipped^ cast forth from thy temple all 
 that sitteth therein showing itself that it is God ; 
 all my rebellious distrust of thee do thou graci- 
 ously turn into childlike attachment and con- 
 fidence ; ' my presumption of thy indifference 
 
HALLOWED BE THY JVAME. 49 
 
 into hope of thy mercy;' grant to me the spirit 
 of wisdom and revelation in the knowledoe of 
 thee, that, whatever fails me, my trust in thee 
 may still increase, and that I may serve thee in 
 love and acceptance, and my body become a 
 temple of thine. And these things not in myself 
 only, but in all others perform, ' that men may 
 know that thou whose name alone is Jehovah, 
 art the Most High over all the earth;' 'that all 
 nations whom thou hast made may come and 
 worship before thee, Lord, and may glorify 
 thy name.' " And this he prays, who with the 
 understanding and the spirit prays, ''Our Pather, 
 which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name." 
 
50 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO I'liAY. 
 
 III. 
 
 "Thy kingdom come." 
 
 When we find an earthly and a heavenly thing 
 called by the same name, we are very apt to 
 think of the earthly as that which better tills 
 and satisfies the name common to both. "When 
 God calls a spiritual thing or a heavenly arrange- 
 ment by the name of something earthly and well 
 known, we look upon this as merely a mode of 
 illustration, possibly a happy, well-selected illus- 
 tration, but nothing more. We still look on the 
 earthly as the substantial reality to which the 
 name belongs, and deem that there is far more 
 in it than will be found in the other. We think 
 that the heavenly is only somewhat like the other, 
 but will fail in some point. Thus, when God 
 speaks to us of His kingdom, we are too ready 
 to view this as but a figure of sj^eech, which may 
 intimate that the government of God over us does 
 in some p^nts resemble the sway of a monarch 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 51 
 
 over his subjects ; whereas the truth is, that this 
 kingdom is the only one which comes up to the 
 idea of a kinodom, which falls short in nothinor 
 of what a kinofdom should be. " The Lord is 
 Kinor, not borrowino^ this title from the kinos of 
 the earth, but having lent his own title to them ; 
 and not the name only, but having so ordered, 
 that all true rule and government upon earth, 
 with its righteous laws, its stable ordinances, its 
 punishment and its grace, its majesty and its 
 terror, should tell of him and of his kingdom 
 which ruleth over all — so that ' kingdom of God ' 
 ifi not in fact a figurative expression, but most 
 literal : it is rather the earthly kingdoms and the 
 earthly kings that are figures and shadows of 
 the true." * What king but one fulfils David's 
 idea of a king, the idea which he seems to have 
 lived to learn, and which, dying, he left as a 
 
 * Dean Trench, " Notes on the Parables," p. 14, where the 
 connexion of the earthly with the heavenly is fully discussed. 
 The following lines of Coleridge are worth remembering in 
 this connexion : — 
 
 " For all that meets the bodily sense I deem 
 Symbolical, one mighty alphabet 
 For infant minds ; and we in the low world 
 Placed with our backs to bright reality, 
 That we may learn with young unwounded ken 
 The substance from its shadow." 
 
52 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 legacy to bis people, and surrounded with an 
 emphatic accumulation of authority that strik- 
 ingly declares its importance ? " These be the 
 last words of David. David the son of Jesse 
 said, and the man who was raised up on high, the 
 anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet 
 Psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord 
 spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. 
 The God of Israel said, the Kock of Israel spake 
 to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, 
 ruling in the fear of God ; and he shall be as the 
 light of the morning when the sun riseth, even 
 a morning without clouds, as the tender grass 
 sj^ringing out of the earth by clear shining after 
 rain.'" 
 
 Who is there that does not expect (more or 
 less consciously) that some time there will be a 
 better order of thino^s than now we know of ? 
 Who is satisfied with this temporary state, in 
 which evil seems so native, good so foreign ? Or, 
 if satisfied, is it not just because we are aware 
 that it is only temporary, that it is to be got 
 over, travelled through to some better beyond ? 
 Who can believe that God will never manifest to 
 men, how He can govern, and show in actual 
 history the perfection of His kingdom and the 
 
TIIY KINGDOM COME. 53 
 
 benign influence of His laws? Who believes 
 that He will never let us know how right and 
 how salutary a thing it is to obey Him only? 
 Nay more, who does not at least sometimes feel 
 that this kino;dom ouoht to be now, that now we 
 ought to be living under one Supreme, together 
 owning Him, seeing that He is not king elect, 
 heir to the crown, but eternal King ? Those at 
 least who acknowledge the name of God, and 
 who believe that He is, and that He is what He 
 has revealed Himself to be, heartily utter this 
 petition : " Our Father, which art in heaven. Thy 
 kingdom come." 
 
 That it may be intelligently and earnestly 
 uttered, we need to see distinctly what it is. In 
 common with all kingdoms, it is a community, an 
 organised fellowship of men," the bond of whose 
 fellowship is that they all obey the same living 
 Head. It differs from all other kino'doms in 
 this, that its King is the most high God. The 
 subjects of it are all men who are willing to 
 / become its subjects, all who desire to obey the 
 (^will of God, rather than any other. No men, 
 therefore, (it need scarcely be said,) are subjects 
 of this kingdom by birth. "Except a man be 
 born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of 
 
ZA THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 God." Natural or fleshly birth introduces ns to 
 the privileges of nature and of flesh. Birth in 
 time and for time, which has in it the seed of 
 eternal death, introduces ns to the advantages of 
 time, and among others to the external and tem- 
 porary advantages of the kingdom of God. Spiri- 
 tual birth gives us the internal and spiritual 
 advantages. Born of the Spirit of God, we are 
 introduced to the eternal and peculiar privileges 
 of this kingdom. For '' the kingdom of God is 
 not meat and drink;" does not secure the mere 
 protection and help which the kingdoms of this 
 world make all their aim and effort, but it is 
 within us. It begins not at the outside, but 
 within ; alters not our circumstances, but our- 
 selves. And therefore we are introduced to it, 
 not by some accident of our position in this 
 world, but by our own voluntary surrender to a 
 Person, by yielding the allegiance of the whole 
 soul and nature to a King, whom we choose as 
 our King for evermore. This may well be called 
 a birth, then, if for no other reason than this, 
 that it alters the whole character. It is called a 
 birth because it is the beginning of a new life ; a 
 life which meets with no death, nor needs any 
 third birth to carry the man to a yet higher con- 
 
TBY KINGDOM COME. 55 
 
 dition. It is called a second birth, because it 
 breaks off the life which the first birth began, 
 and swallows up tlie death to whicli it exposed 
 us. It is a birth in which our own wills struggle 
 to life, but only because such is the will of God. 
 It could not be called a birth, if we were our- 
 selves the sole or the first agents in the matter ; 
 but can only be called (without absurdity) a 
 birth, because we thereby become through the 
 generation of another something which we were 
 not before. If we are to know it as a birth, then 
 it should be quite unnecessary to reiterate that 
 it is not of our own originating. We are born 
 again, because " the seed of God " is quickening 
 us. One might have supposed that it would have 
 been readily believed that we cannot give birth 
 to ourselves ; and how a man can at once believe 
 that the life to which the second birth introduces 
 is a real, new, and eternal life, and that the per- 
 son born into that life is his own begotten, is 
 hard indeed to compre^^end.* 
 
 It is of God's children, then, that His king- 
 dom is composed. It is our Father's kingdom 
 
 * It may here be observed, that "the will of man" (John 
 i. 13) refers to the will of man begetting, and not to the will of 
 man begotten. The opposition, "but of God," becomes thus 
 more clear and telling. 
 
56 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 we desire the advent of. It is the renewed will 
 which gives us entrance to it. But while this 
 kingdom is established within, it makes itself 
 \^ felt and visible without. Finding its subjects 
 in us, it makes its laws be obeyed in all our 
 doings. It takes possession of every dei^artment 
 of activity, of every region of actual life. These 
 external things, are they our doings ? This so- 
 ciety, is it made of us ? Then, if the kingdom 
 of God be within us, it will find expression there. 
 As it is impossible for any great earthly dominion 
 to be solitary, nninfluential, but is appealed to, 
 and must interfere, is imitated and must mould 
 others ; so it is impossible for this kingdom of 
 God to be side by side with other influences and 
 not reverse, increase, or some way operate on them. 
 As little is this possible as it is possible to carry 
 a lio'ht throuoh a dark room and scatter no dark- 
 ness, but confine the light to the flame. This is 
 the mo le of the kingdom's increase, and the pro- 
 mise is that it will so increase. It will grow till 
 there is no room for any opposing dominion on 
 earth. It will express itself, and in this expres- 
 sion will be found so to excel the kingdoms of 
 this world, that it will make for itself a new 
 heaven^ and a new earth. " For the kingdom of 
 
TEY KINGDOM COME. 57 
 
 heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took 
 and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole 
 was leavened." And these two features of the 
 kingdom cannot be separated, its sjoiritual, inter- 
 nal character, and its outward manifestation and 
 progress. 
 
 But the name by which it is spoken of in the 
 words just quoted may suggest to some the idea 
 that "heaven'' must be waited for, that this 
 prayer may be answered. And no doubt the 
 kingdom to be revealed, when the King appears 
 in the glory of His own person, will surpass any- 
 thing that can be otherwise attained. But the 
 name seems to be used not because the kingdom 
 has heaven for its ultimate destination and sphere, 
 but because it is of heavenly origin and character. 
 It is for this earth we seek a blessing, when we 
 pray, " Thy kingdom come." We know that this 
 kingdom ought to be now. We do not look to 
 the future to accomplish that which is eternally 
 right. We do not expect that death will transfer 
 us or others into a condition which Christ and His 
 Spirit can alone transfer us into. And being dis- 
 tinctly conscious that we ought always to have 
 been subjects of God, and grasping at the provi- 
 sion for our entrance into it, which is now put 
 
5^ THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 within our reach, we do not wait, but pray and 
 labour that all maybe brought into this kingdom, 
 that its laws may affect all earthly arrangements 
 and earthly governments. This prayer in all its 
 parts is emphatically from earth and for earth. 
 And what we express in this petition is the desire 
 that a heavenly state of things be established on 
 earth, that the King and laws of heaven be ac- 
 knowledged on earth. Is it not a right thing and 
 a possible thing, that all men should in their 
 hearts yield allegiance to God ? And were this 
 allegiance yielded, would it not naturally result 
 that all our relations to one another would be 
 hallowed and leavened by our common spirit of 
 obedience ? Would it not necessarily result that 
 the whole constitution of the world, in all its 
 domestic, social, and political arrangements, 
 would be guided by the Spirit of God, and would 
 show, if not uniformly and in every particular, 
 yet generally, and, on the whole, that God was 
 ruling? It is not required for this that all forms 
 of government be changed, but that the spirit of 
 those who administer be changed. It probably 
 is not needful that many employments or rela- 
 tions of life be altered, but it is needful that we 
 ourselves be altered. 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 59 
 
 The desirableness of this kingdom is obvious. 
 The appearance of the King himself axong ns, 
 and His manner of founding the kingdom, the 
 blessings it yields to its subjects, and the final 
 glory to which it is destined, all teach us to 
 pray for its coming. When we look to its actual 
 foundinp^, it is not without sisjnificance that this 
 was achieved at the most brilliant age of the most 
 powerful earthly monarchy ; a monarchy which 
 may be viewed as the ultimate specimen of what 
 earth can accomplish in the matter of government. 
 Tor extent it was unrivalled. The world was the 
 Eoman world. For polity it was unrivalled, the 
 system of its laws being yet received as the basis 
 of law in the most civilised and well-ordered com- 
 munities. It was when this empire was in all 
 the flush and pride of youth that the King of 
 God's anointing came and established His empire. 
 He came with no noise and with little proclama- 
 tion, no thunder of the captains and shouting. 
 He came as if it were quite a simple matter to 
 establish His kingdom, though the firmest earthly 
 empire was in possession already, and though a 
 firmer than all earthly monarchies possessed the 
 hearts of those whom He came to rule. And how 
 was this done? Most kingdoms have acquired 
 
6o THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 power by violence and wrong, this by righteous- 
 ness and grace and mercy. To no other con- 
 queror can these words be addressed, '* Gird tliy 
 sword upon thy thigh, Most Mighty, with tliy 
 glory and thy majesty ; and in thy majesty ride 
 prosperously, because of truth and meekness and 
 righteousness." Sometimes the good done by 
 conquerors has well-nigh atoned for the evils of 
 war ; and their greatest glory has been to raise 
 the subdued, to overcome their barbarism, to con- 
 quer and to reduce them to civilisation. But the 
 glory of our King is, that He conquers us for no 
 other purpose than to raise us ; that He seeks us 
 not because the fame of our wealth and skill and 
 power had excited His envy or ambition, but 
 because the cry of the oppressed reached to 
 heaven, and the sighing of the prisoner came 
 before Him whose ear is delicate to catch the 
 feeblest and most distant, and to understand the 
 most confused desire of them that are in trouble; 
 who saw that there was none to govern us but 
 rulers who led us through tyranny to destruc- 
 tion ; He saw that there was no man, and won- 
 dered that there was none to come between us 
 and those who had us at their will, and therefore 
 His arm brought salvation. He saw that by His 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 6 1 
 
 government alone could we be rescued and raised, 
 and he determined, through His own humiliation, 
 to exalt us. He became one of us, that He might 
 be our King ; He clothed Himself in our dust, 
 that we might wear His royal robe ; He lay in 
 our grave, that we might sit on His throne ; He 
 founded our joy in the deejD bitterness of His own 
 »oul, our kingdom in His own obedience and 
 subjection. Has He not claim to reign over us ? 
 A government, once firmly established, goes on 
 for the most part easily enough, sometimes quite 
 independently of the throne ; but it takes a man 
 of kingly qualities to found a kingdom under the 
 most adverse circumstances, and out of the most 
 unlikely material. What was the case with this 
 kingdom ? This was no case of quiet, undisputed 
 succession, nor was it one of easy and rapid con- 
 quest. Of men wildly rebelling against all right- 
 eous and conscience-binding authority, Christ 
 took in hand to make a people so submissive 
 that they may be called *' living sacrifices." Of 
 men who scorned His rule with a special scorn, 
 He has to make subjects, who gladly lay down 
 their lives for their King ; of men hating one 
 another, envying, maligning, and despising one 
 another, He has to form a community so attached 
 
62 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 that all possessions, and even life itself, are lielu 
 as common property, and willingly yielded for the 
 good of the whole ; of men who, as soon as lie 
 leaves them, are invaded by His enemies, temj^ted, 
 threatened, bribed, allured to disaffection, He 
 undertakes to create faithful and stanch sup- 
 porters ; of those who are emphatically " not a 
 people,'' He has to form a peculiar jDeople, a 
 l^eople of God. And this He actually does. Men 
 begin life wicked, selfish, profligate, with a strong 
 revulsion of soul from all good, and a headlong 
 proclivity to whatever is sinful, their spirits all in 
 disorder, and seeking no higher condition ; they 
 acknowledge Christ as King, and His laws bring 
 harmony and orderly purpose into their lives ; in 
 the strength of loyal love to Him, they make 
 successful war upon their own fatal d^esires, and 
 have often so well understood what is due to 
 Him, that they have spent their substance and 
 their lives in toilsome and bloody service. And 
 does it say nothing for the reality, the force, and 
 the wisdom of His government, that He can leave 
 His newly reduced enemies to administer it, ai:kd 
 Himself return to the seat of His dominion, sure 
 that this distant province which He leaves will be 
 a nursery of faitliful servants, and ever send up 
 
TUY KINGDOM COME. 6 1 
 
 to Him trained and efficient rulers? Does it not, 
 at least, very sufficiently show that He is a King, 
 thouirh unseen ; and that His kingdom is real, 
 though not of this world ? 
 
 Besides its origin, the difficulty and success of 
 its establishment, there are many other features 
 of it which evince its fitness to take precedence, 
 and its worthiness to be desired. One of the 
 most patent is its universality. It affords a 
 meeting-place for all men, is capable of embrac- 
 ing all within it, and fusing them in one fellow- 
 ship. Founders of kingdoms have not lacked 
 ideas of universality. Their ambition has been 
 very catholic. They have taken steps also to- 
 wards the realising of their ideas ; they have been 
 careful to discover geographical centres, commer- 
 cial centres, from which they might reach to all, 
 and. to which all, by natural leanings and inter- 
 ests, might incline ; but so far as experiment has 
 hitherto shown, it takes something more than 
 worldly interest to bind the world together. By 
 this, nations may work together for a while, but 
 feeling that they are widely different, and that at 
 any moment their interests may conflict. The 
 bond is still without them, and not within. But 
 in the kingdom which Christ has founded, there 
 
64 TEE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 is a fellowship wliich does not recognise any dis- 
 tinction among nations. In it "there is neither 
 Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircnmcision, 
 barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, because Christ 
 is all, and in all." All own one King, all receive 
 common rights, and all are actuated by the same 
 spirit. In this kingdom we can claim nothing, 
 as being of this nation or of that, but only as be- 
 longing to the one family in heaven and on earth. 
 We stand upon a common ground with all, and 
 enter a kingdom which excludes none. In it we 
 learn the deepest affinity, and are drawn together 
 by the only bond that is wide enough. to encircle 
 the world, and strong enough to draw together 
 the imlikest. Whoever enter this kingdom re- 
 semble one another in the thoughts, feelings, and 
 hopes that lie deepest within them, and which 
 they count the most promising and permanent 
 features of their character. Loyalty to their 
 King possesses all alike, and this lies at the 
 centre of the heart of each, working outwards 
 and transforming all; and no difference, however 
 great, can outweigh this resemblance, nor so in- 
 crease as to obliterate and outlive it ; for in this 
 kingdom we are brought into communion with 
 the '* one Spirit, the one Lord, the one God and 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 65 
 
 Father of all, who is above all, and throiicrh all. 
 and in you all." And here, too, is bridged over 
 that wide distinction between dead and livino* 
 and are knit in closest bands with those who are 
 adva.nced to the higher offices of trust, for " God 
 is not a God of the dead, but of tlie living ; for 
 all live unto him." Shall we not, then, pray that 
 tliis kingdom come, obliterating all hostile dis- 
 tinctions, using all diversity of gifts for one com- 
 mon Lord, and putting one language and oath of 
 allegiance in the mouths of all, " We are Christ's, 
 and Christ is God's ?" 
 
 The advajitages which the kingdoms of earth 
 offer are commonly summed up in these three. 
 Liberty, Security, and Plenty. A man outside 
 of every community can assure himself of none 
 of these. The simplest form of government is 
 that in which a number of men choose one in 
 whom they can trust, and who is expected to look 
 after the common interests, while they attend to 
 their special callings. There may be among them 
 one so wise in counsel, so far-sidited, so laro-e- 
 hearted, so weighty, and so bold, that each mem- 
 ber of the community feels " I am better in his 
 keeping than in my own." And unless the sub- 
 jects of a kingdom can thus trust the ffovernincr 
 
66 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 power for tlie leading advantages just named, it 
 is not a kingdom to be desired. But we must 
 beware liow we compare the kingdom of God 
 with earthly kingdoms, lest we thereby not merely 
 see what blessings are to be expected in a king- 
 dom, but leain to expect blessings of similar 
 nature. A man may feel that he is safe as to 
 many things, but what can he know of absolute 
 trust till he has trusted in Christ? What can he 
 know of any of the blessings of the subject till he 
 becomes subject to Christ? Is not the liberty, the 
 security, the plenty we know, very shadowy and 
 precarious, until we possess the eternal reality 
 and substance of these in Christ ? Until we 
 possess that security which has heard the gates 
 of the city of God shut behind, and has found 
 the feet standing on a rock ; which can view 
 every contingency without dread, knowing whose 
 will ic is that is done in the army of heaven and 
 amono; the inhabitants of the eartii ; which can 
 say, " Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, 
 neither shall fruit be in the vines ; the labour of 
 the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield na 
 meat ; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, 
 and there shall be no herd in the stalls ; yet I 
 will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 67 
 
 my salvation ;" that security which is secure in 
 God, which rests in Him and knows that *' greater 
 is He that is for us than all that can be ao:ainst 
 us ;" — that liberty, wherewith the Son of God 
 makes free when He delivers us from our sins and 
 from all that drags us down from high apprehen- 
 sions of our calling in God ; when He gives us 
 entrance into the wide and lastinc: love of God, 
 bringing us to the very brightness of His counte- 
 nance, to that love which casteth out fear, and to 
 that peace of God which passeth understanding ; 
 when He renews the mind to the persuasion that 
 God is on our side against sin and all that comes 
 of sin, and enables us to accept of all that God 
 has been doing and does to free us from the 
 curse ; — that plenty which is supplied by the 
 fulness of the Godhead, and can only be enjoyed 
 in a kingdom where there are no unknown and 
 sunken masses, but where the King knows all 
 and rul-es by personal influence over each ; that 
 plenty which provides not for a few wants of 
 some, but for every want of all ; which provides 
 enlightenment of mind, renewal of heart, comfort, 
 strength, and every grace that is needed to bring 
 us to the measure of the stature of the perfect 
 man. 
 
6S THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 So that to become a citizen of this kingdom is 
 just to reach the highest position a man can 
 occupy, and to enter into everlasting blessedness. 
 As among earthly kingdoms there are some so 
 superior to others that it becomes a point of am- 
 bition to be enrolled as their citizens, because 
 in them our rights are protected and our safety 
 secured, because our labour receives its fullest 
 recompense, and our liberty its freest exercise ; 
 so there is this kingdom of God, founded from 
 everlasting, and destined to endure when time 
 shall be no longer, the which if we enter into, 
 we shall at once be installed in a secure liberty, 
 which is protected by the Almighty, cared for by 
 that King, the meanest of whose subjects knows 
 no grievance, certified of our eternal well-being, 
 associated with all that is joyous and with all 
 that is holy in the universe, and confirmed in 
 every good resolve and rewarded for every good 
 service by the favour of a loving King. This is . 
 the one kinsfdom which all others will be seen 
 only to have pointed towards and taught us to 
 hope for ; a kingdom so free that the law of it is 
 love, so great that none are excluded and none 
 unthought of, so righteous that murmur is never 
 heard through all its borders, so stable that when 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 69 
 
 neaven and earth are shaken this will "not be 
 moved : " a kingdom so wisely administered tliat 
 in it each one of us shall find his right place, 
 when we shall learn the blessedness we have in 
 common with all the nations of the saved, and 
 that peculiar property of bliss, with which a 
 stranger cannot intermeddle, and which is j^re- 
 pared for us by Him who has written our names 
 among His subjects, and gives to us that new 
 name which no man knoweth save Him that re- 
 ceiveth it ; a kingdom which we shall then only 
 begin to learn the glory of, when we shall see it 
 triumphant, and when the kings and nations of 
 the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. 
 And this is the one perfect kingdom, because 
 He who reigns is the perfect King, alone able to 
 found a kingdom in the deepest love and broadest 
 righteousness. He is King of kings and Lord of 
 lords. He is the blessed and only Potentate ; but 
 His special right of dominion over us is grounded 
 in this, that He has taken our nature upon Him. 
 It is as one of us, as our Head, as the Son given 
 to us, that He takes the government upon His 
 shoulder, and brings us to the kingdom of the 
 Father. And do we need to pray that His king- 
 dom may come, or do we not ? Are we sufficient 
 
70 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 for our own need, for our own future, or are we 
 not ? Do we need some one to rule us, to help 
 us against our enemies, to help us against our- 
 selves, or do we not ? Have not our eyes opened 
 to the fact that thick between us and God there 
 stand those that bar the way, sins and hindrances 
 of all kinds, that must be swept away or over- 
 come ? Have we not tried to do this for our- 
 selves, and found again and again that when the 
 shout of victory was on our very lip, we were 
 prostrated in the dust of shameful defeat ? Have 
 we not felt at such times that all might yet be 
 well with us, if some one, strong and mighty in 
 righteousness, would only take possession of us, 
 take us out of our own hands, and rule and 
 command us by an authority more suasive than 
 our own, and, imbuing us with a power that we 
 have not of ourselves, make well-doing possible 
 to us ; if some one would take up this cause 
 which our feebleness is making nothing of, and 
 would see to it, as for his own glory and as his 
 own interest, that we be delivered, and conquer, 
 and reach the peace of God ? What we daily 
 find our need of is a ruler, and a ruler lovins 
 enough to give us all confidence in Him ; firm 
 enough to support; us when we weary, and 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 7' 
 
 compel US to the right path when we waver, 
 powerful enough to do what man cannot do, 
 to change our hearts and deliver us from evil. 
 Such a ruler God offers to us, and such a ruler 
 we choose when we pray, " Thy kingdom come/" 
 The reasons why this petition should be used 
 with a special view to the extension of the Church, 
 and the encouragements there are so to use it, 
 are so fully before the thoughts of all praying 
 persons at the present time that less need be said 
 on these points. Of course the first ground of 
 hope that this petition is now to be answered, 
 more fully and visibly than hitherto, is just this, 
 that it is being prayed more earnestly and be- 
 lievingly now than hitherto. Prayer is not the 
 only means of bringing in the kingdom of God ; 
 but if it be, as we believe it now is, earnestly 
 prayed for, the other means will also be used. 
 And without prayer, earnest and sustained, what 
 can we look for I Even the first descent of the 
 Spirit as the Spirit of the kingdom of Christ, 
 though certainly sufficiently provided for by the 
 ascension of our Lord, was vouchsafed only to 
 anxious and reiterated prayer. And in these 
 latter days there is no desire more common to all 
 Christians than that the Church may extend her 
 
72 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 influence ; nor are there any more consjDicuous 
 features of modern Christianity than missionary 
 zeal. No doubt there is much in these desires 
 and efforts that is merely selfish and earthly, but 
 unquestionably there is also much that is of 
 heaven, and much too that is hopeful, because it 
 is not the unrooted product of a year or two, or 
 the mushroom growth of a passing excitement, 
 but the fruit of a steady growth which many a 
 year has nourished. This desire does not require 
 to be fostered by any special theory of prophetical 
 interpretation, nor can it in any time cease to be 
 amonoj the most ardent desires of the Christian. 
 But no one can fail to draw some encouraixement 
 from what he sees, nor can any one fail to see 
 that much of the progress around him is in direc- 
 tions which prepare a way for the kingdom of 
 God. Increased intelligence and a more general 
 and careful education, attention to the outcast, 
 the distressed, and the criminal, more liberal ideas 
 of civil liberty, the cordial, frequent, and increas- 
 ^ing reference to anion among different sections of 
 the Church, and many other features of the age 
 that are continually mentioned, all make our 
 prayer more hopeful. But while hope is our duty, 
 prophecy is beyond our province. Neither shall 
 
THY KINGDOM COME. 73 
 
 we be much inclined to prophesy, when we con- 
 sider these three things ; * how very diflferent 
 God's thoughts must be concerning His kingdom 
 and the whole plan of its advance, from ours who 
 see but the merest glimpses of His purpose ; when 
 we think how often in past times there has been 
 every prospect that now at last the Church would 
 just steadily grow ; and when we turn from spe- 
 culation about the future to present fact, and 
 think of " the millions afar of!', that know not the 
 Kevelation of God, or of the thousands at hand 
 that hold it in contempt." Yet these things only 
 the more plainly show us that it is of God to 
 grant that His kingdom may come. 
 
 Of the consummate glory of this kingdom it is 
 very difficult to sj^eak. We know that for earth 
 the best condition would be the kingdom of God, 
 but what earth will be when this prayer is fully 
 -answered, who would undertake to say ? It is 
 ours to pray without ceasing, and to maintain 
 fidelity to our King. We must cleave loyally to 
 Him. He is coming in glory, and will reign 
 whose right it is. Let us, if need be, endure 
 hardness for a little that we may evermore reign 
 with Him. No one can take from us His words, 
 
 * See Isaac Taylor's Saturday Evening throughout. 
 
74 ^HE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 " He that overcometh will I grant to sit with me 
 in my throne, as I also overcame, and am set 
 down with my Father in his throne." 
 
 And for those who desire some detail of future 
 glory to attract their hope no words can be more 
 suitable than the following, written by one who 
 spent his life in the service of his heavenly King, 
 and has now enjoyed many lifetimes of reward. 
 " kingdom everlasting, kingdom enduring 
 throughout all generations, where is never-failing 
 light, and the peace of God, which passeth under- 
 standing; in which the souls of the saints securely 
 rest, crowned with eternal gladness ; whither the 
 ransomed of the Lord shall come, and everlasting 
 joy upon their heads ; they shall obtain joy and 
 gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 
 how glorious is the kingdom in which with 
 thee, Lord, all the saints shall reign, clothed in 
 white raiment, and with crowns upon their heads. 
 kingdom of eternal blessedness, where thou, 
 Lord, the hope of the saints and the diadem of 
 their glory, art seen face to face, gladdening them 
 every one, and embracing them on every side with 
 the comforts of thy peace. There is joy unbounded, 
 gladness unbroken, health untouched by woe, pro- 
 gress without pain, light without darkness, life 
 
TIIY KIXGDOM COME. 75 
 
 without death, every good sifted from its ill, and 
 enjoyed without alloy or interruption. Where 
 youth never grows old and life never dies, where 
 beauty never pales and love never cools, where 
 health never languishes, where joy never wanes 
 and where grief is never felt, where no moan nor 
 sigh is heard nor any tear is seen, where gladness 
 is ever enjoyed, and where there is no evil feared, 
 because the highest good is possessed, which is 
 to be always beholding the face of the Lord of 
 righteousness and strength." 
 
70 THE PRA YER THAT TEAJHES TO PRA T. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.** 
 
 In the second petition of this prayer, we have 
 prayed " for God's spiritual kingdom, that it may 
 be set up and established in our hearts ; for His 
 visible kingdom, or Church, that it may increase 
 and spread, until it fill the whole earth ; and for 
 His heavenly kingdom, that it may soon drive 
 away and put an end to every kind of sin and 
 sorrow, and leave nothing to be seen in the new 
 heavens and the new earth but a glorious God, 
 filling all things with His presence, and ruling 
 with a Father's love over his dutiful and ho]y 
 children." Already, therefore, we have desired 
 that those things be fulfilled which are contained 
 in this third petition. We cannot desire that He 
 be King over the earth, without desiring that His 
 will be done on earth. We do not sincerely own 
 Him as king, unless we set His wiU abore our 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. 77 
 
 own and every other. For a kingdom where there 
 is not one guiding will is a distracted kingdom, 
 doomed to fall : a king whose will is not done is 
 a mocked and virtually dethroned king. How- 
 ever, to add this petition is not to repeat, though 
 it be to develop and follow out the preceding. 
 The three petitions are to one another as root, 
 stem, and fruit ; as beginning, middle, and end. 
 In the hallowing of God's name the foundation 
 is laid for the establishment of His kingdom ; it 
 is the first opening of the human eye to the ma- 
 jesty of God. Then the kingdom is established, 
 the heart of man prostrates itself before its King, 
 forgetting and cancelling its old laws, and rejoic- 
 ino- in its new allegiance. But this is not all ; no 
 one praying would stop here. It is not enough 
 that the kingdom be established, that its bound- 
 aries be enlarged, and its glory delighted in ; 
 there is an end for which all this is brought 
 about; and that end is, that the will of the 
 Euler may be done. We desire that God may 
 assert his dominion over us and all men, and 
 may give us to know that He is a living and 
 near God by the force of His will upon us. From 
 the '' name " we pass to the work (as displayed 
 in His kingdom,) and from the work to the will. 
 
78 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 From the outskirts of His personality we pass to 
 its heart. 
 
 And we do not use this petition aright, till we 
 fully aj^prehend that, besides names and outward 
 show of authority, God has a will. This, of 
 course, requires no proof nor theoretical explana- 
 tion, but every one who is trying to pray kno\TS 
 how much need tliere is that it be practically 
 enforced. How does his prayer seem to wander 
 about searching for an ear, until the living will 
 of God presents itself. When we think of God's 
 name as left with us to make up for His absence, 
 and keep us mindful of an authority which is 
 resident in a person far distant from ourselves^ 
 we cannot pray. When we think of God's king- 
 dom as established originally by Himself, but 
 now left under viceroys or under a mere code of 
 laws, we cannct pray. We need to meet behind 
 the name a present will, and under all forms of 
 authority and symbols of power to recognise an 
 active will. From day to day, from one act of 
 our wills to another, this we are to bear in mind, 
 that God also has a will ; that as by our wills we 
 plan and set ourselves resolutely in one direction, 
 s-o there are plans which have their origin in a 
 will that is not of earth, but are yet to be carried 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. 79 
 
 out on earth ; that alongside of our desires there 
 are the things which God is desiring to be done. 
 Everywhere and in all things w^e are to meet this 
 will of God. This kingdom of God we speak of, 
 we have to learn to look upon as an absolute 
 monarchy, wherein one will is supreme, and be- 
 yond which is the outer darkness, where all is 
 confusion and dismay. And the peculiar disci- 
 pline we have each of us to go through in this 
 life is to learn submission to the supreme wnll ; 
 a hard and distasteful lesson, though so plainly 
 reasonable and necessary. Hard and distasteful, 
 for a man does not find within him a will piously 
 and wisely regulated by the will of God, but 
 divero^ino; to his own evil desires, murmurino^, 
 struggling, and only in the end, after long and 
 painful teaching, coming to desire that in all 
 things it be the will of God which is carried out. 
 It seems a strange thing that a lifetime should 
 be spent in this, and that the very highest em- 
 ployment of the will of man is to surrender wil- 
 lingly to God's will, but so it is. And when can 
 a man's will show its strength, if not when he 
 wills the same thino-s as God ? It is not that a 
 man gives up willing, nor resigns any property 
 of his being whatsoever^ when his will is con- 
 
^O THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PliAY. 
 
 formed to that of God ; it is not that he be* 
 comes either the unwilling victim or the passive 
 tool of another vrill, but that the whole strength 
 and bent of his will now lead him in God's direc- 
 tion. 
 
 This yielding to the will of God, being a will 
 so different from our own, is a great difficulty. 
 We yield to-day, and to-morrow it seems as hard 
 as ever. We gather together all the reasons 
 there are for yielding, and at length we are able 
 sincerely to pray "Thy will be done;" we are 
 very peaceful and very glad, and do not doubt 
 that this is a final decision ; but an hour imde- 
 ceives us, and shows us that the decision has to 
 be made again, and in still more trying circum- 
 stances. If any petition needs to be daily re- 
 peated it is this. But have we ever once as yet 
 thrown all the will we are masters of into this 
 petition ? Have we so much as recognised that 
 it is the will of a person we ought all to be obey- 
 ing here? Are we satisfied with some loose 
 ideas of right and wrong ? Do we go by custom, 
 habit, fashion, impulse, our own wisdom, or are 
 we led by this will ? There is no question about 
 this, whether God's will or my own has most 
 claim to my service; which is getting most of 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. ^l 
 
 rb? Let me, if possib]e, see my true position; 
 God has a will, a will about me as well as about 
 other tilings ; it is not, then, with mere rules of 
 direction I have to do, but with an active and 
 authoritative will ; I will not hide from it, nor 
 distribute its force over the whole face of the 
 earth, but I come out personally face to face with 
 God ; will to will with God ; and now what is it 
 to be opposing this will ? This is a will wliicli 
 has always been planning and accomplishing 
 good — a will limitless in its embrace, and incom- 
 prehensible in its love — a will reaching to the 
 most distant and stooping to the most forgotten 
 and sunken, bending over distress, and raising 
 the fallen with ineffable tenderness, and I cannot 
 pray that this will may be done. This will, 
 which has not ceased to " work for the deliver- 
 ance and blessedness" of myself and all of us, 
 which has still been that all men should be saved, 
 in spite of untold hindrances and at infinite cost, 
 this will it is that I have been resisting. This 
 will into which no evil purpose ever entered, and 
 the love of which man's heart fears to conceive, 
 because it is above him, and seems unreal and im- 
 possible ; this supreme and marvellous will, of 
 
 which it seems akin to profanity to say that it is 
 
 1? 
 
^? THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY, 
 
 worthy to rule, I have scanned and niisinter- 
 preted, and against it I have set up my own pri- 
 vate desires, objecting to the plans of God, not 
 knowing my own nothingness before it, nor trem- 
 bling before the great and loving Ruler in whom 
 it resides. 
 
 And unless we add to this the definite per- 
 suasion that this is an Almighty will, we shall 
 scarcely pray in hope for the performance of 
 God's will on earth. For we have done much 
 to engender quite an opposite persuasion by 
 neglecting and opposing the will of God. If, 
 however, there be not infinite power to execute 
 this will, then how is it to be done on earth ? 
 What we see on earth is not readiness to accept 
 and execute it, but opposition, unflinching, full- 
 grown, consolidated wickedness ; and if there be 
 not an Almighty will in opposition to this, where 
 is our hope ? But He to whom we pray is not 
 a God that sleeps, or is on a journey, or talking, 
 enQ;:ao;ed with and absorbed in other matters, but 
 a willing God, a God already attending, and 
 whose own purposes they are that we desire to 
 be fulfilled. The aid we have to expect is not 
 the very precarious aid we might receive from 
 dexterously availing ourselves of the power that 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. 83 
 
 resides in the laws of God's kingdom ; we do 
 not bring influences to bear on this earth which 
 may or may not reform it ; it is the will of the 
 Almighty we appeal to. It is a new hope which 
 possesses us, when we come to the persuasion 
 that the will which we have opposed, and which 
 is yet our sole hope for ourselves and all men, is 
 powerful as it is loving. And it is a new resig- 
 nation which possesses us, wdien we see God, our 
 Father, the living, loving, ordaining Will, in the 
 midst of our lot, and can say, " Thy will. Thy 
 will — then it is altogether good. Thou hast been 
 the Author, Mover, Orderer throughout, Thou 
 hast planned and begun and watchfully carried 
 on, and therefore it is good. This Thou hast 
 done not by compulsion, but by Thy will, whose 
 will is done in heaven, whose will is leadinoj me 
 to heaven." 
 
 Who shall say what may be thus contained in 
 this petition, or predict how, using it, we shall 
 be led from one degree of grace and blessing to 
 another, become more and more conformed to 
 the guiding will ? Who shall penetrate the pur- 
 poses of the only wise God, and tell the gior^f 
 which lies there in the seed, and which we shall 
 see with our eyes when God manifests what His 
 
84 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 will is ? And are we to fall out of this blessed 
 track of His will, are we to be cast sadly asliore 
 out of this river of life ? Shall we be found 
 dropping this petition from careless lips, as if 
 the accomplishment of God's will had little to do 
 with us or with the world we are in ? Are we 
 not already enjoying the fruits of that will ? Am 
 I not the child of this will ? Is it not this which 
 has made me myself and not another ? " My 
 substance was not hid from Thee, yet being un- 
 perfect ; and in Thy book all my members were 
 written, which in continuance w^re fashioned, 
 when as yet there was none of them. How pre- 
 cious also are Thy thoughts unto me, God ; how 
 great is the sum of them ! " 
 
 But in our petition there seems to be an em- 
 phasis on this, that the will of God is to be done. 
 For as, when we have willed a thing, we do not 
 Sit down and expect to see it take place of itself, 
 but set about the carrying out of our will by our 
 work, so the will of God is not a thino- to be 
 spoken of, contemplated, waited for, but a thing 
 to be done. And this will of God is to be done 
 by us. For as a monarch does not rise from his 
 throne to execute his own will, but has it exe- 
 cuted by servants, to whom are allotted their 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. 85 
 
 several spheres of duty, so the will of God is given 
 to us to do. Ic is still He who does it, but 
 through our doiugs. The actual performance of 
 His will has still been by the words and workii 
 of men. God has not been working in one place, 
 man in another ; but what God has done on 
 earth, He has done by men on earth. 
 
 And here it is to be observed, that in order to 
 our carrying out the mightiest schemes of God, 
 it is not necessary that we know what these are. 
 God gives to each what each can do, and by the 
 various gifts and labours of all fulfils His own 
 grand purpose. What we need to know is only 
 the commands of God, what He sees fit for us to 
 do. And doing this we may be sure that, so far 
 as we are concerned, the secret purposes of God 
 are being accomplished. He has given to all of 
 us the same general orders, but by putting us in 
 different situations, He does His will through 
 each of us in different ways. One has little 
 active work, but much to suffer. One is freed 
 from the cares and temptations of eminence, but 
 thinks his lowly condition not very suitable for 
 doino; the will of God. Another excuses himself 
 from much reference to the will of God, because 
 he is so distracted with the wills of men, and 
 
86 THE PEA YER THAT TEACHES TO PEA Y. 
 
 with their cares and burdens laid upon him. All 
 such murmuring and excusing is vain, for these 
 three things, God's commandment, our circum- 
 stances, and God's eternal purpose, are all of 
 them springing from one source, the will of God, 
 and do therefore harmonise. Our circumstances 
 are allotted by the same will which commands 
 us. And therefore let no one say, " I could do 
 God's will better somewhere else." What is 
 God's will you speak of? Is it not that you 
 serve Him where you are ; is not that His will ? 
 You were not made by God to be another man, 
 and fill his place, and do his work. You were 
 made as you are, to do your own work, and to 
 fill the place in God's plan which He has ap- 
 pointed you. A weak monarch may mar his 
 own design by employing his servants in posts 
 for which they are most unfit But God does 
 not so mistake ; He has " given to all according 
 to their several ability," and so brings about His 
 own ends. 
 
 So that when v/e pray ''Thy will be done," we 
 pray that God may so rule, that to the utmost 
 ends of the earth, and in the minutest actions of 
 men, and in all the arrangements of life, there 
 may be the easily visible impress of God's will 
 
THY 17ILL BE DONE. 87 
 
 Tin's we pray for, but more directly that our cir- 
 cumstances may be so ordered as to enable us to 
 carry out most effectually the design of God with 
 us, and that we may be so gifted with wisdom, 
 courage, and self-command, as to see and follow 
 out the line of conduct most appropriate to us 
 where God has set us. Praying thus, we are 
 (Strengthened for all duty, whether it be active or 
 sorely passive. We find in all that happens to 
 us an answer to this prayer, and instead of being 
 dismayed, as those are who have not pra3^ed that 
 the will of God may be done, we find, iu every 
 change and seeming chance of life, new scope for 
 carrying on the work of God, our share in His 
 plan ; and for our ordinary days, which pass as 
 yesterday passed, we find no healthier inSuence 
 to give them a uniform tone and character than 
 to write on the threshold of each, " Thy will be 
 done." I cannot come thus before God without 
 some strengthening sense of the dignity and re- 
 sponsibility of a life connected with God, and 
 fulfilling His will. I come to Him as my Father 
 and my King, as if bringing my life in my hand, 
 desiring that He would take it again, and give it 
 back to me moulded to His desio^n. I stand 
 alone with Him, not confused by what other men 
 
88 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 are doino^, not hidden from God's will reirardin'^ 
 me by the practice of the world ; I know that 
 there must be somethmg which God has for me 
 to do, else I would not have life to do it ; and 
 can I go straightway and forget that it is not my 
 own will and the world's work I have to do, but 
 these only in so far as they are God's will and 
 God's work ? I cannot sincerely pray, " Thy 
 will be done/' and begin my day with no desire 
 to know and execute God's commands ; I am 
 under orders, I have a purpose to live for, am 
 no longer open to every influence that may blow 
 upon me, nor can I any more count this life a 
 mere vanity. And what higher purpose can a 
 man have than this, to fulfil the will of God with 
 him, and satisfy the reason of his being what he 
 is, and where he is? Surrendering our wills 
 thus to God's will, we live with a determined 
 strength of will that nothing else imparts. We 
 carry with us from God's presence God's autho- 
 rity, and in the strength of it we make the world 
 serve G od ; we fulfil His will in the world and 
 by the world, find this authority more suasive 
 than the solicitations and examples of men ; find 
 in it a commission which turns this world into 
 the material of God's work. If not, we have 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. S9 
 
 only mocked God in saying, " Thy will be done/' 
 mocked Him in a way winch is most offensive to 
 Him, calling Him '* Lord, Lord ! '' but not doing 
 the things which He has commanded ; like the 
 son of the parable, who said, " I go, sir," but did 
 not the will of his father. 
 
 But very specially are we to dwell on the 
 words " in earth," not suffering them to pass our 
 lips without a degree of emphasis ; for so hard is 
 it to give ourselves, day by day, to the service of 
 God, and to spend our whole time in the carrying 
 out of His 23urposes, that we are tempted to give 
 up this, and tempted by the most palpable delu- 
 sions. And one of tliese delusions, which seems 
 absurd when stated in words, but which never- 
 theless affects our conduct, is, that as in a future 
 life we shall have opportunities of holiness such 
 as we do not here enjoy, we are therefore not 
 called upon to be living as carefully here as they 
 do in heaven. Do we not find ourselves virtually 
 saying, that because we have to live by our own 
 exertions, therefore we cannot be doing God's 
 will ; that we must defer doing God's will till 
 we get more time ? Is there not visible in our 
 conduct the want of duly remembering that on 
 earth we must do God's will ; to-day in all we 
 
90 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRA Y. 
 
 have to clo, for to-morrow we may not be on 
 earth — the want of once for all comins; to the 
 persuasion, that what we are here for is to do 
 God's will, not just to struggle through and 
 reach death, but to live now as the servants of 
 God ; not to wait for holier times, but to redeem 
 this time, because the days are evil ; not to live 
 as if we thought that hereafter we will be more 
 bound to God as His subjects than now ; and as 
 if we thought that, though hereafter we may be 
 expected to do His will, yet here we must do 
 much that is not His will, much that is beside, 
 and much that is contrary to His will , and that 
 in the whole we cannot live with much reference 
 to the will of God ? Have we been praying with 
 any true hope that God's will may be done on 
 earth, or only believing that God's will may 
 somewhat and sometimes modify the evil of 
 earth, and may keep us from some of the grosser 
 sins ? Have we yet come to the strong sense of 
 our responsibility, not to ourselves, not to our 
 friends, not to the world, not to God's law, but 
 to God himself; a sense which makes us say, 
 "Here on earth I have something to accomplish, 
 and that for God. This manner of life I am choos- 
 ing, is this that which best accomplishes God's 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. 9 1 
 
 will ? If not, how do I pray, ' Thy will be done ? ' 
 In a thousand things I am choosing for myself, 
 choosing what I shall do to-day, what I shall do for 
 a time, whom I shall see, how I shall conduct rriy- 
 self towards this man and that ; in all my choos- 
 ing, am I referring to God's will, having resolved 
 to do it? Or am I snatching my short time 
 of wretched self-government, before God calls 
 me to account? Am I doing my best to shape 
 my life, so as to carry out God's will, or having 
 schemed a life for myself, am I wresting God's 
 will so as to bring it near to my own? Am I 
 acting from God's will as my reason, and motive, 
 and guide, or from my own untutored and unsub- 
 dued will?' Knowing what the will of God is, 
 am I considering, Now how much of this can I 
 possibly achieve ? '■" 
 
 And being so tempted to forget that through 
 all the employments, connexions, and circum- 
 stances of this earthly life, it is God's will which 
 must lead us, we must not cease, enlaroinoj this 
 petition in words though not in meaning, to pray 
 and to desire "that we may be filled with the 
 knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual 
 understanding ; that we may walk worthy of the 
 Lord imto all pleasing, being fruitful in every 
 
92 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 good work, and increasing in tlie knowledge of 
 God ; strengthened with all might, according to 
 his glorious power, unto all patience and long- 
 suffering with joyfulness." And if ever tempted 
 to relax our efforts, if ever tempted to fall from 
 the hope of this petition to the sluggishness which 
 says, " It is impossible to do the will of God as it 
 is done in heaven, and therefore it is useless to pray 
 for this ;" let us remember that it is our sin that 
 it is impossible ; that whether impossible or not, 
 it is what we earnestly desire when in a xv^\i 
 frame of spirit ; and that if it be so desirable, 
 our part is not to give up because we cannot 
 attain perfection, but to strive all the harder that 
 we may come as near it as possible. It is one 
 thing to attain perfection, another to desire it. 
 And he who does not desire it here will certainly 
 never attain it hereafter. So that the simple 
 answer to the question, whether on earth we may 
 pray for the perfection which obtains in heaven, 
 and. if it be not romantic or enthusiastic so to 
 pray, is just this, that we pray for what we 
 desire, and we cannot but desire to be j^erfectly 
 serving God. It is vain to tell us we are too 
 weak, too sinful, to reach perfection in this life ; 
 this only incites us to put forth more earnest 
 
THY WILL BE DONE. 93 
 
 desire and effort, and more beseechingly to im- 
 plore the aid of " that glorious power which hath 
 delivered us from the power of darkness/' " that 
 Almighty power which works (not indeed in the 
 doubting, but) in all who believe." That there 
 are things we cannot do is no reason w^hy we 
 should not be doing all we can. And if no man 
 has reached perfection in this life, is there any 
 man who has done all he could to reach it ? 
 
 But over against the sad truth that we have 
 omitted to make the most of this life, and are 
 therefore now not " perfect and complete in all 
 the will of God," over against the truth that there 
 are many parts of God's will which, on account 
 of our weakness, we have been unable to perform 
 as they in heaven do, let this other truth be set, 
 that there are parts of God's will which can only 
 be performed on earth. And would that we could 
 so understand this as to awake to the value of 
 this day we pray in, and bestir ourselves, and 
 throw our whole energies into this present life, 
 living out its duties with our might, exerting our- 
 selves so as to arouse efforts which will lift us 
 out of our easy, natural level and rate of livino- 
 and which will show that we have now one thino- 
 to do, and one purpose to fulfil. To do the thino-s 
 
94 ^HE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY 
 
 God's will now contains is not easy. We could 
 not expect it to be so. Often has it been seen 
 tbat, even among men, one dominant will has 
 aroused thousands to hard, fatiguing activity, 
 wdiich, through the whole course of it, seemed all 
 but beyond human strength; and shall we expect 
 God's will to be easy and natural to us ? And 
 this difficulty appears very specially in what God 
 has set before us all as our common aim and work, 
 as the one thing He would have all of us to do, 
 so that He says of it, " This is the work of God." 
 This work is to believe on Him whom He hath 
 sent. This we cannot do hereafter ; it is the 
 work of this life, the will of God for earth. This 
 is that which will bring the best good to us, and 
 the highest glory to God out of the apparent 
 poverty and woe and vanity of this life. Is there 
 any use we can make of our lives so profitable 
 that, for the sake of it, we may neglect the saving 
 of our souls? And if not, wdiat are we to do ? 
 are we to sit still, to let ourselves be drifted we 
 know not whither, when God has a definite wall 
 concerning us, and has given us a definite work 
 to accomplish ? But this work, easy though it 
 seems, is found to be hard ; it takes us to go out 
 
THY WILL BE DONE, 95 
 
 of our way, to resist our inclinations, to pray as 
 our life depends on it, ^' Thy will be done/' 
 
 Yet while the things to be done are different, 
 the manner of our doing them is to be similar to 
 the heavenly. We, the younger brethren, are to 
 look upon our elders as they do the will of God 
 in those higher posts to which we may not yet 
 be advanced. Letting our hearts dwell on the 
 blessedness of those w^ho serve God and see His 
 face, we are insensibly assimilated to their spirit, 
 and are prepared to become rulers over greater 
 trusts than are here committed to us. And since 
 we cannot actually contemplate, and so imitate 
 heavenly service, this petition becomes a prayer 
 for the spirit of that service. We know that if 
 we be animated by the same spirit, the manner 
 of our working will resemble that of the heavenly 
 places. When, therefore, we pray, " Thy will be 
 done in earth as it is in heaven,'"* we desire that 
 God's will be done on earth readily and cheer- 
 fully, humbly and zealously, faithfully and con- 
 
 * And surely it may be inferred from these words, " as it 
 is in heaven," that we are not to pray for the execution of 
 God's will in judgment, for this is not " as it is in heaven ;" 
 not in opposition to and overturning the will of man, but as 
 converting the will of man, and operating through it. 
 
9 6 THE PR A YER TEA T TEA CEES TO PR A Y. 
 
 stantly. And in looking to heaven as the model 
 of our service, we need not pass by the visible 
 heavens, from which David so constantly drew 
 lessons for himself. To see how God's will 
 shonld be done, we have but to turn the eye to 
 the " unworn sky," old i'"* ,the service of God, but 
 fulfilling His will as at first. We see the precise 
 regularity which should characterise our service 
 also. We see how unweariedly all perform their 
 parts, the great sustaining the small, the small 
 reflecting and enhancing the glory of the great ; 
 all as members of one system, obeying in peace- 
 ful harmony Him who calls them all by their 
 names. We see how the sun, morning after morn- 
 ing, comes forth rejoicing to run his race ; hov/ 
 the moon observes her appointed seasons, and 
 the sun knoweth his going down ; how all, though 
 it be in an unvarying course, fulfil the will of 
 God untiringly. And is our glory to be our 
 shame ? Is the only result of our being gifted 
 with will and intelligence, to be that we rebel 
 against God, and revolt from His will ? Ought 
 not the order of nature, which we admire, and to 
 which we trust, to be a continual rebuke to us ? 
 But it is to the inhabitants of heaven wo 
 
TEY WILL BE DONE. V7 
 
 are irainly to look, those ''angels who excel m 
 strenoth, who do His commandments, hearkening 
 ^mto thfi voice of His w^ord." " Hearkening unto 
 the voice of Hls word/' for it is this which makes 
 them worthy of imitation, that all they do is done 
 with diidCt reference tc ' ^le will of (xod ; because 
 it is God's wall, and not, in the first place, because 
 they have chosen it. The throne of God is in 
 their midst. They serve Him seeing His face, 
 and w^hat they see written there they haste to 
 execute. And when our Lord asks us to pray 
 this petition, He does not ask us to do what He 
 has not done Himself. When He was on earth, 
 it was earth that taught heaven how the will of 
 God should be done. Angels stooped to learn 
 new devotion to Him whom they had already 
 served without blame. And in the crisis of His life, 
 the crisis also of the world's history, this was His 
 petition, " Thy will be done." And so also we are 
 to pray, Order our circumstances so that we shall 
 have best scope for serving Thee, and reconcile 
 us to our circumstances, and fit us for them, so 
 that with our will and heart we may serve Thee. 
 Preserve us from being conformed to this world ; 
 but transform us by the renewing of our minds, 
 
 a 
 
o8 ^^ THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 thai we may prove what is that good and accept- 
 able and perfect will of God. Christ does not 
 bid US pray that this good thing and that may 
 be ours, but that God's will may be do^ne ; ler 
 this is at the back of all good, and embraces now 
 all the good that will ever be to any. 
 
UIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 99 
 
 Y. 
 
 " Give us this day our daily bread." 
 
 WflE'N we set ourselves to fathom tlie character 
 of a man, we do not so intently observe the ex- 
 pression of his thoughts, as their connexion ; we 
 do not stand outside and listen just to what he 
 pleases to tell us, but, if possible, enter within and 
 observe the workings of his inner man ; we do 
 not care so much to know his ideas and senti- 
 ments in detail as to trace the links between them ; 
 so as to see the man, not only when he pleases to 
 emerge to the surface, but in the entire current of 
 his feelings and thoughts. And, when we ascer- 
 tain those minor connexions of his various utter- 
 ances, and can trace all that appears back to that 
 involuntary spring in the heart which suggested 
 ii, we have a pretty accurate idea, not of what the 
 man desires us to think him, or even supposes 
 himself to be, but of his real character. Now, 
 when we submit these two petitions, " Thy will be 
 
I o O THE PR A YER TEA T TEA CITES TO PR A Y. 
 
 done on earth," and '' Give us this day our daily 
 bread," to this species of scrutiny, we at once de- 
 tect the character of their Author. We see that 
 He only could have thus passed from one to the 
 otlier, who found it His meat and drink to do the 
 will of his Father. Manny would pray, " Thy will 
 be done," and many would pray, " Give us bread," 
 but to how many of us would this have suggested 
 itself as the natural order of these petitions ? 
 
 Are there not few who have chosen the trade 
 or business they follow, because they thought that 
 therein they could best work out God's will with 
 them, compared to those who have made their 
 choice as being the most pleasant, or most rapid, 
 or most secure way of earning their bread : few to 
 whom the supports and comforts of this life are 
 practically of less importance than the doing of 
 God's will ? If we divide men into two classes, 
 those who work because they are hungry and have 
 to work, and those who work because there is 
 something to be done ; those who consider how 
 they may best win a livelihood, and trust that in 
 it they shall somehow find opportunity of doing 
 God's will ; and those who make it their first con- 
 sideration how they may best serve God, and trust; 
 that in doing so bread shall be given tliem ; we 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. lOi 
 
 need not say wliich will be the larger class, and 
 as little need we say which will be the more 
 Christlike class. It is in truth a very advanced 
 and enviable condition for a man to be in, when 
 he desires to be supported in this life mainly for 
 the purpose of doing God service. Yet not so 
 advanced by any means that none attain to it, nor 
 that we should be content only to envy without 
 striving to imitate those who have attained it. 
 How many reasons urge all of us to pray for con- 
 tinuance in life, besides this simple one which led 
 to the prayer of our Lord ! When the mist that 
 has long lain gloomily on our earthly future 
 begins to lift and scatter, and reveals a fair and 
 attractive prospect ; when plans are entered into, 
 the full execution of w^hich will take years to 
 accomplish ; when w^e have found a useful and 
 not unpleasant way of employing our time ; when 
 we are surrounded with friends whose counsel 
 guides, and whose affection cheers and rewards 
 our labour, we have evident reason to pray, " Give 
 us still this day our daily bread." But therefore 
 ought we the more carefully to consider, whether 
 there be one reason stronger than all these, 
 whether there be oiie desire which at once and 
 uniformly suggests this petition, and would die- 
 
I02 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 tate it still, though the world were blank of com- 
 fort and reward, and though natural feeling were 
 prompting us rather to say, " I would not live 
 alway." Not, of course, that we should be afraid 
 of cherishing subordinate reasons for continuance 
 in life, but that we should beware lest they be- 
 come something more than subordinate, lest they 
 oppose instead of aiding the performance of the 
 main purpose ; not that we should be afraid of the 
 enjoyments and attachments of life, but that we 
 should always give the doing of the will of God 
 so prominent a place in our intentions and desires, 
 that we shall very naturally pray, " Thy will be 
 done on earth," and, therefore, in order that thy 
 will may be done, for this end and reason mainly, 
 " Give us this day our daily bread." 
 
 This petition, then, at once shows itself to be 
 quite of a piece with the whole prayer before us. 
 A petition for temporal support, it is a spiritual 
 petition. It presents the world as the godly 
 man sees it. Our meat and drink and raiment 
 first come into view here, and here we see them 
 from the heavenly side. This petition brings our 
 whole earthly condition before God, and readjusts 
 it before Him and with His help. It brings it back 
 every morning to its true position, from which it 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 1 03 
 
 veers and slides away in the forgetfulness and 
 pressure of the day's employment. Instead, there- 
 fore, of being easy, this petition is one of the most 
 difficult to pray. It is the petition that least of 
 all can be prayed from an earthly mind, for it 
 comes from the directly opposite quarter to all 
 earthly desires, and meets them on that very 
 ground to which they most tenaciously hold. This 
 is the petition of those who seek first the kingdom 
 of God and His righteousness, who " buy as though 
 they possessed not, and use the world as not 
 abusing it.'' Yet let us not fear to utter it, 
 thouo;h we know there is much that is selfish and 
 earthly in the desire as we embrace it, for God is 
 very ready to forgive the evil that is in our asking, 
 that so we may receive His gift, and with His gift 
 His blessing, which will purify us, and form our 
 hearts to heavenly aspirations through the know- 
 ledge of His love. 
 
 Here, first, in this prayer, we come upon this 
 word " Give," the key to the treasury of God's 
 riches ; a word that opens over us the windows 
 of heaven, that wakes the omnipotence of God, 
 and causes the fulness of His resources to flow 
 forth ; a word which is as a rod of power in a 
 man's hand, if he knows to direct it to the great 
 
104 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY, 
 
 Giver, to Him from whom all things have come, 
 who has given all out of Himself, and who con- 
 tinues to give not grudgingly, nor of necessity, 
 but freely and liberally, because it is of His 
 nature so to do ; a word that we must use, be- 
 cause we are poor, but which is jout into our 
 mouths because we are intended to be rich ; a 
 word which, however often and greedily we use 
 it, will still find its echoing '' receive" in God. 
 And there is no period when this word must be 
 uttered for the last time, for God does not tire of 
 giving, nor, like man, excuse Himself from giving 
 more because already He has given so much, but 
 by the further and more bountiful outjDOuring of 
 His gifts satisfies that confidence in Him which 
 His former gifts have inspired. And here this 
 word " Give" stands in its simplicity, without 
 apology, without circumlocution ; in its childlike 
 boldness and straightforwardness of request. It 
 is the wide opening of the mouths of the young- 
 birds hungering round the parent. 
 
 And it is remarkable, that the only introduc- 
 tion of this word in the prayer is when we ask 
 for that which, of all things, we are most inclined 
 to think may be got by our own exertions. We 
 allow^ that there are si^iritual gifts, which it is of 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 1 05 
 
 God to give. Or at least there are graces which 
 we are aware we cannot have without God's aid, 
 and which we feel so helpless to procure apart 
 from Him, that it seems appropriate enough to 
 call them "gifts." But here we are taufjht to 
 depend on the simple gift of God, not for the 
 wellbeing of our spirits, but for the maintenance 
 of our bodies. We are to say " Give" of that 
 which our whole time is spent in procuring. We 
 are not to say " Provide," not " Put us in the way 
 of acquiring;" but, however it is to be done, we 
 are to say simply " Give," as if direct out of Thine 
 hand into ours. What is true of the beasts of 
 the field is equally, and almost as obviously, true 
 of ourselves : " These wait all upon thee, that 
 thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 
 That thou givest them, they gather ; thou openest 
 thine hand, they are filled with food." Let 
 society refine and involve itself as it will, let it 
 secure itself against all contingencies, and provide 
 regular labour and suitable returns for labour, 
 still it is God whose is our life and breath and 
 all things. This security and plenty, which make 
 us feel less dependent on God than the savage is, 
 who has to-day to find to-day's food, are only the 
 more liberal opening of God's hand to us, show- 
 
lo6 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 ing us that we, if we are not more dependent, 
 have more dependence on God than most. And 
 the nearer we come to the actual procuring of 
 food, the more evidently do we see God. We 
 may stay at our work, engrossed by it ; w^e may 
 sit in our rooms, chambers, or counting-houses, 
 and plan, and there we may see no one but our- 
 selves providing our maintenance, and may fail 
 to discern any symptoms of God's work ; but 
 when it comes to the end of all this, to the eating 
 for life, we meet God and feel how utterly we 
 are in the power of some other than ourselves. 
 It is not we who make the corn grow, nor by all 
 the aiDpliances of science could extort one harvest 
 from an unwilling earth. Must not the proudest 
 and best skilled among us, after doing his utmost, 
 just simply wait on God for His bread ? This 
 lesson, which one year's famine so feelingly and 
 unmistakably teaches, seems an easy lesson to 
 learn from the regular and ordinary supply which 
 God maintains by sending seed-time and harvest 
 in the seasons of His appointment. AVhen we 
 consider the vast number of lives to be main- 
 tained, the variety of food by which they are 
 maintained in all different parts af the earth, the 
 numberless contingencies, things that might so 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 107 
 
 easily hapj)en, but wliicli, if happening, would 
 hasten multitudes to the grave, the remote and 
 various causes which must all of them be too-ether 
 regulated and ordered to this one end of life, are 
 we not convinced that God is no idle spectator 
 of the earth He has framed for man ? 
 
 One thing more very strikingly leads us to 
 acknowledge that we are bound to God as the 
 giver of our daily bread ; and a thing it is, appa- 
 rently, intended for this very end. We cannot 
 make food, do what we will ; and as little can 
 we store it up for years and centuries. Some 
 things are given us in perpetual retention, once 
 for all, and not year by year ; thus we possess 
 the stone with which we build, the coal we burn, 
 and others of the most useful commodities. But 
 the actual food does not so exist, does net exist 
 dead and stored uj?, so that we can never run out 
 of it. It is of earth's annual production, and has 
 its term of life, after which it is useless to us. It 
 differs from those things that the earth already 
 contains, and which have only to be taken and 
 fashioned by us for our use, inasmuch as it has 
 to be called into being. That which shall sus- 
 tain us in the years to come has now actually no 
 existence. It must itself be born and grow, must 
 
lo8 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 itself receive life, before it can communicate life 
 to us. And thus are we very plainly unprovided 
 for, except in the faithfulness of God. The 
 future is a blank to us except in so far as God 
 fills it with His goodness. And in what a light 
 does this set the character of him who eats his 
 daily bread, not only as if it must infallibly and 
 of some natural necessity yield him life, but as if 
 he had made it and given it the life which now it 
 gives to him ! " Talk no more, therefore, so ex- 
 ceedingly proudly, let not arrogancy come out of 
 your mouth, for the Lord killeth and maketh 
 alive ; he bringeth down to the grave, and 
 bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh 
 rich ; he bringeth low and lifteth up." What we 
 have by inheritance, and what we have by our 
 own endeavour ; the abundance at hand, and the 
 store laid up ; all is the gift of God, and through 
 all our possessions we must pray to Him who is at 
 the back of them all, to the Fountain of Life from 
 which they are drawing all that can give us life. 
 For this prayer is not a fanciful connecting of earth 
 with heaven, an elegant way of making our life of 
 drudgery for bread a life sublime, nor a foolish, 
 meaningless homage to God, but it is an asking 
 for what we need and can only have from God. 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 1 09 
 
 But there is another word in this petition, 
 * which we must take in connexion with this word 
 " Give." And it seems, at first sight, strange 
 that we should say, not only "Give us bread," 
 but " our bread." The first truth which this 
 suggests, when we pray, is, that what we ask for 
 must be ours and not another's. We must, that 
 is, ask for what God may give us without detri- 
 ment to others. We are not to exjDect to reap 
 what others have anxiously sown, nor to enter 
 into other men's labours. " If any will not work, 
 neither shall he eat." The bread we pray for is 
 to be a gift so far as God is concerned, but it 
 is to be ours so far as our fellow-men are con- 
 cerned. We are to be careful that, in askino- 
 God to prosper us, we are not thinking of some 
 other person's prosperity, and wishing that some 
 of it were transferred to our lot. We are not to 
 push our own interests regardless of the interests 
 of others ; still less, so as directly to injure others. 
 We are to keep within our own domain and the 
 limits of a fair and open competition. This 
 prayer, then, saves from dishonesty and cruelty. 
 When we thus pray, we see that our advancement 
 is to run in the line of God's pleasure ; and we 
 are enabled to choose rather to wait to see His 
 
X lO THE PRA YER THAT TEACHES TO PR A Y. 
 
 way of prospering us brought to pass, than to 
 take the matter into our own hands, and, by 
 means pleasing to Him or not, to make a com- 
 petency for ourselves. It is bread provided ho- 
 nestly in the sight of man that we are to look 
 for, and not the bread of idleness, of deceit, or of 
 extortion. And, therefore, when we say, " Give 
 us our bread," we do not expect that God will 
 lift us above the common and toiling ways of 
 men, nor loosen us from the hard and burden- 
 some conditions of this life, raining on us bread 
 from heaven ; but we trust that He will find for 
 us labour, such as shall not only win us bread, 
 but be otherwise beneficial to us.* And thus God, 
 in that word of His which Christ rested on in the 
 time of His trial, says, '' Man liveth not by bread 
 alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God " — that is, not by the simple and 
 visible gift of God, but by His disposition of our 
 circumstances, and distribution of natural ability 
 to labour, and scope for exercising this ability. 
 
 But, again, this word " our " teaches us to be 
 considerate in our desires, and discriminating ; 
 to a!sk not blindly for the good things we see 
 
 * Stier quotes a striking proverbial saying, *' We lift our 
 empty hands to heaven, and God lays work upon them." 
 
GIVE US THIS DA Y OUR DAILY BREAD. 1 1 1 
 
 others enjoy, nor for all that for a moment strikes 
 us as desirable, but for " our " bread, for that 
 which is suited to us in our present position. 
 What others are receiving, and may be both 
 delighting in and profiting by, might be a very 
 disastrous gift to us. This is, then, in other 
 words, the wise prayer of Agur, " Feed me with 
 food convenient for me.'' And while there are 
 hardships in poverty, which none will make light 
 of who knows anything of their variety and their 
 bitterness, yet, if this be the condition appointed 
 to any, let these also thankfully pray for their 
 pittance from God, remembering that He who 
 taught us this prayer Himself lived from day to 
 day, not knowing in the morning where the 
 evenino; meal was to come from, not knowing' in 
 the evening where He would find shelter for the 
 night, having while alive no home He called His 
 own, nor when dead a place provided to lay His 
 body, possessing nothing while in the w^orld, and 
 leaving behind Him no more than the raiment 
 He wore. Though this be a condition which we 
 cannot desire, yet it has its own blessing, and 
 those who find this allotted to them as their daily 
 bread, will (if they are receiving it thankfully 
 from God) find in the end that no better condi- 
 
112 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 tion could have been assigned them, and that it 
 has been no small inheritance to share the poverty 
 of their Lord. 
 
 Again, it is perhaps not straining this word to 
 find in it a reference to, and prayer for, others 
 along with ourselves. In any case such prayer is 
 very suitable, bat it is specially appropriate when 
 we pray for the provision of this life ; inasmuch 
 as in this we are all dependent one upon another, 
 no one man's work sufficing for the actual ac- 
 complishment of his own sustenance, clothing, 
 and comforts. In the savage state, men may be 
 excused for some selfishness, wdiere they can live 
 in all things independently of one another, each 
 man building for himself and catering for his 
 own wants. But we are inexcusable, if we be 
 not charitable, not only in prayer and intention, 
 but in deed, we who daily enjoy what has cost 
 the labour of many. And the more we live in 
 liberal community with others, the better will 
 our lives appear in the end to have been spent. 
 
 On the whole, then, this word " our " teaches 
 us to desire to be laborious, contented, and charit- 
 able ; to work with our will and strength, doing 
 our best in our place ; to wait on God for fruit 
 of our work and returns for our labour ; and, re- 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 1 1 3 
 
 ceiving these, to be satisfied, if they be small, and 
 willing that others should share with us, if they 
 be large. He who has to earn his bread is girt 
 by this prayer with a fresh and cheerful confi- 
 dence for his daily duty : and he who has abund- 
 ance is admonished to be diliojent in the rio-ht 
 disposal or increase of it, knowing, at least, that 
 this prayer has not been from his true desire, if 
 he leaves to their hunger and misery any whom 
 his further labour might relieve. For our cause 
 is a common cause with all mankind, as our 
 Lord's self-sacrificing life stands ever teaching us ; 
 and while there is want in the world unsupplied, 
 there should be no faculty of labour in the world 
 unexercised. If the healthy do not work, what is 
 to become of the sick ? If the strong man do 
 not labour, what help is there for the child and 
 the aojed ? And to those who are labourino: to 
 their utmost, and yet not seeing the rasults they 
 purposed and still desire, all that can be said is, 
 Wait and pray this prayer still. This is all that 
 can be said, not because your case is a desperate 
 one, but because in this all consolation is included, 
 and all hope, as you well know already, if the 
 Spirit has taught you to say in simplicity, " Give 
 me this day my daily bread." 
 
 H 
 
114 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 By teaching us to ask for bread, our Lord in- 
 dicates that our desires for worldly good should 
 not be passionate, but moderate ; restricted to the 
 suj^ply of the natural wants of our condition. 
 For this the word bread naturally suggests to us. 
 We say that we do not desire a great deal, but 
 enough to enable us to do God's will effectively, 
 to be the most we can.* It is not a burden of 
 luxuries and superfluous comforts, but the light 
 equipment of a hardy abstemiousness, which is 
 aimed at by this petition. We acknowledge the 
 propriety of leaning rather to what is severe than 
 to what is sumptuous ; and while we by no means 
 deprecate all extras, all comforts and pleasures, 
 these are not sought with the fervency of prayer. 
 
 Here, accordingly, the question emerges : Can 
 a man conscientiously pray thus, and straightway 
 proceed to his employment, resolving to acquire, 
 if possible, far more than enough for the main- 
 tenance of life? The answer to this has been 
 anticipated, when it was said, that the honest 
 offering of this petition impels a man to labour 
 
 * Clement of Alexandria cleverly compares a man's 
 possessions to a slice. They must fit him ; being cumber- 
 some and uncomfortable if too large, as well as painful if 
 pinched. 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BEE AD. 1 1 5 
 
 to his utmost. Let him make what money he 
 can, if that be fairly in the way of his calling, 
 only let him, more than any other, keep repeat- 
 ing to himself the reiterated warnings of God's 
 Word concerning the entangling power of wealth. 
 Let him start right from the petition preceding 
 this. Let him be sure that his chief end in seek- 
 ing gain be to do God's will on earth. Let him 
 be very certain that his purpose is to employ his 
 gains in a manner on which he can ask God's 
 blessing ; and let him through his whole career 
 examine himself, to learn whether the means be 
 not becoming more to him than the end, whethei 
 his desires are still going beyond the gold to the 
 Christian expenditure he at first proposed. No 
 doubt this requires a strong and watchful spirit : 
 but since commercial ability, as well as every 
 other talent, is to be consecrated to God, and 
 since money is needed on all hands for the best 
 of purposes, let him who has the ability to gain 
 use this petition, and what he receives as God'^ 
 gift he will use in His service. For do we not 
 rA\ feel, when we use this petition, that we must 
 not use what God may this day give us, for the 
 pampering of appetite, for the vanity of display, 
 for waste, for anything which will not pleasA 
 
1 16 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY, 
 
 God ? We know how it has grieved ourselves to 
 see what has been besought at our hands put to 
 a use which the receiver knows we abhor or dis- 
 approve, and we determine to show ourselves 
 worthy stewards of the gift of God to ns, and to 
 justify (so far as in us lies) our appointment to so 
 many blessings. 
 
 And as our prayers are moderate, so let us 
 be thankful for ordinary benefits. For wherever 
 there is material for prayer, there is material for 
 thanksgiving. If we need to pray to God even 
 for our bread, then even for our bread let us give 
 thanks to Him. If to-day's supply does not come 
 by chance, nor because we were similarly supplied 
 yesterday and the day before, but because God 
 regards owr wants of to-day, and for this day also 
 grants us life ; then this day ought we to thank 
 Him for this day's mercies, though they be but 
 the same as yesterday's, and what all other men 
 Hre enjoying. As each rising sun, touching the 
 wing of the sleeping birds, wakes through the 
 w^oods a fresh burst of glad melody, as if sun 
 had never risen before;* so let each day's mercies 
 awake our hearts afresh to the sense of God our 
 Father's smile, and turn our lives towards His 
 
 * See " Three Wakings," and other poems. 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUB DAILY BREAD. HJ 
 
 lio-ht. "Where nothinpj is deserved, everything 
 should be received with thanksgiving ;" how then 
 shall we ever discharge our debt of thanks, who 
 deserve to know the power of God's anger, but 
 experience the power of His mercy ? 
 
 There is another essential of this petition. ^Ye 
 are to pray for this day only. And this is a point 
 of so much importance to the right ordering of the 
 godly life on earth, that our Lord follows it out in 
 the subsequent discourse, and impresses it with a 
 beauty and force of persuasion which have made 
 this a marked passage of Scripture. He antici- 
 pated the objection that we must provide for to- 
 morrow as well as to-day, and reminds us that He 
 who clothes the lilies of the field, and makes pro- 
 vision for the birds of the air, knows that we also 
 have lives to be maintained, and constantly re- 
 curring necessities. By reminding us of our help- 
 lessness, of the folly of distracting forethought, 
 and of the sufficiency of the care of God, he 
 shames us into confidence. "Is not the body 
 more than meat ? " He who has given you the 
 greater, will He not also provide the less ? " Is 
 not the life more than raiment ? " He who can 
 create and maintain the one, may well be trusted 
 to supply the infinitely less costly want. " Are ye 
 
1 1 8 THE PEA YER TEA T TEA CBES TO PEA Y, 
 
 not of more value than many sparrows ? " And 
 yet is one want of one of these overlooked, for- 
 gotten, or despised ? Does God find pleasure in 
 lavishing on a flower which the eye of man never 
 sees, a beauty which no forethought or effort of 
 yours could produce, and will He spend no care 
 on you, ye of little faith ? Does He not know 
 what you have need of, so that you are constrained 
 to be fearful and anxious in your own behalf ? Or 
 can you really, by all your pondering, provide one 
 crumb beyond what He has provided for you ? 
 Does your scheming by day and by night remove 
 you out of the care of God into an independent 
 and self-supporting life of your own ? " Take, 
 therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the mor- 
 row shall take thou2;ht for the thino^s of itself. 
 Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Bring 
 not, then, into this day's cares, and to confuse the 
 duties which this day requires of you, to-morrow's 
 cares and anxieties about its duties. I here ask 
 God to take me through this day ; if to-morrow 
 comes, He knows that I shall be as dependent on 
 Him then as now. But it forms no part of my 
 care ; I have cast it on Him. 
 
 But docs this forbid planning of all kinds? 
 Does this preclude all saving or storing? As- 
 
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 1 ^9 
 
 suredly not. It forbids nothing which does not 
 interfere with present duty. It precludes nothing 
 which does not indicate mistrust of God, and 
 beget fearfulness and depression of spirit. Any 
 planning or storing of this kind is not for him 
 who prays this prayer. Any anxiety which says, 
 What shall I eat ? as if there would be no God 
 to-morrow ; any thought of the unknown future 
 which weakens us in any way for plain, present 
 duty; and any self-confident storing, as if we 
 had really more in our barns and banks than in 
 the resources of God ; all these are certainly pre- 
 cluded. That there is a great difference between 
 faithless, anxious imagining and scheming, and 
 godly prudence, every one understands who has 
 given a thought to the matter. From the former 
 one sometimes wakes up, thoroughly ashamed of 
 it. Have I work for to-day, and strength for to- 
 day ? Then let not thought of to-morrow's food, 
 or how I shall get through to-morrow's duties, 
 interfere with to-day's duties, which require for 
 themselves all my thought and care. Let me 
 'prepare for to-morrow, so far as I can consistently 
 with what I am called on to do to-day. Let me, 
 for example, lay up seven years' corn, like Joseph, 
 if I am given to understand there will be need of 
 
I20 THE FRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 it. Let me, like our Lord himself, gather up the 
 fragments of to-day, that nothing be lost for to- 
 morrow. Let me lay by whatever will in all 
 human probability be needed for simple mainten- 
 ance ; but let me do this, knowing that I am as 
 dependent as ever on God, and let me do it only 
 in so far as it does not clash with present claims 
 of charity, hospitality, or station. 
 
 This, of course, is one of the cases in which a 
 man's own conscience must draw the line ; must 
 say how much he is to spend or give, and how 
 much to set against a future call. There is no 
 other rule than his own conscience to define this. 
 But of the principle on which all are to act, no 
 one will be left in doubt who is from day to day 
 sincerely asking God for his daily bread. And of 
 the two extremes, trusting in gold to the utter 
 exclusion of all confidence in God, and trusting 
 in God to the neglect of the rules of prudence 
 which He has taught, (which God calls " tempting 
 Him,") no one needs to be told which is the more 
 dangerous, and few can safely dispense with self- 
 delivered warnings against it. 
 
 The answer, therefore, to this petition will be, 
 that our sj^irits will be cleansed from worldliness, 
 covetousness, and hardness of heart ; from high- 
 
GIVE US THIS DA Y OUR BAIL Y BREAD. 1 2 J 
 
 mindedness, self-confidence, and dislionesty; from 
 discontent, envy, and indolence ; and that we shall 
 be enabled, without repining at what is past, or 
 fretting ourselves with thoughts of the future, 
 (though repenting of the past and preparing for 
 the future,) to summon all the powers given us 
 to this day's duty. And as we learn our place as 
 dependents, we shall awake to the value of what 
 is consigned to us, and as we commit the past and 
 the future alike to God, there remains before us 
 this day, a portion competent to our faculties, 
 and practicable, with no uncertainties to distract 
 us from the ^''valuable certainties" of the present. 
 And this dependence should not be found difficult 
 by those who have an Advocate such as ours, 
 who well understands human necessities, Himself 
 having hungered ; whose earnest, purposing, and 
 planning love ist he same now as when He " be- 
 came poor that we migl^.t be rich," and who has 
 so opened His riches lo our poverty, that suffi- 
 ciency is found in Him — every hungering soul 
 finding enough in Him, every weary soul finding 
 rest in Him, every tossed and breaking soul for- 
 getting its sorrow in Him. 
 
1 2 2 THE PRA YER TEA T TEA CHES TO PR A F. 
 
 YI. 
 
 "And forgive ue our debts, as vre forgive our debtors." 
 
 No one who uses this prayer can be surprised 
 to find that to the petition for bodily sustenance 
 and the regulation of our earthly life, it is imme- 
 diately added, " J.?icZ forgive us our debts, as we 
 forgive our debtors." To ask for more puts us 
 in mind of what we have already received. To 
 request the greatest favours from one who may 
 give or withhold at pleasure, forces us to consider 
 our claim, and calculate the probability of our 
 being heard. And if our conduct towards any 
 one has been unworthy, never does conscience 
 make more painful mention of this than when 
 circumstances bring us to acknowledge that we 
 are dependent on this person. Nothing but sheer 
 necessity will induce us to seek the good-will, or 
 implore the aid of one whose past favours we 
 have abused, whose person we have insulted, and 
 of whose excellence and power we cherish a 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 123 
 
 grudging and irritable dislike, rather than a frank 
 and cordial admiration ; but if necessity bids us 
 seek the presence and favour of such, we cannot 
 do so without at least a form of apology, which, 
 though it be not willing nor true, is yet under- 
 stood to be requisite, and felt to be humbling. 
 Prudence prescribes, though penitence do not 
 prompt. But there are cases in which the aid 
 we seek is so vital, the gift we receive so 
 munificent, that stiff and hardened pride gives 
 way before genuine humility and contrite grati- 
 tude. 
 
 And so it is when we ask from God our daily 
 bread. " Continue us in life," we say to God ; 
 and (not from heaven but) from within there 
 comes an answering voice, " Why should God 
 continue us in life? Is it to cumber His 
 ground ; to take up room others might better 
 occupy ; to waste His goodness and abuse His 
 forbearance ?" Give me this day my bread ; but 
 why to me ? Am I so useful, so grateful, so 
 considerate? To me; to whom is it I attract 
 the regard of God when I use these words? 
 "Give me this day my bread;" and why this 
 day ? Is it because yesterday was so well spent ? 
 Were all my duties yesterday so discharged that 
 
I 24 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 I can with some assurance ask another day ? As 
 every moment of it was charged with something 
 from God, was there on my part an unbroken 
 rendering to God of His due ? Do I find in yes- 
 terday reasons for God's maintaining me to-day, 
 far outweighing whatever might induce Him to 
 withdraw His support ? or, conscious of some de- 
 ficiency, do I say, " Give me this new day," that 
 I may have some chance of paying off the debt I 
 have contracted; that I may this day do more 
 than my duty, and have a surplus to set over 
 against yesterday's deficit ? Who needs to be 
 told that such hopes are vain, that all we can this 
 day perform is already due ; that we cannot limit 
 our service to God, nor by greater diligence part 
 of the day free the remainder from all claim ; that 
 we cannot iserve Him so many hours, and then 
 say, " Now I have done enough, now I may cease 
 renderin f][ obedience to God ? " All that we have 
 for to-day is needed for to-day; it cannot over- 
 flow to to-morrow, nor make up for the lack of 
 yesterday. If we misspent yesterday's bread, we 
 nmst to-day simply ask forgiveness ; if we ran 
 into God's debt yesterday by omission or trans- 
 gression, then to-day we cannot make up for that, 
 but must ask His free pardon. And the more 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 1 25 
 
 we seek for some reason for God's giving us this 
 day's bread, the more do we discover reason for 
 God's calling us to account for what we have 
 already received. Our "give" must ever be fol- 
 lowed by " forgive." The goodness of God leads 
 us to repentance. He overcomes our evil with 
 His good, and never more forcibly reminds us of 
 our ungracious past than when the present shines 
 with His grace. 
 
 The linking of this petition to the preceding 
 shows us further that forgiveness is a vital thino^, 
 as needful for our daily life as the bread it is 
 here connected with. Fororiveness is as much the 
 basis of a day's duty as bread. If we are to serve 
 on earth, we must have bread ; but if we are to 
 serve either on earth or elsewhere, we must have 
 forgiveness. As surely as we faint and die with- 
 out bread, so surely do we faint and die from all 
 godly life, and for all godly purposes, if we have 
 not forgiveness. Bread supplies the personal 
 capability and outward opportunity of doing the 
 things which please God : forgiveness supplies the 
 inward condition in which a man can do any- 
 thing pleasing to God. Until the matter of sin 
 is finally adjusted, and an understanding come to 
 on this point between God and the soul, there is 
 
125 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 no willingness, no heartiness, no constancy, nor 
 any acceptance of service. To serve God from 
 any other motive than love has been proved im- 
 possible by the lives of so many, that words need 
 not be spent upon the matter. And that a man 
 cannot love God while he is heavily and inexcus- 
 ably and hopelessly in His debt, is what no one 
 needs to be told who is really seeking for infor- 
 mation about service. I know this. Yes; but 
 do I act upon my knowledge, or does not my 
 knowledge condemn my practice ? Do I begin 
 each day with a spirit free, unburdened, and 
 lively, r mining in the way of God's command- 
 ments, as the healthy body delights not in slug- 
 gish sauntering, but in vigorous and difficult 
 exercise ? As I often take it for granted that the 
 bread will come of itself without any provident 
 interposition of God, do I not also many a day 
 pass by the forgiveness of God as if it would 
 come of itself? But if it comes at all, it comes 
 at my request. And if it do not come to-day, 
 then this day is lost — lost for the service and 
 glorifying of Him who gives it, and lost for my 
 own best good. For as bread not only satisfies 
 the appetite which the past has begotten, but also 
 gives strength for time to come, so forgiveness 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 1 27 
 
 not only clears away what the past has accumu- 
 lated, but lays the foundation for what is to come. 
 And other foundation than this there is none, as 
 little as there is any way of sustaining life besides 
 eating and drinking. We can as little discover 
 some elixir which shall work in our spirits the 
 same charm as forgiveness, as we can discover 
 some specific or private means of sustaining our 
 bodies, which shall put us beyond the necessity 
 of takinsf meat like other men. And therefore 
 are we to be sure that we are obtaining this for- 
 giveness, this daily spiritual nourishment ; not 
 using this petition lightly, as if we could live 
 quite as well unforgiven as forgiven; as if it 
 would make very little difference whether this 
 day be spent in God's favour or under His dis- 
 pleasure. 
 y And how would God have us view our sins 
 when we seek their forgiveness ? As debts. To 
 get at the full iniquity of sin, we need to consider 
 it in various lights ; and so in Scripture we find 
 it designated by a variety of names, each of which 
 suggests some peculiar quality of sin. It springs 
 into life from such opposite parts of our nature, 
 and gathers strength from so many different 
 motives ; its heinousness is darkened by so many 
 
128 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 aggravations, and its consequences run out in so 
 many directions, that it is impossible to gather 
 np all its evil and express it in a single word. 
 Sometimes it is transgression or trespass, and 
 here we see our reckless wickedness in departing 
 from the straight path of God's commandments, 
 the " everlasting way " that runs on eternally into 
 deeper blessedness. Sometimes it is rebellion 
 against God, as if we took delight in going con- 
 trary to Him, irrespective of any pleasure or profit 
 apparently to be gained. And sometimes it is 
 folly, showing us the weakness of our hearts, and 
 their proneness to be deluded, and to miss the 
 aim and end of our being. But when we confess, 
 we are helped by viewing them as debts ; an ex- 
 pression which leads us to consider, not so much 
 the evil dispositions from which our sins pro- 
 ceeded, as the relation to God in which they have 
 left us. And manifestly it is this which is most 
 appropriate to be on our minds, (and which, in 
 truth, must be on our minds,) when we come be- 
 fore God to ask His forgiveness. This view of 
 sin takes us and sets us down in our true position 
 before God as His debtors. It throws into my 
 soul the confession, " I am connected with God, 
 and the connexion is — debt." It is not a word 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 1 29 
 
 wliich directly points to the moral evil of sin, but 
 it very distinctly declares the position of the 
 sinner. It may not be that view of sin which 
 most powerfully excites repentance ; it is nofc 
 introspection nor self-loathing which it most 
 directly induces ; but it is a word which shows 
 that our sins have to do with more than our- 
 selves, which shows that they have connected me 
 with God, which speaks of God and myself in the 
 same word, and at the same time exhibits the 
 relation I presently hold to God. And this is 
 just what we need to see clearly when w^e pray 
 for pardon ; that we are debtors, not only miser- 
 able sinners, whose pitiable case may well move 
 God to compassion, but His servants who, in 
 sinning and ruining themselves, have been most 
 grievously wronging and defrauding Him, and 
 whose sins have done as much injury (so He 
 represents it) to Him as to themselves. 
 
 Sin, then, is a personal matter between myself 
 and God. My sins have been affecting God. It 
 has been a matter that He has considered, and 
 He has noted a difference when I have done one 
 thing rather than another. He has been expect- 
 ing, waiting for service at my hand. At great 
 
 cost He has furnished me with valuable aids and 
 
 I 
 
130 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 instruments, wherewith to further His purposes ; 
 and these I have abused, squandered, or destroyed. 
 Again and again He has renewed my equipment 
 as His servant, never casting me off as hopeless, 
 but carefully adjusting my circumstances, so as 
 to make opportunities of good easy, and what 
 have I rendered Him again ? All my life I have 
 been receiving at His hand ; " what have I that I 
 have not received?" What should I have, were 
 He to withdraw all the support He is now^ afford- 
 ing me ? What should I be, were He suddenly 
 to banish me beyond His power ? And for all I 
 receive, (which I can as soon number the hairs of 
 my head as reckon,) He expects a return. What 
 return have I made ? I hear His voice demand- 
 ing of me, " What owest thou to thy Lord ?" I 
 cannot tell; I have never so much as known what 
 I owed : have seldom so much as tried to form a 
 careful, true, and honest estimate of what is due 
 from me to Him ; have seldom set myself against 
 the known deceitfulness of sin, and determined 
 that, at least, I should have a clear, definite 
 understanding of what I owe to God, and en- 
 deavour, as the one thing which, at all events 
 and at any cost, must be done by my life, to dis- 
 charo-e what is due to God, to whom I owe alL 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 131 
 
 " Debt " is a designation of sin which calls to 
 mind a large class of sins, which we are very 
 prone to forget in seeking pardon — sins of omis- 
 sion. These have no palpable and visible exist- 
 ence, such as glaring acts of sin possess. While 
 they rival positive acts of wrong-doing in their 
 iniquity, they outrival them in their power of 
 eluding conscience. So that, if there be a man 
 who, when he draws near to God with the pur- 
 pose of confessing, is at a loss what to say; whose 
 eye, as it turns back to scrutinise his life, is 
 arrested by no startling forms of iniquity, is not 
 glazed with terror, nor sinks in shame from the 
 ghastly phantoms that pursue him, and stretch 
 forth quick and strong hands of vengeance to 
 seize him ; let him look once more over that 
 wide and void expanse, and let him turn upon 
 himself and ask what there ought to be there. 
 Let him say to his soul, Ought there to be no- 
 thing more than you see ? Was it to do nothing 
 more than you have done, that God gave you this 
 life, and made you what you are ? Have you 
 done all for yourself that you could, so that now 
 you are as like to Christ as possible ? Have you 
 done all for others that you could, so that none 
 are hungering now, who might have been fed by 
 
132 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 you ; none in sorrow now, whom a word or deed 
 of yours might have relieved; none in bitter- 
 ness of spirit or enmity against you now, whom 
 a slight humiliation on your part might have 
 saved from sin ; none mistaken as to the char- 
 acter of Christ and His relioion, who might have 
 known differently had you done what you could? 
 But there is one sin of omission that rises up * 
 from every part of our life, and fills with con- 
 demnation the expanse which, to the careless eye, 
 might seem vacant. There is one debt incurred 
 which fills the soul with new and keener shame, 
 however overwhelmed it has been already with a 
 sense of sin. God's '' unspeakable gift " has been 
 abused by us. He has spent all upon us, the 
 whole resources of Deity, all that made this 
 world and more,f all the wisdom, and the glory, 
 and all (if we may say " all " of what has proved 
 itself infinite) the love of God. Only when we 
 can fathom the humiliation of Christ, only when 
 
 * As at the resurrection men will rise from empty wastes, 
 where it would not have been suspected that any were con- 
 cealed, let a man look back on all his omissions, and think 
 what the divine law can raise from them against him." — 
 Foster's Lectures, vol. i., p. 348. 
 
 t This idea will be found elaborated in the Patience, of 
 Hope^ with the usual felicity of the authoress. 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. ^Z^i 
 
 we can understand what is contained in that ex- 
 pression " He emptied Himself," only when we 
 can measure the interval between the throne of 
 God and the tomb in Joseph's garden, between 
 " the living God " and a dead man, shall we be 
 able to measure God's gift to us and our debt to 
 Him. And is the world to go on as if the Son 
 of God had never been its inhabitant? Has 
 Christ done all this for us, and is no return 
 expected from us ? Is all this to be done before 
 us, and no new feelings to arise in our hearts, no 
 new and wider thoughts, no lasting alteration of 
 conduct ? Can one act so closely in our interest, 
 and our relation to Him be as it was 1 Let us 
 take our stand before the cross, where we may 
 see the freeness of God's giving at its height, 
 and, standing there, let us say if we have ren- 
 dered to Him His due. Call sin debt to Christ, 
 and the matter is brought to a very simple issue. 
 Had I myself spent my all upon another, put 
 aside my own interest and prospects, and given 
 my whole life and labour to him ; had I, in that 
 life, met with the sorest trouble on his account, 
 and yet never turned aside, and had I been 
 tempted by the most alluring openings for my- 
 self, and yet held the interest of the object of 
 
134 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY, 
 
 this life-long sacrifice so close to my heart, that 
 I preferred bitterness and disgrace for him, to 
 pleasure and profit for myself ; and had this re- 
 sulted in a successful issue, had I achieved pros- 
 perity and secure satisfaction for him, should I 
 expect no return, should I not expect so much 
 as some extra thought and regard ; nay, would it 
 not be the most unaccountable ingratitude if he 
 did not become my firmest friend, the man on 
 whom I could always count? How the world 
 would boot such a man ; how the world would 
 scorn his excuses ! And is all changed when I 
 myself am that man, and Jesus Christ the self- 
 sacrificing friend? Is all chans^ed because the 
 sacrifice becomes greater than the most laborious 
 words can describe, and the blessing conferred 
 increasingly rich through eternity? Can our 
 hearts really deceive us thus ; can any blind- 
 ness leave unobserved our debt to Jesus Christ ? 
 But for all our debts, what does God demand 
 of us ? Are His demands anything like those of 
 the human law of debt, of that old law which 
 claimed the person of the debtor, and handed 
 him over to his creditor, to be cut in pieces if he 
 chose ; to be sold with his family and effects, if 
 he chose ; to be chained to a life of drudgery, if 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 135 
 
 such were the will of his creditor ? Are we at 
 least to suffer some penalty, to feel for a while 
 something of the bitterness of that poverty to 
 which we have brought another ? Not so. All 
 that is asked is, that we acknowledge the debt, 
 and accept of its remission. And what else can 
 we do? We can find no way of evading our 
 creditor: "Though they dig into hell, thence 
 shall mine hand take them ; though they climb 
 up to heaven, thence will I bring them down ; 
 and though they hide themselves in Carmel, I 
 will search and take them out thence; and 
 though they be hid from my sight in the bottom 
 of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, 
 and he shall bite them." It is not, then, by any 
 evasion of ours that our debts can be got rid of ; 
 neither will they pass away by any forgetfulness 
 or waiting of ours. They are not fancies, which 
 the changes of life may put to flight. They are 
 not mere names or suppositions which need not 
 be regarded. They are real; entered in the 
 book of God's remembrance to the utmost far- 
 thing. We cannot live our lives over again ; the 
 sins are committed ; the debts are contracted. 
 We cannot now make up for what we have 
 already done wrong and left undone. All our 
 
136 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 strength is needed for our i:)resent duty. The 
 future will do well, if it keeps itself solvent. But 
 " ask, and ye shall receive." " The word is nigh 
 thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart ; " will 
 not the heart send to the lijDS this one petition, 
 " Forgive me my debts ? " 
 
 For pardon is one of the things that we can 
 only have by asking. It is a thing which must 
 come from another, from Him, namely, whom we 
 have wronoed. It is His to foro;ive, and nothing; 
 we can do can earn it. We cannot pass a free 
 pardon upon ourselves, remit the debts we owe 
 to another, absolve ourselves. But God, whom 
 we have offended, and in whose debt we are, 
 says, we may have pardon for the asking. 
 " There is forgiveness with God ; " and were 
 there not forgiveness with Him, then to look for 
 it elsewhere were absurd, for He being the party 
 offended can alone forgive the offence. Forgive- 
 ness is with Him, not as being provided by an- 
 other, and now put into His power to administer, 
 but as it is dependent on His will solely, w^hether 
 there shall be any such thing as forgiveness of 
 sin or not. All provision that conld be made foi 
 our pardon, and all administration of that par- 
 don now, must of necessity depend on and origi- 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 137 
 
 nate in the will of God. And that will is, that 
 we be freely pardoned. And this being so, it is 
 deep dishonour we do to God's will and word, if 
 we say or think that something must be added 
 to the simplicity of this petition, or that we are 
 not to expect any very wonderful results from 
 this prayer. These words are something more 
 than an appropriate acknowledgment that we 
 owe God much, they are not a charm by the 
 mere repetition of which we win God's favour ; 
 they are the petition of the soul for what we do 
 need and can only have from God. 
 
 But how does God himself encourage us to 
 use this petition in faith? He puts into our 
 mouths these words, " as we forgive our debtors." 
 And for our encouragement, first of all, these 
 words are surely given us. Tor here we have 
 the same argument as is elsewhere expanded in 
 that marvellous verse which is instinct with per- 
 suasion, and which, as often as we read it, re- 
 kindles our faith : " If ye, being evil, know how 
 to give good gifts unto your children, how much 
 more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
 Spirit to them that ask him ? " Here, with like 
 force of reasoning, we are taught to say to God : 
 If we, being evil, can forgive our debtors, how 
 
138 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 much more may we expect forgiveness of Thee, 
 whose name is love, who art our heavenly Father, 
 with whom there is forgiveness, and who hast 
 made Thyself known as " ready to forgive ? " 
 And to set us on the firmest ground, and in an 
 absolutely unassailable position, when we thus 
 pray, there comes further in aid of our plea the 
 idea which God himself has given us of human 
 forgiveness; and we plead with still greater 
 power, " If on us who are full of wickedness, and 
 in whom malice and bitterness congenially dwell, 
 Thou Thyself hast laid the injunction to forgive 
 seventy times seven, if our brother offend, what 
 limit dare we put to Thy forgiveness, which is 
 high above ours as heaven is above the earth ? " 
 Certainly this is a strong argument which God 
 puts into our lips. Will not He do more than 
 He has commanded us to do ? Are we not to 
 expect more from Him than from one another ? 
 Well may our Lord add, " For if ye forgive men 
 their trespasses, your heavenly Father will for- 
 give you." 
 
 This clause, appended to our appeal for pardon, 
 does not exhaust the reasons there are for assur- 
 ance of success ; we might be encouraged by 
 many other considerations. The likelihood of our 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. I39 
 
 obtaining what we ask is grounded on the actual 
 and abundant provision that has been made for 
 oar forgiveness, on the express offers of God, and 
 on a number of circumstances made known in 
 Scripture ; but the likelihood that is here alone 
 considered is that which arises from the nature 
 of the person appealed to. It is simply God's 
 matchless readiness to forgive that we here use 
 for our encouragement. We are reminded by 
 the words we use that we are now appealing to 
 one, the forgivingness of whose character is such, 
 that He has impressed this attribute of His dis- 
 tinctly upon His law, and has commanded that, 
 in order to please Him, it is but necessary that 
 we be loving and forgiving. And nothing can 
 more effectually maintain within us the confident 
 boldness which He desires, than thus to under- 
 stand the infinite depth of love and length of for- 
 bearance that reside in Him with whom we deal, 
 and on whose mercy we hang. It is (need it be 
 said ?) very fitting that before we approach God, 
 we should distinctly understand how forgiveness 
 has been prepared for us, and should, by the con- 
 templation of the infinite merit and inexhaustible 
 efficacy of the blood of Christ, encourage our- 
 selves to draw near to Him by whose judgment 
 
I40 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 we stand or fall ; but when we actually stand in 
 His presence, and are at length explicitly asking 
 Him for pardon, no encouragement can be more 
 fitting than that which arises from a deep im- 
 pression of the forgiving nature to which our 
 appeal is made, and nothing can more promptly 
 and effectually create this impression than the 
 remembrance, that forgivingness of disposition is 
 enjoined upon us by God as the prime requisite 
 of character, and that His one commandment is 
 that we love one another. And it is this remem- 
 brance which these words of the prayer recall as 
 often as we utter them with understandinof. 
 
 But is this an encouragjement that all of us can 
 use? Have we in heart accepted the seventy 
 times seven as our rule, and do we desire to be 
 found in its practice ? Dare we thus reason from 
 ourselves to God? Dare we point God to our 
 conduct, and say, ** As we forgive, so forgive us ?" 
 The words of the petition assure us that whatever 
 may stand in the way of our forgiveness, it cer- 
 tainly is not this, that God is a hard judge who 
 would rather condemn than acquit. But then 
 they remind us of this, only by reminding us that 
 even we ourselves, imperfect though we be, de- 
 light rather in the forgiveness than in the pun- 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 141 
 
 ishment of our enemy. But is this the fact ? Of 
 course we expect God's forgiveness to be of a 
 very cliiferent measure from our own ; but have 
 we any forgivingness of spirit, even "according 
 to the measure of a man/' from which we can 
 take courage to hope in the wide and perfect and 
 infinite forgivingness of God ? Have we the 
 little from which we can reason to God's much ? 
 Or are not some, when they use this prayer, in 
 danger of turning it into an imprecation ? Is it 
 not true that many of us are in danger of utter- 
 ing that most terrible curse upon ourselves, which 
 has been put into language and named " the 
 prayer of the unforgiving man?"* "0 God, I 
 have sinned against Thee many times from my 
 youth up until now. I have often been forgetful 
 bi Thy goodness ; I have not duly thanked Thee 
 for Thy mercies ; I have neglected Thy service ; 
 I have broken Thy laws ; I have done many 
 things utterly wrong against Thee. All this I 
 know; and beside this doubtless I have com- 
 mitted many secret sins, which in my blindness 
 I have failed to notice. Such is my guiltiness, 
 Lord, in Thy sight ; deal with me, I beseech 
 Thee, even as I deal with my neighbour. He has 
 
 * By A. W. Hare. 
 
142 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 not offended me one-tenth, one-hundredth parfc 
 as much as I have offended Thee ; but he has 
 offended me very grievously, and I cannot forgive 
 him. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, Lord, as 
 I deal with him. He has been very ungrateful 
 to me, though not a tenth, not a hundredth part 
 as ungrateful as I have been to Thee ; yet I can- 
 not overlook such base and shameful ingratitude. 
 Deal with me, I beseech Thee, Lord, as I deal 
 with him. I remember and treasure up every 
 little trifle, which shows how ill he has behaved 
 to me. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, Lord, 
 as I deal with him. I am determined to take the 
 very first opportunity of doing him an ill turn. 
 Deal with me, I beseech Thee, Lord, as I deal 
 with him." 
 
 The encouragement of this petition, then, is 
 not a mere commonplace which any one may 
 safely use. A true cordial it is, but if applied to 
 the wrong condition may prove deleterious and 
 deadly. The boldness we have before God must 
 not be the superficial presumption of sentiment- 
 alism, but it must be of a j)iece with the tenor of 
 our life. For there is one thing we need in 
 prayer as much as encouragement, and that is 
 sincerity. We must be thrown back upon our 
 
FORGIVE US OUE DEBTS. 143 
 
 real desires. That encouragement which is not 
 backed by our true state of heart, and which does 
 not consist with our conduct, is mere delusion. 
 The only right confidence before God is that 
 which the apostle commends, and which can only 
 be enjoyed "when our own hearts condemn us 
 not ;" that is, when we ask God, not for those 
 things which we know we ought to desire, but for 
 those things which are ever floating before our 
 hopes, and drawing forth our heart's affections, 
 and the efi'orts of our lives. If it is a fictitious 
 desire, or a desire got up for propriety's sake, 
 which we present before God, our hearts condemn 
 us, and we have no confidence. And what is to 
 be carefully marked as the key to the encourage- 
 ment in this petition is this : that in point of 
 fact every one who is set upon obtaining forgive- 
 ness does forgive liis neighbour, and therefore 
 every one who uses the petition in sincerity, in 
 the truth of the heart, as the expression of the 
 fixed bent of his soul, does receive the encourage- 
 ment which is laid up in the appended clause. 
 This encouragement is not for those who have a 
 merely occasional and passing impression of their 
 need of forgiveness ; it is not for those who prize 
 God's favour to-day, but to-morrow forget it ; it 
 
144 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 is not for the insincere, who hold this petition as 
 a veil between God and their souls ; nor for the 
 double-minded, who love this life, but would 
 also secure themselves against the next. It is 
 not for any who can thoughtlessly and almost 
 flippantly ejaculate this petition merely from the 
 lip ; but it is for all on whose heart God reads 
 the deeply cut consciousness of their immeasur- 
 able debt, and the earnest and abiding desire for 
 pardon. 
 
 This appended clause has, therefore, a twofold 
 use. Wrapt up in its encouragement there is a 
 check to conscience. We are not to be allowed 
 to present the petition at all, unless it be from 
 the deepest sense of our need, and of the greatness 
 of the gift we seek ; a sense which is in reality 
 equivalent to true repentance, and which brings 
 with it, as its uniform and necessary fruit, love to 
 our neighbour. And every one who knows how 
 apt we are to become either hypocrites or careless 
 formalists in prayer, will recognise the suitable- 
 ness of such a check, and will appreciate the pro- 
 priety of its being appended to this petition rather 
 than any other. For this, more than any other, 
 has been a lip-deep petition, and has been shame- 
 fuHy abused by self-satisfied or careless petitioners. 
 
FORGl rE US OUR DEBTS. 145 
 
 by ourselves when we ask forgiveness, as we often 
 ask it, without any considerate remembrance of 
 the cost of it, thinkino^ it the easiest thino; for 
 God to give, and forgetting that this has been 
 prepared for us at a far greater expense, at a 
 more personal expense, than anything else we 
 can implore. It has been the endeavour of many 
 teachers to persuade us, and yet we need to be 
 reminded, that a word could create and beautify 
 a world, and " an act of will bestow it upon us," 
 but it has cost God the humiliation and suffeiino: 
 of His well-beloved Son to grant the boon which 
 now we ask. And therefore we are here sud- 
 denly startled out of all dreamy and indifferent 
 prayer, and are aroused by being brought face to 
 face with our own real desires and our own real 
 life ; we are reminded that our prayer had far 
 better be unsaid, if it is not of a piece with our 
 state of heart; that we cannot pray as one person 
 and live as another ; that we do not look as 
 earnestly as we ought for the remission of our 
 debts, (and therefore need not expect it,) unless 
 we be doing what we can to avoid contracting: 
 new ones ; that, in short, we have no encourage- 
 ment whatever to present this petition, unless 
 conscience assures us that the love of God, on 
 
146 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 which we hope, has entered our souls and changed 
 them, and has become the principle and law of 
 our lives. 
 
 All difficulty vanishes from this clause, once we 
 recognise the point of fact, that a man humbled 
 before God is invariably and necessarily charit- 
 able to his neighbour. The spirit of pride and 
 the spirit of hatred are one ; they stand and fall 
 too^ether. Do I find it hard to foro'ive the little 
 offences of my fellow-servant, the few pence he 
 owes me ? Then do I, indeed, understand what 
 it is I ask God to do, when I ask Him to cancel 
 that debt of mine of ten thousand talents ? For 
 how can I have the heart to challenge another 
 with his offences against me, when my own mis- 
 deed and sin against God is pressing upon my 
 soul, and forcing me to cry for pardon ? Myself 
 helpless and keenly sensible that I am utterly 
 dependent on the forbearance and free grace of 
 God, alive to the shamefulness of my wrong- 
 doing against Him, and crying for mere mercy 
 without a shadow of hope that I can make the 
 slightest reparation, I cannot, I really cannot, 
 harbour hard and unforgiving thoughts against 
 my neighbour, nor insist upon my claims. The 
 words of the evangelist Mark are therefore by no 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 1 47 
 
 means alarming to one who really longs for pardon 
 of his great debt, though they, even more dis- 
 tinctly than the words of Matthew, require that, 
 before receiving the forgiveness of God, we forgive 
 others. He quotes our Lord as saying, " When 
 ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against 
 any ; that your Father also, which is in heaven, 
 may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do 
 •lot forgive, neither will your Father which is in 
 heaven forgive your trespasses." As if he said, 
 " Your act of forgiveness must precede the act 
 you hope that God will perform." There is some- 
 thing standing in the way of your forgiveness, 
 which you must remove. Something is to be 
 done before God can forgive you, which you 
 must do. But, then, it is a thing which you 
 cannot but be doing, if you are compelled to 
 seek God's forgiveness from any just sense of 
 your own sin. Tor just in proportion as your 
 own sin against God appears great, so will the 
 offences of others against yourself appear small. 
 It is not that our forgivingness of spirit wins the 
 forgiveness of God, but that our unforgivingness 
 cannot accept the forgiveness of God. By for- 
 giving others we do not earn our own forgive- 
 ness, but most assuredly we cannot receive that 
 
148 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 foraiveness until we foroive others. We are not 
 prepared to seek it ; we have not seen our own 
 great debt, and are merely asking God for we 
 know not what, unless humility and joy in the 
 hope of God's pardon have excluded from our 
 hearts all malice against our neighbour. 
 
 So that this clause merely forms a demand 
 that, when we ask God for forgiveness, we shall 
 know what we ask for. If we know what we 
 ask for, we will ask it, and cannot but ask it, in 
 the spirit here required. We come approving 
 the law of forgiveness ; it is all our hope for our- 
 selves, and we act upon it towards others. With 
 divine skill and kindness these words, which we 
 are to repeat as often as we ask forgiveness, bid 
 us think how great a gift we seek, and forbid us 
 to deceive ourselves with a merely verbal peti- 
 tion, and so to defraud ourselves of God's pardon. 
 They refuse to let us near God, until we realise 
 the vastness of His gift, and are prepared to claim 
 it. When we feel unable sincerely to use this 
 petition, we are not to turn our attention to our 
 neighbour, and endeavour to kindle love in our 
 hearts by extenuating his offences and magnify- 
 \ng his good deeds. Not at all. We are to bend 
 our thoughts to our own state, to count up our 
 
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. 149 
 
 debts to God, to set them in the light of His coun- 
 tenance, and thus measuring our own great debt, 
 and learning that marvellous love which gives 
 ground of hope even to such debtors, our hearts 
 drink in a humility, a peace, and a joy with which 
 hardness towards our fellow-men cannot dwell. 
 And so invariably does the one feeling flow from 
 the other, that we may learn the presence of the 
 one from the fact of the other's presence. An 
 infallible test is thus graciously put into our 
 hands, by which we may learn whether we are 
 askino; enouf>;h fiom God. If there is still in our 
 hearts any bitterness towards man, then there is 
 too little desire for pardon. If there is too vivid 
 a consciousness of our claims upon others, there 
 is too low an estimate of God's claims upon us. 
 If the wrong done us by others seems greater 
 than we can forgive and forget, then our own 
 wrong-doing is affecting us less than it should ; 
 che mind of God and our mind still view very 
 different objects, when our sins are spoken of. 
 But God would fully pardon us, He would not 
 have us live with a single debt uncancelled, and 
 therefore He gives us a test by which we may 
 always learn whether, when we use this petition, 
 we are indeed seeking that all our great debt be 
 
ISO' THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 forgiven. He gives us these words, certainly not 
 to make our prayer impossible, but to preserve 
 us from verbally asking for what He would have 
 us seek with our whole soul ; and because He 
 would have us, indeed, receive what we ask, when 
 we say, " Forgive us our debts." 
 
 ** Alas ! alas ! 
 Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once, 
 And He that might the vantage best have took 
 Found out the remedy. How would you be, 
 If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
 But judge you as you are? Oh ! think on thatr 
 And mercy then will breathe within your lipa, 
 liike man new made." 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 15 1 
 
 YII. 
 "And lead ua not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 
 
 Our prayer, then, is not finished, when we have 
 cast upon our Father in heaven all the cares of 
 cur earthly life, and have been also freed from 
 the burden of our sins. It is pleasant to sit in 
 God's smile, and gather strength in the assurance 
 ^f His favour, but the future frowns terribly upon 
 us, and we quail at the remembrance that we are 
 still surrounded by the world we have renounced, 
 and are still liable to the sins we have just de- 
 plored. Acknowledged as the children of God, 
 we do not yet enjoy the security of his home; and 
 it is when we look forward and see what lies be- 
 tween us and that home, that we become aware 
 that sin has not only stained but poisoned us ; 
 that the burden has not only wearied but weakened 
 us ; that the debt has not only hampered but de- 
 moralised us. It will not do to rest in the quiet 
 calm of forgiveness, as if we had now attained 
 that for which we were apprehended. " Thy sins 
 
152 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 be forgiven thee" is followed forthwith not by 
 " well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou 
 into the joy of thy Lord," but by " go and sin no 
 more." But this "go,'^ what a bleak and danger- 
 ous world does it launch us into ; to what possi- 
 bilities of disaster and hurt, to what likelihood of 
 ruin does it dismiss us ! How contradictory * it 
 seems to add "sin no more/' We cannot but 
 turn and say, " Do thou, then, Lord, lead us; and 
 lead us not into temptation." 
 
 And as we continue to pray daily for forgive- 
 ness, and find that it is mostly the same sins we 
 have to confess, and how the appetite that is in 
 us for evil finds food in the most unexpected 
 and unlikely quarters, the sense of our weakness 
 grows, and we should feel the prayer to be in- 
 sufficient for us, did not our fears find some hope 
 in it, and our feebleness some security. Like 
 those who have received a precious charge to 
 convey safely through a country infested with 
 enemies, undermined with pitfalls, or reeking 
 with malaria, we go forth with spirits made rich 
 by the favour of God, to traverse that dangerous 
 interval between this present moment and our 
 complete redemption. We fear to step out into 
 * This idea occurs in a recent volume of devotional poetry. 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 153 
 
 the ways of this world, lest our garments, made 
 white in the blood of the Lamb, be again defiled. 
 The world has not changed to suit our condition. 
 We would not now sin as once we did, but the 
 world will still be as pressing in its offers of easy 
 helps to sin, as ever it was. There are our for- 
 mer companions in sin waiting for us to join 
 them again ; there are our old haunts, and the 
 old seasons come round as before, and our fami- 
 liar sins meet us again, and tell us that all things 
 are ready. They take the words of wisdom, and 
 say, " Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the 
 wine which I have mingled." The same business 
 awaits us, in which heretofore we have found 
 such room for sinning ; the same hours of leisure, 
 and the same pleasant ways of spending these. 
 All remains the same, ready as ever to make our 
 old course easy, but with no sympathy for oar 
 new condition, no rejoicing with us over our 
 new-found treasure, no friendly desire to enter 
 into and prosper our new views. All the world 
 is as it was, and what disappoints us more than 
 all, there is still in us too much that remains as 
 it was. The spirit indeed is willing, but the 
 flesh is weak as ever. It is still flesh. It is 
 still so adapted to what the world offers, that it 
 
^54 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 clamours to be satisfied in the world's way, hints 
 that we wrong ourselves and undergo unneces- 
 sary hardships in striving to subdue it, and that 
 it cannot be very criminal to do what our nature 
 demands, and what our circumstances not only 
 permit, but induce and almost drive us to. 
 
 Those who have nothing to lose are (to a pro- 
 verb) little put about by the presence of thieves ; 
 and of those whose hopes are small, the fears 
 also are few and slight. The fear of defilement 
 found no place in our souls, until the grateful 
 sense of purity introduced it. It seemed a small 
 thing to risk all temptation, before we experi- 
 enced the peace and joy of the goodwill of God ; 
 but now that we have tasted His goodness, and 
 prize His favour as our choicest possession, it 
 seems a hazardous thing to venture into a sea of 
 temptations, one or other of which will almost in- 
 evitably sweep over our soul, and leave it bare of its 
 prize under the displeasure of God. I do not pur- 
 pose to sin ; I have no present and special resolve 
 which I know to be wrong, but am I therefore 
 secure ? Or has it not often happened with me 
 that, when least I expected it, evil was very 
 powerfully present with me ? Besides sinning 
 deliberately, have I not sinned through ignorance, 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 1 55 
 
 tlirough weakness, through surprise, through habit? 
 Did I not sin, because I was tempted by such a 
 combination of inducements, and hedged off from 
 the right path by so many difficulties, that I greatly 
 fear to be placed again in a similar predicament ? 
 Rather will I pray, '' Lead me not into tempta- 
 tion, but deliver me from evil." 
 
 A person may use these words as two distinct 
 petitions ; but, as they here stand, they are con- 
 nected and form one double request. It is one 
 utterance of the soul. The soul does not first 
 view temptation and utter its desire about this, 
 and then view evil, and utter a new desire about 
 that; but seeing at one view temptation and 
 evil, and knowing, moreover, how they are joined 
 together, a prayer is uttered which, though it has 
 two parts, is one. There is no end that we can 
 propose for ourselves short of deliverance from 
 evil, and no means can be suggested as mora 
 necessary to the attainment of this than being 
 kept from temptation. To be kept from disease, 
 from poverty, from loss of friends, from any ill 
 that the soul dreads, would not be so broad and 
 effectual a petition as this, if our end be deliver- 
 ance from evil. From these and all other ills we 
 desire deliverance ; but if there be left within us 
 
156 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 evil dispositions that will respond to temptation, 
 then there is no lasting deliverance for us. For 
 this is the account of the whole matter which is 
 given by the apostle James : '' Every man is 
 tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust 
 and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it 
 bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, 
 bringeth forth death/' Evil, then, is that to 
 which temptation leads, and to wdiich sin binds. 
 And there is that in every one of us which, if 
 left to itself, will bring us to the most evil form 
 of evil. Only let it have its way, only take no 
 precautions against it, and gradually the evil 
 within will wed the evil without, and death will 
 grow up around you. This will as certainly re- 
 sult as death will result, if you place an animal 
 that lives by breath into a poisoned atmosphere. 
 'But if the evil be within us, how will a merely 
 negative petition effect our cure ? How will the 
 mere absence of certain outward objects destroy 
 the evil that has its life within the soul ? It will 
 do so by taking from that evil the food on which 
 its life depends. Eire must have fuel, must be 
 active, in order to be living; it may smoulder 
 long, but die it must, if it be not fed. And so 
 it is of evil dispositions and propensities. Give 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPT ATIOX. 157 
 
 them no opportunity, let neither sense nor ima- 
 gination minister to them by presenting their 
 objects, and, finding no outlet, they will pine and 
 die. This at least is the grand external means 
 of deliverance from evil. Plant a tree in a con- 
 genial soil, and surround it with every advantage, 
 it will grow and bear fruit afcer its kind ; and 
 just as certainly will our desires find nourish- 
 ment in the world we are in, and so grow up to 
 matured sins, and bring forth death, if they be 
 not checked. And therefore we pray that God 
 would not suffer the nourishment suitable to our 
 fleshly and natural desires to be given, but would 
 so order our circumstances that we shall have 
 the least possible temptation to sin ; that we 
 may be put in positions in which there is least 
 opportunity of gratifying those of our inclinations 
 to sin which are strongest, and in which our 
 opposite tendencies may be most easily and 
 effectually matured. Here the experience of our 
 better mind arms itself against the law of the 
 members. We take precautions against ourselves. 
 The first question that rises in most minds 
 concerning this petition is, " Is there any likeli- 
 hood that God would lead us into temptation, or 
 why do we pray that He would not ? " Is it not 
 
JS^ THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 said that as God is not tempted, so neitlier 
 •tempteth He any? But we do not present this 
 petition because we suppose that God ever stands 
 on the side of evil, and allures us to sin. This 
 would be somethino; more than leadino; intc 
 temptation. What God often does, what He did 
 in the case of Abraham, of Job, and especially of 
 our Lord himself, is to expose a man in a very 
 critical and precarious position, to bring him in 
 the course of his life into circumstances where 
 sin is very easy, holiness very difficult. We read 
 that it was " of the Spirit " that " Jesus was led 
 up into the wilderness to be tempted of the 
 devil;" a very instructive intimation, giving us 
 in one view all the parties concerned. The 
 human nature, with its liability to temptation, 
 its capability to suffer and to enjoy ; the divine 
 nature, ordering the circumstances which may 
 permit the temptation to take place ; and the 
 diabolical nature, the tempter, exerting his ut- 
 most to induce sin. (For this is the distinguish- 
 ing characteristic of Satan, that he desires that 
 sin may be the result of every temptation.) Our 
 Lord had just passed through His own trial, 
 when He gave this prayer to His disciples. He 
 remembered what it had cost Him, how His 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 1 59 
 
 noly nature had seemed to be violently driven 
 within sight of sin, and He knew that were His 
 disciples to be similarly exposed, the result might 
 be defeat instead of victory. It is He knows 
 best what temptation is, and who has most suc- 
 cessfully overcome it, that bids us pray, ''Lead 
 us not into temptation/' It became His own 
 prayer before He entered on that greatest of all 
 temptations, " Father, if it be possible, let this 
 cup pass from me." And how is this, that we 
 see the soul of Jesus trembling in prospect of 
 temptation, while we brave it, fearlessly, confi- 
 dently, and even boastfully? He knows what 
 Satan's j)ower is, and He knows the evil of sin. 
 And he who has some measure of the spirit of 
 Christ, and fears above all else the Father's dis- 
 pleasure, will not go forth believing that he is 
 proof against every assault of Satan or the world, 
 but will pray that God will so guide his path 
 that he may escape from those more violent or 
 seductive temptations to which he sees others 
 yielding. He will not seek to change this peti- 
 tion into " succour us when tempted," but, out 
 of the consciousness of his own weakness, desires 
 rather to avoid temptation than to take the 
 chances of overcoming it. 
 
l6o THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 And this raises a second question, " Can I pray- 
 thus with any hope, seeing that life is just one 
 series of temptations ? " Must we not meet temp- 
 tations, whether we deprecate them or no ? Is 
 there any such man on earth as an untempted 
 man? Can God give us what we ask for, and 
 still keep us on this earth ? How shall He guide 
 us ? Is there any course through life free from 
 all inducement to sin ? Where shall He put us ? 
 Is there any position ^Yhere we shall no longer 
 need constant vigilance, unflinching constancy, 
 and painful eff'ort of soul ? " Lead me not into 
 temptation," how do I expect that this will be 
 answered ? Is there some profession the mem- 
 \)ers of which find nothing in it to foster their 
 mn corrupt aflfections ? Is there some employ- 
 ment in which failure shall no more tempt us to 
 murmur, nor success elate us to forgetfulness of 
 God? We know that, be a man's occupation 
 what it may, he cannot be secure from all entice- 
 ment. Various indeed are the temptations that 
 assail men, from the statesman, whose name is in 
 every man's mouth, to the invalid whom the 
 world has long forgotten ; but every one can tel 
 of some part of his lot that seems bordering on 
 evil, from which at any moment he could pass' 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. l6l 
 
 over into sin, and at which he is in constant 
 danger of being urged by a sudden impulse 
 across the boundary. Every one can tell of 
 something in his occupation that seems to con- 
 spire with something in his character, and make 
 sinning easier to him there than elsewhere. He 
 is passionate, and there is some constant source 
 of irritation ; or he is covetous, and there is an 
 unrighteous, but prolific source of gain always 
 offering itself. He is ambitious, and there is a 
 path open to its gratification, which would also 
 lead him to sin ; or he loves the ai^plause of men, 
 and that desire can be gratified. He is natu- 
 rally despondent and distrustful, and he is called 
 to endure protracted suffering ; or he is naturally 
 ca(reless and worldly, and he enjoys unmingled 
 prosperity. Or he is liable to suUenness, or 
 pride, or sensuality, or indolence, and whatever 
 be his infirmity, he will not be without drawings 
 that way, encouragements in his infirmity, oppor- 
 tunities of showing what manner of man he is. 
 And shall we therefore cease to use this petition ? 
 We will all the more perseveringly use it. For 
 if temptations be so thickly strewn around us, 
 who shall say how soon we may be overtaken in 
 a fault ? At first this petition may pass our lips 
 
1 62 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 with no quite definite expectation. It only rises 
 irrepressibly out of the sense of our own inability 
 to cope with certain temptations. But as it is used 
 from day to day, side by side with our daily life, 
 it interprets itself more fully. We find in it the 
 suitable expression of a desire that grows up within 
 us, that, whilst we must be exposed to temptations, 
 these may be proportioned to our strength ; in 
 other words, that God would keep us out of situa- 
 tions in which, so far as we can judge, it would be 
 beyond our present strength to keep from sinning. 
 The harder we purpose in our souls to live to 
 God, the more clearly do we see how we displease 
 Him. We begin to take account of this, that 
 there are certain conditions in which we almost 
 invariably, if not invariably, sin, despite all our 
 resolves to the contrary. We remember our 
 resolves, nay, we remember how a few hours ago 
 we besought pardon of similar sin, and yet we 
 yield. There are persons whose company always 
 betrays us into slandering, or scofiing, or bitter 
 envj'', or hypocrisy, or some evil passion ; there 
 are places in which we cannot maintain, or have 
 at leas-t never yet maintained, even our usual 
 reo-ard to the will of God, and from which we 
 return less disposed than we ought to remember 
 
LEAD us NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 1O3 
 
 Christ, or engage in any religious duty; there 
 are books we read, or trains of thought we in- 
 dulge in, which lower our tone and unhinge the 
 mind for serious, vigorous, and devout exercise. 
 Now it is very often the case, that it is quite at 
 our option that we thus put ourselves in the way 
 of temptation. It forms no part of our duty to 
 ourselves or our friends thus to expose ourselves, 
 and yet we find it very difficult to disentangle 
 ourselves from the habits we have formed by a 
 voluntary and repeated exposure to the same in- 
 fluences. So ao;reeable and fascinatinoj have these 
 situations or employments which tempt us become, 
 that it is beyond our strength to give them up. 
 Surely in this case we may ask God so to order 
 our circumstances that these things may have less 
 power Df appeal than formerly. How the prayer 
 may be answered we do not know. We may be 
 removed to a distance from the companions or 
 objects which most effectually tempted us ; our 
 attention may be strongly diverted to some pur- 
 suit which dulls for a time the other attraction, 
 and breaks the hafoit we have formed. But how 
 the answer shall come it is not for us to decide. 
 God, in one way or other, may either make it a 
 physical impossibility for us to be in the way of 
 
164 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 temptation, or He may add to om^ condition some 
 balance, which keeps us from rushing into the 
 arms of sin at every invitation. So that, whether 
 the temptations we have reason to fear be in the 
 way of our callings, or have been voluntarily and 
 recklessly encountered by us, this petition is suit- 
 able ; and it will inevitably rise to our lips, if we 
 be fearing sin. 
 
 But there is a third class of temptations 
 against which we have urgent need to use this 
 petition. There are sudden surprises, which neither 
 occur in the ordinary duties of our employments, 
 nor as we might have anticipated and taken pre- 
 cautions against, but emerge unexpectedly, A 
 special importance attaches to these, for it is thus 
 that many of our greatest sins have been com- 
 mitted ; and, when resisted, it is then that we 
 have taken the greatest steps in advance God- 
 wards. In short, these are the temptations in 
 which, beyond all others, it is evident that God 
 is making proof of us. To compare the tempta- 
 tion of David with that of Joseph, similar in 
 kind, but so opposite in result; or that of Adam 
 in the garden with that of Jesus in the wilder- 
 ness, will sufficiently show us how critical these 
 times are, against which we can use no precaution 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 1 65 
 
 but this prayer, asking that God would not suffer 
 us to be so assailed. Let a man choose some of 
 his memorable sins, those that conscience needs 
 not to search for, but keeps floating on the sur- 
 face of the memory, and let him consider how it 
 came about that he fell into these, and he shall 
 find that in very many cases it was because he 
 was suddenly tempted ; an unexpected oppor- 
 tunity presented itself of doing what he had long- 
 desired to do, or of getting what he had often 
 coveted, or of becoming what ambition or vanity 
 had been set upon ; and this opportunity did not 
 offer itself bare, but well supported by induce- 
 ments and incentives from every side. Was it an 
 appeal to anger or hatred ? Then something had 
 first occurred to irritate or imbitter. Was it to 
 licentiousness the allurement appealed ? Then 
 something had first occurred to excite. Was it 
 to love of gain the temptation spoke? Then 
 something had previously shown the desirableness 
 of wealth, or taught the bitterness of poverty. 
 Whatever it was that overran the soul and spoiled 
 it, we think we could have resisted had the temp- 
 tation come iu some other shape, at some other 
 time, when we had been under more wholesome 
 influences ; had there not, in short, been so many 
 
1 66 THE PR A YER THAT TEACHES TO PR A Y. 
 
 things conspiring against us. Everything seems 
 to have been prepared for onr sin ; the train was 
 laid, and the one little spark fell. Had we had 
 any idea of what was going on we should have 
 been on our guard ; had we seen the possible sin, 
 we should have gone out of our way to avoid it. 
 But so suddenly were we set down in presence of 
 the tempting object, that there was scarce a 
 thought of resistance. So wholly at a disadvan- 
 tage were we taken, that we are inclined to be- 
 lieve that, were we in the same circumstances 
 again, prepared by the same day's pleasure or 
 day's business or night's trouble, instigated by 
 the same company or by the same solitude, 
 brought as suddenly face to face with the same 
 open gate to sin, or driven by the same urgency 
 of motive, freed from the outward restraint that 
 is now upon us, and the reasons on the side of 
 sin equally manifold and thronging, we should 
 now (judging of our own strength from our pre- 
 sent experience of it) sin again. And if so, what 
 security have we (who know not what a day may 
 bring forth) against a similar or far more seduc- 
 tive combination of circumstances, except in an 
 appeal to God, whose will orders all things, and 
 Avhose will is our sanctification ? 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 167 
 
 111 this petition, then, we pray directly for 
 this, that God in His consideration of our frailty 
 would so order our life day by day that as little 
 as possible we may be exposed to temptation. 
 But it will be asked, " Has this petition, then, no 
 reference to the temptations we do actually meet ? 
 Does it only avert possible temptations, and 
 bring no strength to help us in those that actu- 
 ally occur ? " Directly it does not ask from God 
 any such aid. And it seems a profitless exercise 
 of ingenuity, to wrest the words so that they 
 shall include what is evidently included in the 
 second part of the petition, "Deliver us from 
 evil." He who prays these concluding words will 
 surely be little concerned to make the former 
 words mean "bring us out of temptation safely'' 
 as well as " lead us not into it." Nevertheless, 
 it must not be overlooked, that this desire, '' Lead 
 us not into temptation," has a powerful reflex 
 influence upon the spirit of the petitioner, which 
 enables him, if tempted, to quit himself very 
 difierently from what he would otherwise have 
 done. It is a very different war we wage, when 
 we have prayed against it, from that we wage, 
 when we have carelessly exposed ourselves. The 
 soldier who is steady in the din and carnage of 
 
1 68 THE PRAYER TU^T TEACHES TO PR A Y. 
 
 battle which duty has led him into, will quail 
 and tremble at the little hazards to which a fool- 
 ish exploit or unadvised adventure has exposed 
 him. If we are engaged in plain duty when 
 temptation assails us, then we can appeal to God 
 for help. And by the acknowledgment of our 
 weakness and fear of sin which is contained in 
 this petition, we do indirectly, but not the less 
 effectually, appeal to the compassion and help of 
 God. If we have asked God to keep us from 
 temptation, and still meet it, then we believe 
 that what we meet is of His ordering, and that 
 good, and not evil, will come of it. Passing 
 through His fire, we are purified. Warring in 
 His warfare, we are rendered more hardy, faith- 
 ful, and experienced. But if we have not asked 
 His guidance, but have gone forth at our own 
 charges and risks, then how can we with any 
 confidence ask in temptation the help which very 
 probably we should never have needed to ask 
 had we asked God's guidance before ? Trying 
 enough it is to fall into temptation after praying, 
 but to fall into it withouL prayer is a confound- 
 ing and disastrous thing. It may be good for 
 us to meet temptations, but it is never good to 
 hope for them. It is God's prerogative to lead 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION 1 69 
 
 US into them, for He also (and He only) can 
 bring us through them : it is ours to watch and 
 pray against them, knowing our own weakness. 
 And if any one thinks that by using this petition 
 lie resists the providence of God, let him ask 
 himself the simple question, " Do I desire to be 
 tempted ? " If not, then let me pray God to pre- 
 serve me from temptation. And if, after com- 
 mitting myself to God's care in this matter, I do 
 meet temptations, I shall at least know by whose 
 permission they come, and whose discipline they 
 bring. To view severe temptation as a j)ossible 
 thing, and as a very dangerous thing, this is the 
 best preparation against it. 
 
 Out of these words there are continually rising 
 one or two important suggestions of a practical 
 kind. The first is, that we must see to it that 
 we make this an honest request. For it is a 
 pleasant thing to go so far with sin, and break 
 company before its terrible evil is consummated. 
 It is a narrow, but a most attractive path which 
 separates actual, outward transgression from the 
 region whence sin can be contemi^lated. Few 
 Christians intend to sin, compared to those who 
 only intend to place themselves in dangerous 
 circumstances. There is a pleasure in letting 
 
1 7 O THE PEA YER TEA T TEA CHES TO PR A Y. 
 
 the thouglits dwell on forbidden objects, which 
 provokes ns to tamper with sin, and prevents us 
 from resolutely shunning the avenues that lead 
 to evil. Have I never asked God to deliver me 
 from evil, while a little deeper in my heart there 
 lay the intention of putting myself in the way of 
 temptation without any call ? To do so is griev- 
 ously to dishonour God. It is to expect that He 
 will pander to my evil desires and appetites, that 
 He will suffer me to enjoy the excitement of 
 temptation, and preserve me from the outward 
 disgrace and fully-formed evil of the sin. It is 
 to take the place of God, and say that it is better 
 I should pray, " Let me so far into temptation," 
 than " Lead me not into it." And he who can- 
 not comprehend how this should be the one 
 prayer given us concerning the special advance- 
 ment of our own spirits towards complete re- 
 demption, has not yet prayed it as he ought ; is 
 yet, under God's words, hiding his own desires. 
 For this petition goes to the very core of our 
 heart, and tries our real purposes severely ; 
 makes u? say, if we are really anxious to be cut 
 off from all chance of sin, all thought of it, and 
 approach to it ; brings us daily to decide whether 
 we should like a state where there was not only 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 17 1 
 
 no sin, but no temptation. The love of sin is 
 pretty well broken within us, if we can use this 
 petition always and fully ; if, considering the 
 persons we shall this day meet, the things that 
 may be said to us, the gratifying offers that may 
 be made to us, the opportunities of pleasure or 
 advancement that may occur, we can yet say, 
 " Rather let me meet none of these than that 
 they should so much as tempt me to evil." 
 Happy indeed is the man who, in the fulness 
 and depth of this petition, can say, " I this day 
 wish to be far from everything which will 
 nourish evil within me, and I desire the presence 
 of such things only as will mature a Christian 
 disposition. I do not desire success, if success 
 is to minister to vain-glory ; I do not wish to 
 make money, if money is to minister to covet- 
 ousness ; I do not long for pleasant society, if 
 that is to make me forgetful of God ; I do not 
 yearn for leisure, if leisure is to loosen my bond 
 to Jesus Christ." What is this but the entire 
 surrender of our lives to God and for His pur- 
 poses? What is this but a profession of self- 
 denial, and a resolution to endure all hardness ? 
 It is the prayer of a humble and holy spirit ; of 
 a spirit at least set on holiness, and knowing 
 
I 7 2 THE FRA YER TEA T TEACHES Tu I^ILI Y. 
 
 that God only can guide us m this life, so that 
 holiness shall be the result. Often it calls us to 
 give up (so far as our own purposes are con- 
 cerned) prospects of great attraction, but which, 
 we fear, would be adverse to our spiri^;ual ,iirowth. 
 We see the beauty of the prospect, it allures us 
 on, but we know not whether the flowers wave 
 and rustle with the healthy breath of heaven or 
 with the subtle windings of the serpent. We 
 will not venture where tliere may be danger, and 
 where there is not a necessary call, but will pray 
 still to God, "Lead us not thither." And this 
 fear to go where we may offend God, is the same 
 feeling as gives us absolute courage to go wher- 
 ever we may serve Him. 
 
 Another practical hint suggested by this ]3eti- 
 tion is, to shun the beginnings of temptation. It 
 puts us on our guard against the earliest move- 
 ments of sinward inclination, and prompts us to 
 deal vigorously with its faintest symptoms. All 
 evil is easiest checked in its rise, with less pain 
 to ourselves, and with more unalloyed result. 
 To have parleyed with temptation is to have lost 
 strength already. Go a mile with the tempter, 
 and the chances are that he will persuade you to 
 go two. He will first tell you that you are not 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 173 
 
 goin^ out of yonr way at all, and forthwith he 
 will tell you that you have gone too far to go back. 
 The first step may not be wrong in itself, but it 
 is wrong if it be the first of a succession of steps 
 which lands you in sin. When we find ourselves 
 very anxious to discover reasons for going on, we 
 may well suspect whither we are going. We 
 shall probably find reasons enough, and only after 
 the sin is committed open our eyes to their liol- 
 lowness. 
 
 It is the former part of this petition which 
 gives the tone to the latter. The evil we chiefly 
 aim at being delivered from, is that which comes 
 of temptation yielded to. Not that the words do 
 not include every kind of evil, all that man re- 
 deemed will at last be free from, but the evil 
 primarily in view here is sin, or what produces 
 sin. By the words of Christ himself we must 
 interpret this prayer ; and His own petition for 
 His people is, " I pray not that thou shouldest 
 take them out of the world, but that thou 
 shouldest keep them from the evil." Without 
 being at once put beyond the reach of the 
 ordinary privations of this life, we may, then, be 
 delivered from the evil. We can be kept from 
 the evil without being set above disappointments, 
 
 / 
 
174 THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES TO PRAY. 
 
 sicknesses, distress, loss. We can be delivered 
 from evil without being delivered from this world. 
 This evil, therefore, cannot be in the world so 
 much as in ourselves ; cannot be in our condition 
 so much as in our character. All men have an 
 idea that this world has something wrong about 
 it, that our condition here is not altogether satis- 
 fying, but to be delivered from. And so w^e 
 begin to deliver ourselves, and set to work at the 
 outmost branches of evil instead of at the root ; we 
 provide against loss, guard against disease, while 
 we ought to be askinoj God to deliver us from 
 that evil which is within us, and which, though 
 all these outer branches of evil were lopped oiF, 
 would send forth fresh branches ; which, though 
 we were put into a world where all was blessed, 
 and well-ordered, and according to the best, would 
 soon spoil that world as it has spoiled this. It 
 was by yielding to temptation we ever became 
 connected with evil of any kind ; first with evil 
 dohig, and then with all other evil. Through t^ie 
 heart of man did evil steal its way into this 
 world. And until it be expelled from the heart, 
 it will find its way into all we are connected 
 with. Could there be a faii^r world than this 
 w«as when God pronounced it veay good, and 
 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 175 
 
 ** when the morning stars sang together, and all 
 the sons of God shouted for joy?" Take from 
 this world all that sin has wrought, and you shall 
 have a world fairer than your imagination, 
 though not than God's purpose, can conceive. 
 No doubt we inherit a troop of evils, and fall 
 heirs to the ills that men have been aggravating 
 from the first, but there is that in each one of us 
 which, if we be not delivered from it, will turn 
 the happiest and most faultless inheritance into 
 sorrow and confusion. Oar evil dispositions do 
 not show all their deadly influence now, only be- 
 cause what they would do is done already. They 
 do not destroy the world, because the world is 
 already destroyed. 
 
 And appalling as are the efi'ects of the "one 
 man's disobedience," and of that whereby all his 
 descendants have ratified his act and approved 
 their parentage, more appalling still is it to find 
 the hold and the power that sin has over us. 
 Many of the efiects of sin, and especially those of 
 them which are most palpable to us here, spend 
 their force and pass away. That effect of sin 
 which admonishes us of a sinful future, the help- 
 lessness and bondage of sin, that effect of sin 
 which is sin itself, is the most alarmino; of its 
 
I 7 6 THE PR A YER THA T TEA CUES TO PR A Y. 
 
 present results. We see no j^rospect of acci- 
 dental deliverance from this, nor of its merely 
 wearinfi: out. With sin the law of ao;e is re- 
 versed ; and time, which weakens and consumes 
 all else, adds vigour and life to sin. And yet 
 there is hope, near and bright. However mul- 
 tiplied, involved, deep-rooted, or grievous be our 
 sinful propensities, there is a deliverance out of 
 them all. There is a deliverance from all their 
 effects ; but we can readily believe this, yes, and 
 patiently wait for it, when we find that there is a 
 deliverance from our sinful natures themselves. 
 And this God has wrought, and now works, in all 
 them that pray this prayer ; for '^ God has raised 
 up his Son Jesus, and sent him to bless you. in 
 turning away every one of you from his iniqui- 
 ties." It is He who " delivers us, and doth deli- 
 ver, in whom we trust that He will yet deliver." 
 Therefore will our hearts together praise Him, 
 and our own joy will dictate these words, ''Thine 
 is the kingdom, the glory, and the power, for 
 ever. Amen " 
 
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 sketch of the work of Dorothea Triidd, Past.or Blumhardt, Pastor Stockmayer, 
 and others." — British nttd Foreij;n hvangelical Reviezv. 
 
 IN CHRIST; or. The Believer's Union with his Lord. 
 
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 THE TWOFOLD LIFE ; or, Christ's work for us and 
 Christ's work in us. By the Same Author. Crown 8vo, cloth, 35. 6^. 
 
 THE PARABOLIC TEACHING OF CHRIST. A 
 
 Systematic and Critical Study of the Parables of our Lord. By 
 the Rev. Professor A. B. Bruce, D.D., Author of "The Chief End of 
 Revelation," etc. Second Thousand, 8vo, cloth, 12^. 
 
 "The volume should have a place next Trench on the Parables on the 
 shelves of every student of the New Testament. It is one of the most valuable 
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 The treatment of what Professor Bruce calls ' Parable-germs,' or the undeveloped 
 parables of such gnomic expressions, ' They that be whole have no need of a 
 physician,' etc., or of such similes as that of the builders on the rock and on the 
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 *Jie parables properly so called." — Academy. 
 
 London : HODDER AND STOllGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
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 SURE TO SUCCEED. By the Rev. J. Thain DAViDSor?, 
 
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 way." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 TALKS WITH YOUNG MEN. By the same Author. 
 
 Tenth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth, -^s. 6d. 
 
 " He gives young men fine manly advice, full of grace and truth. Enlivened 
 by story and proverb, fresh with sympathy, and on fire with zeal, these short 
 lectures are just what they should be." — Sivord and Trowel. 
 
 " It is full of wit, wisdom, geniality, and high-toned manly Christian teaching." 
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 *'Dr. Davidson's matter and manner are alike excellent." — The Globe. 
 
 " ' Striking,' * capital,' ' very good,' were some of the remarks that we pencilled 
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 happier view of the Christian life." — Record. 
 
 FOREWARNED— FOREARMED. By the same Author. 
 Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth, 33-. 6d. 
 
 " Characterised by the same practical wisdom and intense moral energy which 
 led us to commend the preceding volume, and to confidently anticipate for it in 
 the week of its appearance the distinguished success with which it has since been 
 crowned. " — Chrzstiati Leader. 
 
 "He is throughout frank and manly. His counsel is wise, his spirit is genial 
 and sympathetic. Wit, humour, and pathos are equally at his command. 
 Metaphor and incident, proverb and parable, lend hipi their ready aid." — 
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 London : HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
 7 
 
^be lEypo^itor'a Bible* 
 
 Edited by the Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., 
 Editor of The Expositor. 
 
 FIRST AND SECOND SERIES. 
 This Series consists of Expository Lectures on ALL THE BOOKS OF 
 THE BIBLE by the foremost Preachers and Theologians of the day. While 
 having regard to the latest results of Scholarship, the Volumes are essentially 
 popular and adapted to general readers quite as much as to the Clergy. 
 
 Six Volumes will be Published a Year, Price js. 6d. each. 
 
 1888-9. 
 
 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. By the Rev. 
 
 Professor G. G. Findlay, B.A., Headingley College, Leeds. 
 
 THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. Vol. I., Chaps. I. -XXXIX. 
 
 By the Rev. George Adam Smith, M.A., Aberdeen. Second Edition, 
 with Map. 
 
 THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. By the Rev. Alfred 
 
 Plummer, D.D., Master of University College, Durham. 
 
 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 By the Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D. 
 
 THE BOOK OF REVELATION. By the Rev. W. 
 Milligan, D.D., Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism in the 
 University of Aberdeen. 
 
 THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. By the Right Rev. 
 W. Alexander, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. 
 
 First Series [issued iZ2>-j-i). Each Voljime price -js. 6d. cloth. 
 
 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. By 
 
 the Very Rev. G. A. Chadwick, D.D., Dean of Armagh. Second Edition. 
 
 COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON. By Alexander 
 
 Maclaren, D.D. Third Edition. 
 
 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. By Marcus Dods, D.D. 
 
 Third Edition. 
 
 THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the Rev, Pro- 
 fessor \V. G. Blaikie, D.D., LL.D. Second Edition. 
 
 THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. By the Rev. 
 Professor W. G. Blaikie, D.D., LL.D. Second Edition. 
 
 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. By the Rev. 
 Principal T. C. Edwards, D.D. Second Edition. /V^ 
 
 V 
 
 London: RODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
Date Due 
 
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