liHllliiiiniiiDlilliUi • ilriitiriliifililfiii tliilliiiihiiiili.UtiilKiitlliil - PRINCETON, N. J. x'' BV 230 .C8 1862 Gumming, John, 1807-1881. Teach us to pray SAf RECENT BOOKS By the Author of this Volume Tns Great Tbibclatiok ; or Things Comiug on the Earth (two series). The Gkeat Pkepabatiox ; or Retlemption Draweth Nigh (two series). Price $1.00 each volume. TEACH US TO PRAY^ BXPEEIMENTAIi, DOCTRINAL, AND PKACTICAL OBSERVATIONS THE lord's prayer. BT THE REV. JOHN GUMMING, D. D., F. R. S. E., Minister of the Scottish National Church ; author of "Thb Gekat Teibulation," <' The Great Pkepaeation,'* bto- ^. NEW YOEK: Carleton, PvUisher^ 413 Broadway. (Late Eudd & Carleton.) M DCCC LXII. ~rT — — logical/' PREFACE. These lectures were very favorably re- garded by the large congregations who heard them. They were believed by them to embody many precious truths and com- forting thoughts, worthy of a more perma- nent shape. The preacher has complied with the desires of numbers of his flock by printing this volume, on the reading of which he fervently prays a divine blessing may rest. Making no pretensions to any- thing startling, novel, or eloquent, it may nevertheless be found to set old truths in a new light, or at a new angle, or in fresh and suggestive illustrations. The edifica- tion or comfort of his people is his earnest desire as well as most coveted reward. Mljid] art m |faton, iingkni tome. ®fe Mill Ire hm k Mi m a h m ])tmi §ik us i\h gag 0ur gailg '§xA gn^ forgibe us 0ur trespasses, as toe fargibe ll]eiu ifeat trespass against us. gn^ lea^ us n0t k\a tcmplation; but ^eliber us fr0m €bil : for Mm is % Singirant, tlje fotoer, auiJ tl]e (BlariT, far eber autj eljer. giineu. ._i if CONTENTS Lbotubb Faob l.—IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD H U.—Oim FATHER 38 m.— THE ADORING WORSHIPPER 68 TV .—A MISSIONARY DESIRE 102 v.— ^ SUBMISSIVE HEART. 134 VI.— THE CRT OF THE CHILDREN 3C4 Vll.—THE CRT OF THE SLNFTTL 196 VIU.—THE CRT OF THE TEMPTED 228 IX.— THE GREA T DELIVERER 257 X.— ADORATION. 282 TEACH US TO PRAY. I. U IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO QOD. " Bnt it is good for me to draw near to God."— Psalm Ixxiii. 28. We are by nature, says the apostle, far off from God. Such is the expressive portrait of humanity in its natural and fallen condition — "ye who were sometime far off." We are told by another, " your sins have separated between vou and God." We are distant from Him, not l"liysically, that cannot be ; not locally, for He is omnipresent ; not as if we could in any way se- crete or hide ourselves from His eye, for the dark- ness is as light to Him, and the night sliall be as light about us ; but morally and spiritually, which is really and truly, we are far off, or at a distance from God. IJ TEACH rS TO J'JiAF This (listjince, too, is not a fixed tuin;^, it is cninulutive; tliat is, the longer it lasti* tlie wider it hecomes, so tliat lie who has continued the longest period at this moral or spiritual distance from God, has reached the furthest, until, in many an instance, he plunges into that Atheism on earth, and ruin hereafter, whicli constitute the aphelion, or greatest possible distance from the Sun of all light and all love, Christ Jesus. It is, therefore, a very solemn thing, that distance from God is not a fixture, but a progressive and a cumulating estrangement, that has its final issue in everlasting misery, unless averted, and the subject of it becomes converted, and instead of being under the centrifugal attraction that throws him from God, comes within the centripetal at- traction that draws him to God in Christ Jesus. The eflfect of the distance from God is not sim- ply cumulative in itself, but along with that in- crease of distance or estrangement, there is an increase of indisposition to go back. It is a very sad fact, but a very true one, that the further IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 13 from God a sinner goes, the less he is disposed to retrace his steps, and return. In other words, he hardens in insensibility to God's claims, as he proceeds, or rather recedes, and thereby his in- disposition to have any communion with God is uiTgi'avated and strengthened day by day. As distance from the sun in the natural world is the deprival or the deprivation of all light, and warmth, and genial influence, so a sinner's estrangement from God, as it increases, is the deprivation of all that can make him truly hap- py ; for, disguise it as you like, or doubt it as you may, there is no happiness except the spring of it, real religion, be in the heart ; and there is nothing but misery, disguised and diluted, it may be, — modified by temporary experience, if you like, — but still misery, as long as man is far otf and remains at a distance from God. Now, however bad this state may be, and it is very bad, it has one feature that is most re- deeming. There is not an individual so far from God, that he is beyond the reach of God's saving 14 TEACH US TO PR \Y. arm, or the sound of God's fatlierly voice. It is our only comfort in this state of estrangement from God, that we are not beyond the possibilities of return, that the door is open, and the voice still sounding, " Return unto me, why will ye die ? Come unto me, all that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'' If so, it is good, oh, most good, to draw near to God. Tlie statement of the Psalmist, which is simply the experience of the Christian, for David was a Christian as truly as John, or Peter, or James, implies in the first place, that God lias revealed Himself. We cannot draw near to a Being we do not know, and whose place we cannot find, and whose disposition towards us is wrapt in im- penetrable secrecy. A God unknown is neces- sarily a God feared. An eternity that man has never sounded, or on which he has never seen light fall, is an eternity from which he instinct- ively, and necessarily, and naturally shrinks. A God unseen we may draw near to, but a God unknown wo cann"i .Iimu- n.-.t- t.i "\V.' m.-iv l.ive IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NE iJi TO GOD. 15 the unseeu, but we can never love the unknown. But God has revealed Himself in all the features, attributes, and endearments of a Father. So that we may draw near to Him with the confiding love wherewith children approach an affectionate father, and breathe at his footstool the sublimest litany angels can utter, the simplest one that babes can learn, " Our Father, which art in hea- ven ;" " whom having not seen we love, and in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing" — (and faith is the evidence of things not seen) — " we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." In other words, God has revealed Him- self, we have not a God to be discovered by our researches, but a God revealed by Himself. God has left us one portrait of Himself, and only one, the only portrait of Deity that is lawful, His own holy and blessed Word. It is the autograph of Deity, it bears on it the signature, as it reflects the exact likeness of God Himself. And does not this suggest the inquiry — is it not very odd that men professing themselves Christians should have 16 TEACn us TO PR A Y. made likenesses of God of gold and silver, and wood, and stone, and bread, and wax, and should have fallen down and worshipped them, but that they never should have thought of worshipping: the only picture of Uimself which God has be- queathed. His own holy Book ? Why this ? Be- cause, while men worshipped gold, silver, and stone, the objects worshipped were dumb ; but if they had worshipped this portrait, fire would have rushed from its mouth, as from the mouths of the Apocalyptic witnesses, and revealed in the splendor that consumed the idolater, " It is writ- ten, Tliou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." God has not only revealed Himself in this Bi- ble for us to draw near to ; but, secondly, God authorizes and asks, and encourages us to draw near to Him, and all this implies that lie has first drawn near to us. There is nothini; that a Ciiristian docs, or thinks, or feels, that is orig- inal ; it is purely responsive. God's movement is the original, man's movement to Him is the IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NE Hi TO GOD. 17 response to it. God's Word calling us is the original summons ; man's eclio, " I come," is the answer to it. Therefore, unless God has first moved, first loved, first chosen, we shall never move, we shall never love, we shall never choose. It is to ascertain whether you are elect or not, by just ascertaining whether you are Christians or not. If you have chosen God most solemnly to be your God, there is no doubt that He has chosen you to be his people. Instead, therefore, of trying to penetrate the impenetrable mystery that is above, ascertain the plain and the obvious fact that is below. Am I a Christian ? If I am, then why should I trouble myself about election ? I know that I am elect, by the fact that I see, and feel, and manifest that I am regenerate, and am a child of God. K we draw near to God, it is implied He has drawn near to us first. And He has not only given a magnificent apocalypse of Himself by revealing Himself, but He has come so near to us that we can see Him, and yet remains so truly Deity that we cannot 18 TEACn us TO PRAY. miss God revealed in Ilira. The chasm between (i"(l and us made by sin — which is the explosive jiihI rending element of the material and moral world — was so wide, and so deep, and so dark, that we had no wings to fly across it, no foot that could wade it; we could not spring an arch from this side to the other that should touch the opposing precipice that was above. If, there- fore, Gud had not come down to us, we never had gone up to llim. If lie had not drawn nigli to us, we never could have drawn near to II im, nor could the believer have recorded ihe blessed truth, '• It is good for me to draw near to God. " If you will read the whole past history of God's dealings witli mankind, you will find that every page and chapter of it is a record of a distinct act of approacii, on God's part, to us His apostate family. He drew near to Adam when Adam wo\>ld not and could not draw near to him, for Adam ran from God, tried to hide himself amid the trees of tlie garden, and only by God going aft.r l.Iii., '.,,,] .1 ;\\ving near to him, did Adam IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 19 stay, and finally draw near to God, God drew near to Enoch, when He walked with him, and took liiin, and he was not. God drew near to Noah, when, in the touchingly beautiful but sim- ple language. He " shut him in." God drew near to Abraham, and made him His friend, His companion, and His confidant. All the ancient types are the footprints of God, drawing near to humanity. All the ancient promises are the sounds of the voice of our Father, asking after His suspicions, wandering, and still beloved family ; all the sacrifices and institutions of Levi are the shadows of God that sweep over the world, or rather the sunshine of His counte- nance, telling us that the good Shepherd is after the lost sheep, that the candle is lighted, and that the owner is looking for the lost coin, that He may eflface the superscription of evil that is on it, and restamp it with His own holy, and di- vine, and pure signature. But God's nearest and dearest drawing near to us is recorded in the Gospels of the New Testa- 20 TEACn us TO PIIA Y. raent. He drew near to us there in sncli a way as man never dreamed of, and man still must re- ceive as a mystery. " He came to His own, and," what an awful response, "his own received him not." He came clothed in our humanity. He entered the home of Martha and of Mary, He talked to the publican in his house. He visited tiie hall of Pilate, He came into the grave that sin had made, and mankind lay in, that lie mii'lit draw so ueai' and so close to us, that there should be no mistake that God had drawn near to us. How did man receive Him ? If we were to hear in a strange land that God had thus come so near to us, and done it at so great a sac- rifice, wo would say. Surely the whole atmos- phere rang with acclamations, and men shouted in ecstasy and joy, " Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, llosanna, blessed ishethatcom- cth in the name of the Lord." Alas, it was not 80. Men to whom He thus drew near at so great asacritice, instead of welcoming Him with shouts, cried with one voico,atloa8t with few dissentient IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 21 ones, " Away with liira, away witli him, Crucify him, crucify him ; it is not fit that he should live." How deceived was poor Plato, poor mo- rally, though great intellectually, when he pre- dicted, that God would at length come down to man, and tell him the secrets that Avere un- sounded, that the whole world would fall down and worship him. "What an awful fact, that the only spotless, unstained, holy Being that ever appeared upon the earth, mankind had so little sympathy with, because their hearts are enmity to God ; that they nailed Ilim to a cross, and treated Him as the greatest of criminals ! If, then, God's drawing near to us was thus re- ceived, one would surely infer God must have left us for ever. If His drawing near to us in such circumstances, and at such a sacrifice, was thus received, thus responded to, any one hearing it 80 far would say, Then God must have given us up as a hopeless race, as not worthy of another effort at retrieval. Did He do so ? His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. 22 TEACH US TO FHAY. We should have done so, but God did not. After we had thus i-ejected Him, and despised Him, and treated Him as a criminal not fit to live, and crucified the Son of God, and laid Him in an ignominious grave ; God, so far from giving US up to the consequences that we had so deliber- ately elected, sent His Holy Spirit into the hearts of the murderers of the Lord of Glory, to per- suade them of the greatness of their sin, and of the excellency- of the Saviour, and of His readi- ness to save the greatest sinner that would lay aside the weapons of his rebellion, and draw near to Him for mercy and for forgiveness. And still that Spirit strives with man — still that Holy Spirit bids us retrace our steps, repent of our sins ; for the crucifixion of the Son of God was not the act of a Jew, it was the deed of all humanity ; and God, instead of punishing us with just and righteous retribution, sends His Holy Spirit to take of the things of Christ, and show them to us, so that we shall be ashamed of the past, repent of our misdoings, believe on IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 23 Him who is set forth as the propitiation through faith in His blood, and by faith have peace with God tlirough Jesus Christ. I do say the his- tory of God's drawing near to us is the most wonderful of all wonderful things, it reveals such a depth of love in God's bosom towards us sin- ners, as justified an Apostle who had been in the third heavew, and might be the most able to express it, " the height and depth, tlie length and breadth, of the love of God ! it passeth all understanding." Having seen how God has drawn near to us by His Son, and still by His Spirit, I might add that He draws near to us in His providence. What are afflictions? Private and special mes- sages to those whom He loves. What are be- reavements and losses ? Yoices in the wilder- ness saying, "This is not your rest ;" evidences that God is looking after you. What are the appeals of conscience, the remonstrances of judgment, the warnings we meet with, the checks we encounter? They are all proofs that 24 TEACH IS Tn I'/iAY. lit' has tlravMi near to us, uiid says, " Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; if any man will open, I will come in and sup with him, and hu witli me." Let U8 then, in response to these, draw near to God, wlio has thus drawn near to us, not l>y change of locality, but by a change of disposi- tion ; not by a change of place, but by a change of feeling towards Ilim. And to do so, let us draw near to Him by Christ, the Only Way. — There are not twenty ways to God ; there is but one, and that one is announced emphatically and exclusively, " There is none other name given among men," that is, in human speech, or conceivable by human heart, "by which we can be saved, except the name of Jesus." And that name is so complete, that if engraven upon the living heairt, and pleaded from the depths of that heart, it will be found to be the password <»f the universe itself, lie that bus that name has his free entrance everywhere and anywhere. lie is free, not of an earthly city, but of the IT IS GOOl) TO DRA W .WEAR TO GOD. 25 universe itself. " No man coineth unto the Fa- ther but bj rae" — there ia the exclnsiveness of it; "him that cometli unto me I will in no wise cast out" — there is the liberality and the wel- come of it. We are to come by Jesus Christ as the way, but we are to come by the Holy Spirit as our guide ; for tlie Apostle says, " We both have ac- cess by one Spirit unto the Father." Let us not forget, that if Christ be the way, the Holy Spirit is the effective, or the effectual, witness to that way. I can tell you the way, and your outer ear and my inner judgment will acquit me of speak- ing what is not true, yet you will go into the world and forget it ; but when the Holy Spirit proclaims to the inner heart, Christ the way, as I proclaim it to the outer ear, then you see in that way an attraction that tempts you with all your heart to enter on it. The Spirit takes away your prejudice, your passions, your indisposition, your fears, your doubts, makes you willing, and then, in the language of the Prophet, you run, 26 TEACH us TO PRAY. and are not faint ; you walk, and are not weary. You mount as with eagle's wings, until at last you find your home, your happiness, your rest, in the bosom of God our Father. But, whilst we are tljus to draw near to God by Christ the way, and in the strength and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit as the guide, yet there are means of God's own appointment which we ought to use, and in the use of wliich God has promised to draw near to us and bless us. Let me mention some of these means, be- cause, whilst grace is sovereign, we must never forget that God having given a Bible, instituted preaching, requiring prayer, proves that God gives grace by the use of certain means. I ad- mit that He gives His blessing, sometimes with- out means, sometimes in spite of means ; but tlie general law that He Himself has instituted is, that in seeking Him in the way of His appoint- ment, we shall most readily find Him. One of the means of drawing near to God — not the way for that is Clirist alone, not the guide, for that is IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 27 the Spirit alone, — and making progress in this way, is reading God's Holy Word. You say — How can that help us ? A wicked and worth- less politician once made the remark, "Tell a lie every day, and often enough, to a crowd, and they will believe it to he truth." If there is any force in that sentiment, there is force in this : Tell men God's truth often enough, and they are sure to believe it. Tlie repetition of great truths is one way of making men believe them ; and when those truths commend themselves to the conscience, there is an additional reason why they should be believed. In man's conscience within, and God's Word without, there is an adaptation so complete, that the man who comes to church a sceptic, and hears nothing about the evidences of Christianity, but hears the explana- tion of what Christianity is, will come at last most thoroughly and heartily to believe, because there is in man's inner conscience, even in its wreck, and God's outer Word, such an adapta- tion that there will be an impression upon the 28 TEACH US TO PRAY. mind of him wlio hears, tliat the God who made the heart inspired that Book ; and therefore, "Thy word, O God, is truth." l^ow, every word in this Book is a whisper of the Infinite, every promise is a fragment of heavenly light. In tliis Book we can hear God's voice as Adam heard it in Eden amid the trees of tlie garden, and hear it, not as the voice of a Creator only, but as the voice of a Father. We are to draw near to God, not only in reading His blessed Word, but also in prayer. In reading the Scripture God speaks to us, in praying we speak to God. In reading the Bible He comes near to us, and we hear His foot fall as He approaches us. In prayer we draw near to God, and speak to Him as children speak to their loving and affectionate father, and He tells us, to encourage us, that there is nothing too good or too great that we may not ask, that our lips will be closed in asking long before His hand will be shut in giving, that it is His joy to hear prayer, His joy to give. We should realize this fact, that -^J IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 29 God's delight is in giving, tliat as a fountain finds its expression in overflowing, as a river in rushing to the infinite main, as trees in bursting into life and blossom in the spring-tide, so God feels it His joy to give liberally, and to give ex- ceeding abundantly, and to give above all that we can ask, or think, or desire, for Christ's sake. If, then, such be the response to prayer, oh, surely it is 2:ood for us to draw near to God. There is another way, also, in which God draws near to us, that is, in the preaching of the Gos- pel. Preaching of the Gospel is not simply speaking what is good, but it is teaching what is written, and presenting it in every light, showing it in every relation, and pointing out how it ap- plies to every peculiarity of human nature, every intricacy of human experience, and every diffi- culty of human life. For instance, a diamond has its intrinsic preciousness when you see it in a casket, and catch a glimpse of it ; but he who wants to show its value will enable you to see it at every angle, and to see the light as it fiashes 30 TEACH US TO PRAY. from every point of the precious stone. What the preacher has to do is to take the Bible, and show it at every light, encourage you to study it and learn it, and inwardly to digest it, until you feel that it is the most precious of all things, more precious than gold and silver, than honey or the honeycomb. In preaching, the silent page assumes the likeness of the eloquent sermon. The apostle, who, being dead, yet speaks, has his echo in the preacher who takes his place. The true succession to the apostle consists not in wearing his robe, or being historically descended from him, but in being the echo of his sentiments, the exponent of his truths ; so that men hearing the truth may see it and feel it, more perfectly than they ever saw it or felt it before ; and persons hearing a sermon, will say, not, How good a sermon, how argumentative, or how eloquent, but " It was good for me to be here ; a day in thy courts is better than a thousand ; the Lord God is a sun and a shield, he doth give grace and glory." IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 3I The next means of drawing near to God, and the last that I will specify, is a Communion Ta- ble. This communion table is one of the ordi- nances of His appointment; and the man who does not hesitate to read the Bible, or to praj, or to hear the Gospel preached, should not hesitate to add to the ordinances that he does accept, the observance of this ordinance about which he hesitates, and to show forth the Redeemer's death till he come again. The communion table, not from anything in the bread, or by virtue of anything in the wine, or from him that ministers them, but by the promise and the presence of Christ, becomes a means of grace and nourish- ment to our souls ; not by any sensible, or car- nal, or sensuous influence, but by scattering seeds that were not there before, watering those that are there, strengthening, invigorating, comforting, encouraging. He draws near to us in breaking of bread, we draw near to Him in faith and love. Prayer is audible worship, praise also is audible worship, but the commu- 32 TEACH US TO PRAY. nion is silent worship by each priest in the sanc- tuary of his own heart, when God's ear only hears, and God's eye only sees ; as if this com- munion table were provided to supply what the other ordinances do not supply. Men in the deepest adoration do not speak. A great afflic- tion strikes one dumb, a great joy makes one silent ; in the deepest worship men do not speak, the holiest feelings have no exponent, words limit, break, destroy the deep current that is within, and expressive silence alone muses God's praise. But though man cannot see or hear, God feels the pulse of prayer, and hears the beating wing of true devotion, and bears, and sees, and seals us as His own. At a communion table, if the children of God, we thus draw near to him in worship, communion and adoration. This nearness to God is the very aim, and end, and object of Christianity. Our loss is separa- tion from God, our gain is restoration to God. Hence, an Apostle describes it as the very high- est possible state to which a Christian can be IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 33 raised, " Our fellowship, or communion, is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ." The constant effort of the Gospel is to make us obey the call, " Come unto me, ye that are weary ; ye will not come unto me that ye may have life :" and the very last words that we shall hear on the eve of that vast eternity, that splits into two great compartments the inhab- itants of the world, will be, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." The Psalmist says, " It is good to draw near to God." Ancient philosophers, before the Advent of Christ, always disputed among themselves what was the suininuin honum^ or what the Greeks called the to xaXov — " the good thing ;" and the different schools of philosophers were di- vided in their decisions what is the chief good. AYhat philosophy could not discover, God has revealed to Ilis servants. This is the chief good, — for that is the meaning — it is good, emphati- cally, distinctively, eternally, supremely good, 34 TEACH US TO PRAY. to draw near to God. If you want the summum honum, here it is, — if you like to know what the highest possible happiness ever has been, or ever will be, here it is, — drawing near to God. Whatever stops you in this upward ascent to God is wrong. Everything in form, everything in worship, everything in the sanctuary, should be an aid to it, not an obstruction to it. Every- thing in the preacher's sermon should be a help to realise it, not a blind to conceal it. The sceptic puts reason in the place of God, and thinks that when he has drawn near to reason, he has drawn near to the highest God ; but he finds that drawing near to reason as the arbiter of truth is only drawing near to himself. The victim of superstition draws near to the altar, the priest, the sacrament, but he is only drawing near, not to himself, but to the consecrated shadow of himself, and no more, instead of hold- ing those sacraments, and ministers, and ordi- nances, to be voices crying in the wilderness, " He cometh after us, whose shoe-latchet we are IT IS GOOD TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD. 35 not worthy to unloose ; look not to us, behold Christ, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world." To draw near to God, then, is man's highest happiness, man's chiefest good. There is no rest for the soles of our feet on this side of God. No pinnacle on which man was ever placed, ever satisfies man, for satisfaction is always in the future. We calculate. If I could only reach that point I should be happy ; and when we have got there, we discover how true is the ancient declaration, often uttered, now felt, " Whoso drinketh of this water will thirst again ;" and we begin to anticipate how true is that which follows, " But he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him, it shall be in him a well of living water, springing up hito eternal life. Every spot on which man ever was, never gave him rest. The poor say. Ah, we are poor and destitute, have scarcely enough to live on. That is very bad, deeply to be deplored ; • but if you got those wants supplied, you would have no real happiness. It is quite a mistake to 36 TEACH US TO PRAY. suppose that you would. New wants would spring up on every side, and sorrowful it is, that those who seem to have no wants at all, set about creating artificial ones, digging out bro- ken cisterns that can hold no water. Man is an inexplicable mystery in the light of anything but in the light of God's holy Word, but all past experience has proved, what all future experience will respond to, that in real religion, that is, in the love of God, the fear of God, the worship of God, the service of God, there is real happiness ; and in anything from which this is absent, there is no happiness at all. Have we drawn near to God ? This is the first thing. The communion table is not God, it is merely an elevation on which we may see God more clearly, and which helps us to find and know Him more certainly. Have you drawn near to God ? He who has no religion has no happiness. Life in such a case becomes a con- stant parrying of thoughts, anxieties, and fears. The whole life is spent in keeping at the most IT IS GOOD TO DRiW NEAR TO GOD. 37 respectable distance from self, and wliat self is, and what self may justly and naturally antici- pate. You dread scepticism, lest it should de- stroy you ; you dread Christianity, lest it should disquiet you. You will not be a sceptic, because your conscience will not let you ; you will not be a Christian, because your passions will not let you. You have not the manliness to be one or the other. In the sight of God you are scep- tics, for he that is not ^yith Him is against Him ; but in your own estimate you are balancing be- tween the two, in the hope that before the end comes you will drift into the one that is the safest. Let it be your determination to be on the Lord's side ; you will then have the happi- ness the Lord alone can give, and you will say on a dying day, when it is so desirable and de- lightful to be able to say it. It was good, and it is good, and it ever will be good for me to draw near unto God. 38 TEACH US TO PRAY. n. OUR TATHER. «' After this manner therefore pray ye ; Our Father which art in heaven." — Matt. vi. 9. This Prayer contains all that ever ascended to God from human hearts in any way acceptable to Him, and all that ever will descend from Him, in the shape of benedictions, upon us. Whatever is included in this Prayer you may ask ; what- ever is not included in this Prayer it is not expe- dient that you should pray for. We have in these beautiful words the fundamental notes of the varied cry that has risen from all the broken, the sorrowing, the deserted hearts of human kind, from the days of Adam to the moment in which we now live. It is so short that memory can easily recollect it; so simple, that your chiklren can be easily taught it ; so rich, so full, so mag- L OUR FATHER. 39 niticeiit, that the ripest saint has not yet learned to exhaust it. Lest it should be thought that there is any supernatural charm in the words, our blessed Lord says in this Gospel, " After this manner pray." Lest, on the other hand, it should be thought that the words are of no value, He says in another Gospel, " When ye pray, say." Herein lies the reason of the differ- ence of expression. Lest it should be thought that the words have a mediatorial virtue, which belongs only to Christ, we read in one Gospel, " After this manner pray ;" but lest, on the other hand, it should be thought that the words are of no peculiar excellence, another Gospel contains the expression, " When ye pray, *«?/." Who does not know that the heart often needs words to help its outpouring ; and no less that words need the heart's inspiration to give them excellence or value ? The words may be desecra- ted into thousands of Pater ISTosters repeated by the lips, without a spring in the heart within ; but the words also may suggest many a precious 40 lEACn us TO PRAT. tlionglit, many a deep want, many ii rich supply, that Christians feel they truly need. AVe are sometimes lame, and need a crutch ; wo are some- times 80 strong that we can walk without one. Many an English Episcopalian prays with a form or a liturgy in spirit and in truth; and many a staunch Scottish Presbyterian prays extempore in the most formal manner possible. The fact is, it is not outside or mechanical arrangement that can secure true j^rayer ; it is the inspiration of the heart by the Holy Spirit of God ; and when tlie heart within is made right by His grace, all l^rayer of all forms will be in spirit and in truth, and acceptable in the sight of God. In this very beautiful form is the universal Liturgy of the universal Church ; a liturgy that has no errors needing correction, no superfluities or repetitions that require curtailment ; it is per- fect in expression, infinite in comprehension as the riches t>f Him that taught it, and the wants of them that need to pray it. Amid many of the cathedrals of Europe, darkened with a dead- OUH FATHER. 41 ly superstition, I dare say tliere are some iin- ktiown, obscure, and lonely worshippers kneeling upon the pavements, that breathe these words from the very heart ; and in many of our best and most enlightened congregations I fear there are some, to speak in the most charitable phrase, that use these words as a form, and many more that use them without seeing the length and breadth, and weight and worth of riches that are stored within them. In this command Christ not only teaches us how to pray, which is very important, but also lays before us the very words in which we should pray ; that thus we may by praying in the words which He orders, plead the promise that He gives that He will hear us. He teaches us the words in order that we may feel that in seeking in spirit what he has expressed for us we shall not fail to reap from Him the fulfilment of His promise, that He will open when we knock, and give when we seek. I cannot help noticing the fact that there seems, 42 TEACH US TO BRAY. from its connection with our Lord's beautiful edi- tion of the Law in Matt, v., a reference through- out this prayer to the Decalogue given on Mount Sinai. The Law begins on Mount Sinai with the words, " I am the Lord thy God ; thou shalt have no other gods before me." So here the Prayer begins where the exaction of the Law begins, not with " The Lord thy God," the severer relation- ship of Sinai ; but with " Our Father which art in heaven," the beautiful revelation of Christiani- ty. There are also in this Prayer ten clauses, which may be divided into two great sections — the first relating to God, the second to ourselves and our neighbor ; the embodiment in the form- ula of prayer of what is demanded in the Law, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." I have thought too that there is in this Prayer, as in the Law, a shadow of that great and precious, not mere theoretical, but practical, truth, the Trini- ty. For instance, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me," the Father. " Thou shalt not OUR FATHER. 43 make any likeness of me, but see me only in the Son, in whom is my name. And thou shalt re- member my Sabbaths, which are the outward signs of that sanctification of which the Holy Spirit is the inward Agent." In this beautiful prayer, first of all the Father's name is invoked, "• hallowed be thy name ;" secondly, the name of the Son, whose kingdom we pray may come speedily as the kingdom of the Prince of peace ; and thirdly, the name of the Holy Spirit, through that regeneration wliich He creates, to do the will of God on earth even as it is done in heaven. Grace germinates in hallowing His name ; it un- folds in the expansion of His kingdom ; and, lastly, culminates and blossoms in His will re- flected from the earth as the perfect fac-simile of what it is, and how it is done in heaven. We find in this Prayer the central petition, " Give us daily bread ;" or, as the old Christians regard- ed it, Give us heavenly or supernatural bread — in order that we may hallow Thy name, and pro- mote Thy kingdom, and do Thy will, and be 1 44 TEACH US TO PRAY. kept from temptation and delivered from all evil. And 3-ou will notice that the three last clauses are the echoes or the returns of the tliree first. — " Forgive us our trespasses in not doing thy will ; and the temptation which has opposed the coming of thy kingdom ; and the evil which prevents, and has prevented, the glorifying of thy name." And all these three by implication lead us to Christ, by whose death our trespasses are forgiven, by whose resurrection we are sanc- tified against temptation, by whose ascension we are delivered from all evil. In the first three expressive clauses we have the fulness and the riches of God ; "Thy kingdom; thy will; thy name." In the three last clauses we have the emptiness and poverty of the creature , " Give us ; deliver us; lead us not ; forgive us our sins as we forgive them that sin against us." Thus grace begins with all the fulness of God, enters into all the emptiness of the creature ; and when the goodness of God that comes from Him has overflowed all til wants of humanity, and cov- OUR FA THER. 45 ered the wide eartli with all the splendors of glory, then the whole returns to Him from whom it originally proceeded, in the ascending incense. " Thine the glory, the kingdom, and the power for ever and for ever." Such are some of the precious truths latent in every clause of this most noble and precious Prayer, a Prayer, the more it is studied, the more it indicates its origin to be the bosom of God. Let us now view the first clause of it — " Our Father which art in heaven." " I am thy God " is the sublime introduction to the Law. " Our Father which art in heaven" is the endearing revelation of the Gospel, and the commencement of the first prayer that we are called upon here to breathe from sanctified lips. Our blessed Lord in teaching us here is not satisfied with saying what would have been most condescending love, "You may thus pray," but He turns privilege into duty, and saj^s, " When ye pray, thus say." How pre- cious that His precepts should be our greatest privileges ; and that He takes what is our noblest 46 TEACn us TO PRAY. honor, translates it into our solemn duty, and so makes duty embosom joy, holiness embosom happiness, and obedience to His word become the measure of our enjoyment upon earth. Is there not something here very precious, that the very first cry that an infant learns to utter, " My fa- ther," is the first and the last appeal that a saint addresses to God ; " Our Father which art in heaven ;" as if God would teach us that nature's earliest cry has in it a lingering undertone of Adam's first prayer in Paradise. Tour children, as they give expression to the human relationship, remind vou that as children by adoption of a yet greater Father you may still say, what was first and shall be last, " Our Father which art in heaven." Is there not also a suggestive thought for every parent in that word " Father" ? " If ye," fathers, " being evil, notwithstanding that evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father which is in heaven give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him ?" So that whenever you read or pray this OUR FATHER. 47 Prayer you may have this blessed thought — that all the affection that I as a parent feel to my children, that affection, infinitely expanded and enlarged, God feels to me, and without the draw- back of the imperfections and the alloy that min- gle with my human feeling, and more or less debase every function of the unsanctified heart. Thus children may learn to lisp, by extending the experience of earth into the confines of hea- ven, the petition " Our Father ;" thus parents may learn how willing God is to give to them the richest expressions of His goodness, by re- membering that the fatherhood of God is their own fatherly sympathy, without its imperfection and infinitely enlarged. Creation cries from all its depths and its heights, " Our Creator ;" its animal economy cries with a constant appeal, •' Our Preserver ;" but God's redeemed company of them that have washed their robes in the pre- cious blood of the Lamb, rise into a nobler key, and give expression to a deeper and more joyous relationship, " Our Father which art in heaven." J 48 TEACH US TO PRAY. We lost our relationsliip to God the Father by tlie disruption of the Fall — we receive that rela- tionship back again through Jesus Christ, the Mediator ; " for to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." I do not know one truth more distinctive of the Gospel than the fatherhood of God. The Jews had but a dim, shadowy impression of it. The Gospel of St. John has the word " Father" ap- plied to God about seventy-two times ; as if it was the endearing relationship that John would constantly dwell on. And the Apostle Paul tells us, in the Epistle to the Romans, that God has given us the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. And we see in this blessed truth, too, that God is not the Pantheistic Being which some believe, regarding poor na- ture, so poor and meagre, as their god, and wor- shipping the creature as if he were the Creator. He is a personal Being enthroned above all, but accessible to the meanest and the greatest sinner that seeks access to Him in the name and through OUR FATHER 49 the merits of Jesus Christ the only Savionr. In this Prayer we have revealed to us the glorious trutli, that while God is King, Lord, Sovereign, Judge, all these attributes are softened and shaded and subdued in their transit to us by the blessed medium of fatherhood, or His re- lationship to us as a Father. As we have seen in the first the fatherhood of God, we learn in the second place the brother- hood of all true Christians. He is revealed not only as the Father wlio is enthroned in the heavens, not only as " Mij Father which art in heaven," but as "<9w?' Fatlier which art in hea- ven." ISTo sooner does the Christian heart feel its individual relationship to GcTd righted and re- stored, than as tlie reaction of it it feels its res- toration to all the brethren of mankind resusci- tated and revived. If we trace the earliest effects of the Fall, we shall find that Adam lost his Fa- ther in Paradise, and showed his sense of loss by running from God and trying to hide himself in the trees of the garden ; that, secondly, man lost 50 TEACH us TO PRAY, his brotherhood to all mankind, for Cain slew Ills brotlier Abel. Thus the very first effects of tlie Fall were man's loss of the Father ; when in- stead of drawing near to Him as a Father he fled from Him as a Judge : and, secondly, man's loss of brotherhood, when Cain rose up and slew his brother Abel. The very first effect of Chris- tianity is to restore these two lost but golden links ; and hence we have here, first, the father- hood of God, and, secondly, the brotherhood of all believers : " Our Father which art in hea- ven." In the first instance I bow my knee and say, interested in the safety of my individual soul, " My Father ;" but scarcely has my heart unloaded itself of that precious thought than it is instantly lost in the yet nobler and broader one, " Our Father, which art in heaven." Faitli in its first pulse says " My Father ;" but as it is the definition of faitli, " It worketh by love," therefore in its second pulse it beats " Our Fa- ther." Here is a prayer that a Christian never can offer only for himself It is so worded that OUR FATHER. 51 the instant we begin to pray for ourselves, there runs through it intercession for all our brethren of mankind ; " Our Father, give us daily bread ; forgive us our sins." By a beautiful law the Christian's closet widens in the family, the family widens into the congregation, the congregation into the church, the church into the catliolic company of all that love the Lord Jesus Christ, and are the children of God by true and real adoption. All sectarian, selfish, individual, let us add provincial, denominational, national feel- ing, is merged and overflowed by the warm and the genial love that sees in heaven our Father, and in all that worship Him in sincerity and truth brethren we love and worship with on earth, and shall worship with in heaven here- after. If we could pray more feelingly, with a deeper sense of what the expression " Our Fa- ther " conveys, there would be less of that nar- row, limited, sectarian feeling, which is not the monopoly of a sect, but unhappily the besetting sin of all mankind. There is no doubt that some 52 * TEACH US TO FRAY. are praying this prayer when we think there are none ; and that many are muttering it witli e\o- qnent lips, who never yet have learned to pray it at all. And what a solemn thought that some poor, lowly, unknown ones in the depths of the Western Apostasy at this hour thus pray with us. Many an inhabitant in Lucknow, in Petersburg, in Paris, may be at this moment saying with us, " Our Father." Methinks, if this thrilling thought could only pervade the hearts of all mankind, wars would cease to the ends of the earth, and the spear be turned into the pruning-hook, and the sword into the plough- share. At all events the fact that there is no Christian upon earth who does not say this prayer, " Our Father," seems to indicate the im- possibility of a total dislocation of humanity, or of an antagonism so lasting that it cannot be healed. We know at all events that wars will not cease among the nations till all men liave been taught by the Holy Spirit to say " Onr Father." It is only in the liglit of religion that OUR FATHER. 53 society can be permanently ameliorated; it is only in the light of the fatherhood of God that all hearts will reciprocate the brotherhood of all mankind. Hence revolutions begin from below and spring from beneath ; reformations originate from above and spread below. We must begin with Our Father in heaven in order to see our brethren upon earth ; and when we can thus be- gin, we may be sure that we shall not end until the whole earth be filled and covered with the glory of the fatherhood of God, and all mankind as brethren, in the grand words of the Apoca- lypse, sing, "Salvation and glory and honor and blessing unto our God and to the Lamb forever and forever." We come now to the third thought contained in this beautiful clause, " in heaven." First we have studied the nature of the Prayer by way of prefatory remark ; next we have seen its dis- tinctive revelation of the fatherhood of God ; next the brotherhood of all believers; and now let us lift up our hearts to the home of all that 54 TEACH US TO PRAY. happy brotherhood — "in heaven." "Our Fa- ther which art in heaven." Heaven was the point of our departure from God ; heaven is the point at which our return terminates. The prodigal son left his father's liouse ; spent his substance in riotous living ; repented, was re- stored, and reinstated in his father's house again. We prodigal sons left our Father's home ; we spent all we had in riotous living and in estrange- ment from Him ; we are brought to repentance ; we return and find in our Father's long forsaken abode Paradise restored and ourselves at home again. ISTow this interesting thought, that our Father is in heaven, reveals to us first of all, God's supremacy, sovereignty, and therefore ability to see and to supply all the wants of llis repentant family. God sits on the circle of the heavens, and sees the least as well as the greatest of mankind. The common notion, is that God is so great and magnificent a being that we cannot conceive that He will c^»ncern Himself with such tiny ephemeral things as men OUR FATHER. 55 are, or with such small things as the wants of a widow and the sighs of an orphan. But I need not tell you that God revealed in the mysteries of the microscope, appears grander to our sight than God revealed by the telescope. We natu- rally think that what is materially great is most magnificent : it is not necessarily so. There is more of God's wisdom in weaving the exquisite texture of a bee's wing than in creating the countless orbs that like the sentinels of a mighty host lie upon the confines of infinitude. If we take the petal of the rose, bursting into full ma- turity in June, it seems as if he had nothing else in the universe to do but to paint that exquisite petal, lie seems so concerned with each tiny- thing, that you are tempted to infer that His whole skill, resources, beneficence, power, were exhausted in adorning it. This conveys to us this most precious thought, that God is as deeply concerned in my least want, my lowliest sorrow, my least personal care, and in providing for it, as if He had nothing else to do in the boundless 56 TEACH US TO riilY. universe save to take care of me aud my soul. "Wliat a blessed thought that God is as near to me, as deeply concerned about me, that He has ex- pended as much of redeeming love upon me, as if He had nothing else to do but to save me. Kead the Bible often and yon will see how frequent is, if I may use the word, its egotism. '* Thou God seest," not us, but " me.'''' " "What must / do to be saved ?" " Believe thou."" " Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon the earth that I desire beside thee." " Thou knowest my sitting down and my rising up ; thou knowest my thoughts afar off." I think that is one of the most magnificent expressions in the Psalms, " my thoughts afar off." Before a man clearly comprehends a thing, while the thought is loom- ing, misty and shadowy, upon the edge of the distant horizon of his mind, even then God sees it, knows it, estimates its issue, and comprehends its whole character. This God, our Father, is sitting on the circle of the heavens, looking down, acquainted with, inspecting, providing for, OUR FATHER. 57 syrapatliizing witli the least of His family, as truly as with the greatest creature that surrounds His throne and worships continually before Him. Blessed thought, that we can say " my Father" first, but may not stop there, but must proceed to "Our Father;" and that this our Father is in heaven, seeing, inspecting, sympathizing with, and providing for all ; and that heaven, wherever it may be, in which He is, is the home to which we are all tending. That one expression, " Our Father in heaven," makes it home ; it is that one word that gives the future its homelike aspect, and teaches me this blessed truth, that when I shall appear there, after I have laid aside this mortal and left it in the grave to be prepared for the resurrection morn, I shall enter into no strange land or distant colony ; here is the island of my exile, there is the home where I shall be for ever with my Father, and our Father, and all that have fallen asleep in Jesus, and are worshipping before the throne and in the pre- sence of the Lamb for ever and for ever. We 3^ 58 TEACH US TO PRAF. all shrink from death ; and surely death is a most unnatural thing ; it is of all things the most un- natuial, the most horrible, that this exquisite or- ganization should like Abraham's Sarah be buried out of sight ; the nearest, the dearest, and the best beloved not venturing to gaze at it any more. That is not natural ; God never made me to die ; God never made me to have a head-ache, or a heart-ache, or a grey hair, or a wrinkle up- on the brow ; these things are not original, they are suj)erinduced by sin. And what makes us brave death is not that we love life less, is not that we love death more ; but that we see in the grave the vestibule only of the everlasting home, and that when we descend into its deepest depths it is only to begin the ascent to that sunny table-land where is the presence of our Father, and of all that have preceded us to glory. Hence the very expression, " Our Father in heaven," is the evidence that heaven is our ever- lasting and our happy home. Now these three heads — Father, Our Father, OUR FATHER. 59 in heaven — are just the three thoughts grasped bj what the Apostle calls faith, hope, and charity, or love. Faith pierces the skies and sees a Fa- ther ; faith developes itself in love ; and love looks over and abroad the earth and says, while reci- procating feelings of love with all mankind, " Our Father ;" and faith and love are the nu- triment of hope, that unfurls its wings and pierces the sky, and sees our Father in heaven ; our future, our eternal, and certain home. Thus from this great thought, from this precious com- munion, the scepticism that disbelieves, the self- ishness that monopolizes, the despair that com- mits suicide, are lost in faith, in love, in hope. " Love never fails. Whether there be prophecies they shall fail " — although let me add that word " fail " is wrong. The Greek word there trans- lated " fail " means " cease." It ought to be translated, " Love never fails. Whether there be prophecies they shall be worked out to fulfil- ment ; whether there be tongues they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish 60 TEACH US TO PRAY. away." Tongues as at Pentecost are gone ; knowledge as inspired is gone ; works as miracu- lous are gone ; but love, wliicli begins in faith in the fatherhood of God, grows in the atmosphere of love to Him and to all brethren in Him, ends and blossoms for ever and ever in the Paradise of our God and in the presence of the Lamb. What a precious clause ! Have we ever thus regarded it ? have we ever seen and drunk of those sweet springs tliat are in it ? If w^e believe these things, (and I need no external proof to convince me that this Prayer was taught by God ; none but infinite wisdom, infinite love, could ever have taught such a prayer ; I need no arguments, I need no mii-acles, to convince me this is divine ; I need only to study this blessed book. I find in it depths that we have never yet sounded, — lights that have not yet leaped forth from its shadows, — evidences of inspiration, so strong, irresistible, and manifold, that the man is a fool that says the Bible is not the Word of God, — ) if we believe that God is our Father in heaven, OUR FATHER. Q\ our everlasting home, then what encouragement have we in prayer ! Do we not often when we pray go into God's presence hesitating, shrink- ing, alarmed ? and is it not too true that almost all liturgies, however excellent, have in them too much of the deprecating and the terrible ; of fear, of alarm, of dread ? But should not the feeling with which we ought to go into God's presence be, certainly not that of presumption, but that with which an infant leaps into the bosom of its mother, or a child goes into the pre- sence of its father? And, therefore, we are not, when we pray as Christians, to deprecate God's wrath as if we were criminals in the dock, but to ask a Father's blessing, as children of our Father which art in heaven. What comfort have we here in the conviction of sin ! We know there are times when a mys- terious breath sweeps through the soul, and awakens in conscience presentiments, convic- tions, that will not be laid. In that moment, when we see what sin is, in the light of that 62 TEACH US TO PRAY. Lamb whose blood can wash it away, how pre- cious is this thonglit ; " I will arise, and go" — where ? — " to my Father." " I will arise and say, ' Our Father which art in heaven.' " And "as a father pitieth his children, so doth the Lord pity them." If this be true that God is our Father, Mdiat comfort in affliction ! My amaze- ment is not that the natural and the unsanctified man rushes to the judgment-seat unsent ; but how men can stand the shocks, tribulations, losses, bereavements, pains, and agonies of this present world without helps from heaven to sus- tain and comfort them. As long as I am not a child of God, as long as I am not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, so long all things that betide me are penal, the inflictions of an angry judge. But the instant that my heart is chang- ed, and my standing is transferred, and I am made b}'^ adoption a son of God, then, instead of being penal, everything is paternal, for it comes from our Father. Instead of being punishment, the bitterest and the severest blow is only the OUR FATHER. 63 chastening of onr Father's hand. Here too lies the difference between the reasoning of the Christian and that of the world, A mere worldly man argues thus : " I have lost all my property ; God has taken it. I have lost my children ; God has taken them. I have lost my health; God also hath taken it : therefore God is angry with me, and is working against me, and is ready to consume me." Such is the reasoning of the world. But a Christian says, " God is my Father ; therefore He has taken these children to His own bosom ; therefore He has taken away that wealth which was taking His place ; therefore He has removed that health which was standing between me and heaven." The worldly man reasons from nature up to what God is, and ar- rives at the conclusion that God is angry : the Christian reasons from what God is — our Father — down to nature ; and therefore feels that all things under His imj^ress work together for good to them that love Him. Christianity is a happy religion. The Christian Q4, TEACH US TO PRAY. alone can be happy, he alone must be happy ; of all men npon earth he is summoned to " rejoice, and again rejoice !" AVhat brilliant hope have we ! When all the storms of this present world are lulled ; when all its trials, its fears, and its griefs are over,— and very soon they will be over, for every year seems as we grow older to run away faster ; and the very world itself in which we live as it nears to its close seems to revolve with accelerated speed, — when this life of ours, that seems for its shortness like a bubble upon the waters, is finished, we alone may begin to sing in our last moments, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore our Father ; who hath begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead." And if He be our Father and we be Plis sons, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. A Christian may not have sixpence in possession, but he has unsearchable riches in reversion. He may not have an acre upon earth he can call his OUR FATHER. 65 own ; but he lias the wide walk of heaven for ever and for ever. Let us learn from all this what a motive we have here to obedience. "We are not called to obey Pharaoh, a hard task-master in this world, but to serve our Father. The service of the law for reward is the service of a slave, ever wretched, ever miserable, ever incomplete : the service of a son is joyous, because his Father's yoke is easy and His commandments never griev- ous. What a basis for increased love and charity amid all the members of the Church of Christ ! If there should be in this dispens- ation, what I fear there will not be, the thorough outward and visible union and communion of all the people of God ; if there should arrive a day when we shall only be rivals in doing the greatest good, and agree to differ upon those things upon which we shall probably never here or hereafter absolutely agree, for such uniform- ity and monotony would not be the highest excellence ; if ever all the people of God should 66 2 EACH US TO PRAY. feel, in the beautiful language of John, that there are many folds but there is but one Shep- herd ; if ever holy catholic feeling should be a resplendent and universal reality ; then the doom of Babylon, the decay of Mahometanism, the commencement of the dawn of millennial glory, would be at our doors. Such results are, in the page of prophecy, either in this or in the next dispensation, sure of coming to pass. In the mean time, if we only think that we are children of the same Father, it will matter little that one wears a surplice and another a silk gown ; that one worships with a liturgy and another without it; that one believes in Pres- bytery and another in Episcopacy. All eccle- siastical systems are just like Railway Com- mittees, provisional only while this dispensation lasts ; waiting till the true and Divine Church comes down from heaven like a bride adorned for the bridegroom, inwardly all holy, and out- wardly all beauty ; and when that which is perfect is come that which is provisional will OUR FATHER. 67 be all done away. All our Churclies are about to be broken up,— Church Established, and Church Dissenting,— but Christ's Church is never to be broken up. When the earthen vessel is broken the inner treasure will circulate the more; when the ship is broken on the rocks the crew will all be saved. And at all events wc shall be taught this lesson— a lesson that Paul taught the Corinthians, and that many afflictions have not yet served sufficiently to teach us,—" Who is Paul, who is Apollos, who is Cephas ; who is Luther, who is Cranmer, who is Knox; but mere ministers or servants by whom ye believe ?" Christ alone remains all and in all. «* My Father's house on liigb, Home of my soul, how near At times to faith's far-seeing eye Thy golden gates appear ! Here in the body pent, Absent from Him I roam. Yet nightly pitch my moving tent A day's march nearer home." 68 TEACH US TO PRAY. m. THE ADORING WORSEXPPEB. " Hallowed be thy name." — ^Matt. y1. 9. I ENDEAVORED in the last chapter, on the words " Our Father which art in heaven," to show the great beauty, comprehensiveness, and grandeur of this simple but sublime Prayer, commonly called the Lord's Prayer. I noticed in my intro- ductory remarks, that lest it should be supposed that there is a charm in the very words, it is said, " After tliis manner pray ;" but in another Gospel, lest it should be thought that we cannot pray without the use of these words, it is written, " When ye pray say /" teaching us that the first thing we are to regard is the spirit and the meaning of these words ; and the next, and by no means the insignificant thing, is the use of THE ADORiyO WORSHIPPER. gg the simple but beautiful words themselves. I noticed also how this Prayer contrasts with almost every human prayer ; we have here words so simple that a child can learn and understand them ; and yet in their significance 80 far-reaching and sublime that the most expe- rienced saint still falls back upon them. I noticed too the very interesting fact that the spirit of prayer is not, such as some are tempted often to feel, to approach God as a guilty crimi- nal approaches a judge to deprecate his wrath ; but as a child, a sinful child it is true, but a child still, approaches a parent, to ask his forgiveness and his blessing. There is in all our prayers in private, or in the family, or in the sanctuary, too much of the deprecatory, too little of the filial, the confidential, the trust- ful. And therefore this Prayer begins with what is the key-note of the whole ; " Our Father which art in heaven;" " Our Father, hallowed be thy name ;" " Our Father, tli}'- kingdom come ;" " Our Father, give us, thy children. 70 TEACH US TO PRAY. daily bread." I noticed the other interesting thought, that the great revelation of Christianity is what I called the fatherhood of God ; and the second is the brotherhood of all true Christians. The prayer here is not "J/?/ Father," as man would selfishly utter it;" but " Our Father;" in order that the feeling of the brotherhood of all may go with you to the throne of grace. I noticed that you have in this Prayer just the restoration of what we lost in Paradise. What did we lose there? When man fell, the first thing he lost was a sense of God as his Father ; and the second thing he lost was the feeling of man as his broth- er ; for when Adam sinned he ran and hid him- self, and said he was afraid — no more the child trusting in a Father, but the refugee running from one he believed to be an angrj' Judge. The next thing was, " And Cain rose up and slew his brother Abel." The second great loss of man, after that of God as his Father, is that of aifection to his fellow-man as his brother. IS'ow in this Prayer God is re-introduced through the Atone- THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. ij-^ ment as Father ; man is re-introduced as brother ; and therefore, not satisiied with saying " Father," nor with saying " My Father," we rise to a loftier pitch and give utterance to a more catholic peti- tion, and we say, " Our Father." I noticed also that we have here not only God our Father, man our brother, but heaven our home. We lift our eyes to the home where God is. What constitutes a home ? A parent. Our Father is in heaven, and to Him in common with all Christians we lift our eyes and anticipate our last and happy home, which Jesus has gone to inlay with His presence. " Let not your hearts be troubled — ye believe in God, believe also in me. I go to prepare a place for you ; and I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Having thus given a sort of rhmiie of what I said before, let me now direct your attention to the second clause, strictly and properly the first petition in this comprehensive Prayer. It is, "Let thy name be hallowed." At Athens no name was __l 72 TEACH us TO PRAY. found for the unknown God. To us it is revealed ill letters of light. His name is the aggregate of Ilis excellences. Tehovah Eophi, the Lord that healeth thee. Tehovah tzidkenu, the Lord our Rio-hteousness. Yehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. Yehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. It is enunciated in Exodus xxxiv., " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." This name is legible in Scripture from Genesis to the Apocalypse. They that fear the Lord think upon His name, that is — the name of our Father. Where do we find it? Our very baptism should ever bring up before us the rec- ollection and the sense of that grand name ; for we are baptized not in the names, as if there were Three Persons, but in the name — the singu- lar number — of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. — But if we wish to see that name, and each sylla- ble of that name, in all its beauty, we refer to Ex. xxxiv. 5, where we are told, " And the Lord de- THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 73 scended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord." Kow here is tlie name that we wish to be hallowed — " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gra- cious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiv- ing iniquity and transgression and sin." What a magnificent name ! It is an answer to the ob- jections of every poor, depressed, downcast sin- ner. Are you poor, blind, miserable, ignorant, and have nothing ? He is the Lord the Creator. Have you a heart very wicked, very depraved ? He is the Lord God ; the strong, the omnipotent God ; able to change it. Do you say. But I am a sinner, and how can I deal with him ? He is merciful. Do you say, " But I can offer Him nothing for his mercy V It is added, He is gra- cious — that is, He gives His mercies gratis. Do you object, "But I have sinned for many years, ann lived thoughtlessly and without Him ?" He is " longsuffering." Do you say, you have drawn upon His mercy so often that you are 74 TEACH US TO PRAY. afraid He ^v ill give you no more ? He is " abun- dant in goodness and truth." Do you add, however, still that you are afraid that as nearly six thousand years have elapsed, and so many have drawn upon Him, that He must at last be exhausted of all His mercy ? The answer is, He keeps mercy for thousands of generations — for that is the meaning, not thousands of persons but thousands of generations. But do you say, " I have committed all sorts" of sin ?" If you are heartily sorrowful for it, and desire to abjure it, blessed thought I God forgives all sorts of sin ; — forgiving " iniquity" — that is one sort ; " trans- gresion" — that is a second sort ; " and sin" — that is the third and last sort. But do you say, " If men believe this they will be sure to plunge in- to all sorts of wickedness?" Surely human na- ture is not so base as to make the very exuber- ance of God's goodness a reason for living in profligacy. On the contrary, so sanctifying is this that God at the same time " will by no means clear the guilty." We here pray that THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 75 this name, each syllable of which is a text full of precious thought, maj be hallowed. Dumb na- ture, the creation the animals, the irrational ani- malt, glorifj Him ; but it is the rational, re- deemed, intelligent family that hallow or sanctify God's name. God's name is just Himself ; the word " name" in fact is constantly employed in Scripture for a person. For instance it is said, " Thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not denied me." And again, we speak of a per- son as having a great name ; that is, being dis- tinguished for genius, or talent, or power in some department of life. Now God's name here is just Himself; and when we pray that His name may be hallowed we pray that we and all living men, and the whole brotherhood of the Christian Church, and the whole race that He has made, may one day in their hearts, in their hopes, in tlieir faith, in their lives, in all they are and in all they do, sanctify, adorn, trust in, praise, worship, that great and blessed name. Having begun this prayer with the filial ex- Y6 TEACH US TO PRAY. pression of confidence, " Our Father," we may expect tliat the very first question that our Fa- ther will ask of His children will be, " If I am a Father, then where is mine honor?" AVhen we begin this Prayer with the filial expression, " Our Father," so far is it from making iis presume ir- reverently npon His relationship to us, that we give expression in the very next breath to the words " Hallowed be thy name." In fact, be- gin with hallowing the name of God, and you begin wrong ; begin with expressing your rela- tionship as sons to God, and you will go from loving Him to reverence, and so glorify and sanctify Him. We begin with the expression of filial confidence, " Our Father ;" we proceed with all the reverence and the homage that a creature owes to the Great Creator, and we say, " May we never in thinking of Thee as our Fa- ther forget tliat Thou art also our God. May we never as sons so far trespass on Tliy aftection as to forget that Thou art the High and the THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. Y7 Miglity One whose name is Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts." In illustrating this clause of the prayer let us look at it first in reference to creation ; secondly, in reference to history, or God's providential work in the world ; and thirdly, in reference to the visible Church, into which we are baptized ; and lastly, in relation to our own personal and individual hearts. Let us examine it first of all in reference to creation. After man had lost the fatherhood of God, he made an attempt to de- throne God, to erase His name from every nook and quarter of the habitable globe, and to in- scribe his own name upon stone and star, upon tree, and fruit and flower ; taking from God his glory, and appropriating to himself what he had thus stolen from God. And still, if you trace the influence of this feeling throughout the world, you will flnd that in the schools of science, in the vocabulary of the learned, this very name, this divine presence, instead of being liallowed, is covered with inscriptions that tend, 78 TEACH us TO PRAY. if not to erase, at least to obscure it. AYe speak for instance of nature as if it were a living crea- ture, and make it a substitute for Him whose Spirit inspires it. We speak of the laws of nature, instead of calling them, as we ought to do, the pro- visions of God. We say it is a law of nature the sun rises. It is really the decree of God. We speak of the fixity of these laws, as if God had left the creation to itself, and retired from ruling it, or handed it over to material phenomena ; as if in addition to its being fallen it were finally forsa- ken. The truth is, what we call a law of nature is in Christian phrase an impulse of the finger of God ; and what we pronounce to be a property in matter is simply a volition on the part of God. The gravitation of water, the attraction and re- pulsion of the magnet, the march of orbs in their spheres, the revolution of the earth on its axis, the falling and the flowing tides, the rising and the setting suns, the flight of the eagle and the full of the sparrow, are each, not the expressions of a law that God made five thousand years ago, TEE ADORING WORSHIPPER. ^O and left to act, but are each the direct response to the direct touch and the immediate power of God. When we substitute a law of nature for a volition of God, we so far fail to hallow His name. If we use phrases merely for the sake of convenience in science, but never fail to look through the phrase and regard it only as a veil hiding God, or a man's words substituted for the acts of God ; if, in short, we see him in all, we do not fail to hallow thus far and therein His name. But the philosopher will naturally say, the regularity of the sequences, as they are called, of nature is the evidence that God has created and left the world to certain laws. For instance, we find it as a matter of fact that seed cast into the earth does germinate; that fire does burn, that water does roll down to its level ; that spring and summer and autumn come in beautiful succession, and therefore we argue, says the philosopher, that these things are laws, and God has struck these laws upon the world, and retired and left them to work out their mis- 80 TEACH US TO PRAY. sion. The answer to all this is, the very fixity of these things is only another proof of the ben- eficence of God. If antumn sometimes came in March, and spring sometimes came in August or September, we should not know when to sow or what to sow, and we should have no hope that we should reap wherein we had sown. But because these seasons remain fixed and orderly, the expressions of God's exuberant beneficence, are we to take the very fixity which is the evi- dence of his beneficence, and make that an evidence that He has left the world to itself and under the domination of blind law? God acts not by caprice but in infinite wisdom, and the very fixity, if I may use the phrase, of His ac- tion is its evidence of His boundless wisdom. His great beneficence. Strange but sad it is that man construes it into a proof that God wound up the world as a man winds up his watch, and then left it to uncoil itself till its day should be finished. The truth is, it is God's touch every instant that makes the heart beat. Tliere is no THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 81 law in your heart, separate from God's will, wliy it should beat ten minutes, any more than there is why a stone should beat ; and there is no evidence why a piece of bread should nourish you any more than a quantity of dust. I know the popular reply, " What nonsense ! No more reason why bread should nourish than dust ! Is there not so much oxygen, and so much carbon, so much gluten, so much saccharine matter?" But this only carries a little farther back ; why does the saccharine matter nourish ? why does the gluten nourish'^ why do all these things combined nourish ? The old-fashioned theology of ancient days best explains ; bread nourishes because God blesses it, and my heart beats because God touches it. The law comes from the Lawgiver, and responds to His touch ; and what philosophers call the laws of nature are simply the provisions of God's good- ness. We pray here that in the halls of science in the schools of the world, in its colleges and in its universities, in the languages of the learned 4.* 82 TEACH US TO PRAY. and in the vocabularies of science, not that law without the Lawgiver, but that Grod's name may be hallowed. Let us now study this Prayer in reference to God's providential dealings in the world, that is, in reference to history. God is as much in na- tional history as He is in natural science ; as much and truly in every flower that grows in nature, and in every chapter that is written in history, as He is in every text that is inspired in the Bible. We are so prone to retain the old leaven of the Popish element, and to think God is con- iined to what we call sacred things, sacred pages, sacred places. God is everywhere ; all earth is His, the universe is His ; and not an angel can worsliip before Him, not a hair can fall from the youngest or the oldest head, without His permis- sion. But how often are we prone to calculate contingencies, to arrange, to locate, to proportion- ate, and to hope, without once thinking of God. Creation seen without a Creator is scarcely so dreary a dungeon as history viewed without God. THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 33 God is as mucli acting in our present natural hisLorj as when lie marched Israel, by the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by daj-^, from Egypt into the land of Canaan. I do not believe in chance. Our creed does not begin, " I believe in chance ;" but, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, the maker of all things." I do not believe that chance has any more to do with the management of nations than it had with the manufacture of the stars, or of the stones of the earth, or of the fruits and flowers that blossom in its bosom and adorn it with their beauty. All this is perfectly compatible with man's responsi- bility, and with man's free will ; jnst as God mak- ing the earth, and carrying on the march of the material earth, is perfectly compatible with the fixity of what we call the laws under which it is governed ; so God in history, carrying events to their consummation, and allowing nothing to hap- pen without his cognizance, permission, or con- trol, is perfectly compatible with our vigorous use of means. I believe that the day of every 84 TEACH US TO PRAY. man's decease is fixed in the purpose of God ; but, tliougli I so believe, I will still do every- thing in my power to preserve the life which God has given me ; for the same God who has fixed the day of my decease has also fixed in my heart the love of living, and therefore the duty of taking all the means to live that He in Ills providence puts in my power. I know I never can harmonize the purposes of God with man's free-will ; I feel I never can suflSciently explain them ; but because I cannot explain, it does not follow that these things are not true, or are in- explicable. We are far more ignorant than we are apt to think ourselves, many things are true which we are not able to harmonize, reconcile, or explain. But whilst I use all the mcc^ns of life in my power, to know that I am immortal till God has nothing more for me to do, is surely a blessed thought ! Your sons, your husbands, your brothers, may go forth io that dread and terrible work that will soon spread sad sorrows on our shores, with this sustaining thought, that THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 85 while that son, or husband, or brother, will use all the skill of modern military experience, and all the weapons that are prescribed for offence or defence, and will take his place in the bat- talion, and advance to his dread mission as if all depended on himself, yet he may carry into the thickest of the conflict this thought, " There is not a bullet can touch me till God allows it ; not a sword can cut a hair from my head till God commissions it ; not a force in war, or fever, or pestilence can scathe me till God gives per- mission ;" this is enough to make a hero. All this is perfectly compatible with the use, the vio-orous use, the common-sense use, of all the means of safety that God may put in our power. If I believed that human passions were at this moment reigning uncurbed in Europe, and that Autocrats and Emperors are left to do just as they like ; if I believed that accident and im- pulse were determining the eventualities of the world ; that there is no plan, no programme, no o-rand and blessed issue ; if I believed there was 86 TEACH US TO PRAY. no helm with a sovereign band at it, and no chart written divinely, I should plunge into absolute despair, and conclude tbat cbaos was coming back, and tlie civilization of a thou- sand years about to lapse into the barbarism of days long since gone. If I so believed, I should feel I was a leaf tossed upon the winds, a bubble amid the eddies of the i^iver; hope would die, confidence would go, and I should literally be of all men the most miserable. But we hallow God's name when we recognise God here, there, everywhere. Whether we can interpret unful- filled prophecy or not, we admit that in this book, the Bible, as matter of fact which nobody can deny, there is what is called prophecy ; as for instance Isaiah's prophecy, Jeremiah's, or Ezekiel's. There are prophecies in the Gospels, there are prophecies also in the Epistles. What does prophecy imply? If there be predictions in this book stretching to the end, this fact that God has predicted what shall come, and that He has thus written what shall come, is suflicient THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 87 evidence that He will preside over all that hap- pens to evolve and bring to pass what He him- self has foretold. Grant me that there is in this book inspired prophecy, and the irresistible corollary from it is that God rules in providence. Grant that in this book God has written down what shall come to pass and must come to pass ; and it follows that He has predicted, and thus bring that issue which He Himself has previously laid down. In short, it is of all things the most difficult to look at creation and infer, no God. And I can well understand the force of the ex- pression, " He that says there is no God is a fool." But it is no less difficult to look into the chapters of history, and to see what is taking place around us in the world, and to believe that all is chance, or accident. l^o, we are not only spectators, but actors in a magnificent world-wide drama. The great author of it, God, has written it ; each man takes his place, each actor in it has ]Dart, and the issue of it will be what the beginning of it was in part — glory to 88 ■ TEACH US TO PRAY. God in the liigliest, on earth peace, and good ■will to all mankind. Thus we have seen how to hallow God in cre- ation ; and also, how to hallow God in provi- dence, or in historj. Let me consider the waj in which we are to hallow God, and pray that His name may be hallowed, in the visi- ble Church. By the visible Church I mean any one congregation of Christians met together in Christ's name. This is the normal idea of the Church of Christ. The idea that there is no Church where there is Episcopacy, or no Church where there is Presbytery, or no Church where there is Congregationalism, is sufficiently absurd — it i^ give utterance to a sentiment not found in God's word ; and those persons do violence to good sense who talk such nonsense. The real definition of a Church is that given by our blessed Lord, " Wheresoever two or three are met to- gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them ;" the rest is but development — very beauti- ful it may be, and very expedient also ; and you THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 89 may have your strong preferences ; but wlien you dig- down to the radical definition of a Church of Christ, it will be found to be two or three met to- gether in His name. "We are to hallow God's name first of all in public worship. We are to address none but Deity. It is to desecrate His name, to pray to angels, to saints, or to the Vir- gin Mary ; or to give to any creature, the most exalted in the universe, a portion of that praise, glory, and honor, which is justly and exclusively due to God. Again, we fail to hallow, or rather we desecrate, this great name, when we draw near to God in any other name than in that of Jesus Christ alone. I cannot conceive a more real, if not intended, insult to our blessed Re- deemer than to think that He is not able to mediate between God and me, or that His me- diation is so feeble that there must interpose the Yirgin Mary, or the most exalted saint, or archangel that is beside the throne. There is none other name in which you can be saved but Christ's ; there is none other name in which we 90 TEACH US TO PRAY. are to pmy but Chrii^t's. We want no other ; and if others were offered we repudiate them al- together. Never forget that great thought, that when the high priest of old went into the holy of holies to make intercession, not a priest, or Levite, or human being, dared go with him ; he must appear and intercede alone. So Jesus, our High Priest, has gone into the true holy place ; and whilst He intercedes He must be alone ; neither priest, nor angel, nor saint, nor Mary must be with Him. What a striking evidence has He given us of this in John ii. Mary, as all the ancient Fathers have said, actu- ated by vanity, and therefore surely not imma- culate, said to Jesus, " They have no wine." What did He answer ? Did He say, " Yes, queen of heaven ; thy intercession for these thy poor relatives is most proper, and therefore at thy bidding, and because of the virtue of thy inter- cessioi>, I will turn all this water into wine V The very reverse took place, for He said in lan- guage most respectful, but no less decisive, " Wo- THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 91 man, what liave I to do .with thee ?" It is import- ant to notice that as Jesus comes out before the world, Mary retires into the shadow ; slie was mo- ther once, she is woman now. It is as if He had said to her, " Mary, I must tread the wine press alone ; I alone must endure all the agony and bloody sweat ; not even a mother's tears must mingle with the blood of the sufi'ering Son. I must pay tlie penalty ; mine must be all the glory ^ and, therefore, Mary, retire into that obscurity from which thou didst emerge for a little time ; my name must shine refulgent above even a mother's name, and none other name must min- gle its music with mine ; it is the only name in which men can be saved." He alone must carry the censer. He alone must have the priestly ephod, He alone must intercede. We want no other. Were the greatest saint in heaven, were the Virgin Mary to come down from her happy place, for if, the apostle supposes an angel to come, we may suppose her to come and to offer her assistance, we should do her the greatest ser- 92 TEACH US TO PRAY. vice, as we should yield Christ the greatest glory, by bidding her stand aside, that He may be all and in all. Wlien Alexander the Great stood before the cynic Diogenes, and addressed liim, "Diogenes, basking in the sun as you now are, tell me what is the greatest favor that I, the monarch of all these realms, can bestow upon you ?" the cynic replied, " Please your Majesty, the greatest favor you can do me is to stand aside from between me and that sweet sunshine ill which I have been basking all the day." If the Virgin Mary were to offer me the greatest favor she could do me, I would say, " Stand aside that I may live still in the sunshine of that Sun of Righteousness under whose wings there is healing, and in whose name alone I worship." We do not hallow this name when we substitute outward worship for the*worship of the inward heart. The bowed knee is good, the eloquent prayer is good, the musical praise is good ; but these are all as the tinkling cymbal and the sounding brass, if the heart be not there. The THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 93 absence of the heart is the absence of the fire that burns the sacrifice. It is the spirit of adop- tion that enables us to say, " Abba, Father;" it is the spirit of holiness that enables us to say, "Hallowed be thy name." We fail to hallow this name when we substitute in the house of God artistic, and sensuous, and material, and visible pomp and splendor for spiritual and true worship. I have no doubt that in the sight of a holy being, in the sight of God, and it may be in the sight of angels, and I am no Goth, I am no Yandal, I have sympathy with the beautiful — the noblest productions of a Titian, or a Sal- vator Eosa, or a Rubens, must appear mean, cold, and absolutely poor. If such be the case, to suppose that those ugly caricatures in which all perspective is extinguished, and where what was defect in the middle ages, because they had no knowledge of good drawing, is canonized and made an excellence in the 19th century ; whether of our Blessed Lord, or of angels, or saints, can be any consecration to the sanctuary — seems im- 94 TEACH US TO FRAi. possible to an educated and reflecting mind. The plainest and the simplest sanctuary is surely the best adapted for worship ; for the moment that pictures attract the eye of the worshipper and thus withdraw his heart from the worship, there is too much painting there to be truly beautiful, or at least to be of spiritual use. The highest beauty is not that which the painter's brush can impart, or the architect's genius create ; it is the inner beauty of true holiness. Those Cathedrals in this very land of England so exquisitely beau- tiful as pieces of art, were all built when religion was at its lowest ebb. About the time the Cathe- drals of York, and Lincoln, and Canterbury, and Winchester, were built, Hildebrand was treadins- on the necks of kings ; the people's children were literally growing up barbarians and savages ; the common schools of Europe were a few miserable cells connected with convents and monasteries ; the bishops and priests were the proud lords of the world, and dictated to kings, cabinets, and emperors, and shook thrones by their nod. The THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 95 people were slaves, the priests were despots, reli- gion was superstition, the poor pined of hunger and altars were adorned with gold. Morality was scarcely ever at a lower ebb. At this dark epoch these beautiful Cathedrals were reared. What does this teach ? It is possible to be good architects and bad bishops ; to heap up splendid ornaments in the church, and leave souls to perish outside of it. What we are to covet is not that exterior artistic beauty which is good enough in a play-house, appropriate in an opei*a, admirable as specimens of the arts and sciences ; but unfit for the solemn sanctuary, where there should be good taste, true beauty, but no gaudy decoration ; as in dress, so in architecture, the greatest beauty consists not in that which is most blazing and ostentatious, but most simple and severe. We fail to hallow God's name when we desecrate the Christian Sabbath to amusement, ^ to business, to trade, to reading newspapers, to feasting, drunkenness, and such like. As one of the morning newspapers most nobly and elo- .A 96 TEACH US TO PRAY. quentlj said, wliat are called Sabbatarians, tliat is, people that believe in the Fourth Command- ment, have the best of it in saying that the Sab- bath should be observed as God commanded that it should be. And when one looks at what some statesmen advocate in this matter, one is tempted to wish they would let religion alone, and attend to those departments in which they are more likely to excel. If we spend the Sunday in feasting, visits, and excursions and similiar amusements, we desecrate that day which God has hallowed, and perpetuated as the symbol upon earth of His own magnificent and holy name. If the work- ing classes surrender the Sabbath they know not what they are doing. They give up not merely the day on which they may be prepared for heaven, and be made happier, but the only day that will be a rest to their aching and their weary frames. And if you ever consent to dis- place the Sabbath from its divine basis, and to hold that the Sabbath is most expedient because TEE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 97 it lets man have a physical rest, the mill-owner will soon say, " The Sabbath having no divine autliority, I do not see why you should have it for amusement, I want you and it for business," and very soon it will be turned into one of the working days of the week. But if you hold fast this, that I must hallow the Sabbath because God has so enjoined it, because it is a " divine obligation," you take up ground on which you can stand. . Man's present physical and raentcil rest is laid deepest in his divine obligation of the Christian Sabbath. Man's right to have respect from man, springs from God's right to have the Sabbath consecrated to His service. But let us look less to statesmen for legislation here. After all, the best guarantee for our holy Sabbaths are crowded sanctuaries. We must lean less on law and more on the growth of that inner life which Christianity feels. A Christian peoj^le will make a happy nation and holy Sabbaths. We often fail to hallow God's name by those ecclesiastical distinctions and divisions in which 5 98 TEACH US TO PRAY. too many still glory. One says, " I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I of Cephas." There is among worldly men what is called hero-worshij) ; there is among superstitious men what is called saint- worship ; and there may "^e among Protestants what is nearly as bad, sect-worship. The mo- ment that we think there is no Church like the- Church of England, or no Church like the Church of Scotland, and that to worship outside the one or inside the other is to fall into so!:e frightful heresy, we are making the name of a Reformer, or a church, or a sect, something more than it should be. In all the sanctuaries of the land God's name alone should be exalted and hallowed. "We are to hallow this name personally in our own hearts and lives. " Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." "I will be sanctified in them that come near unto me." But how are we to do so? By having those hearts renewed, and by looking to Him alone to do it ; by being lights in the world, the salt of the earth, living epistles seen THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 99 and read of all men. There is no such credential of Christianity as a Christian; there is no such proof or treatise on the evidences, as a consistent, holy, spotless life. That man who as a Christian is most consistent in his personal, social, official, national responsibilities, speaks and votes for Christ when dumb. In increasing fruitfulness we are to hallow this name Our blessed Lord says, " Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." When you see the verdure of spring, the blossom of the summer, the golden fruits of autumn, you see the creations of the sunshine, the dew-drops, and the good soil. And when you see holy, consistent, and Christian life, tr<^es of righteousness, a chosen generation, a holy nation, showing forth the j)raises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvel- lous light ; you see there men glorifying God. And we glorify Him and hallow His name also by missionary exertion. If you have felt Christianity to be precious to 3'ourselves; if j^ou have felt it so precious that you have embraced it as the salva 100 TEACH US TO PRAY. tion of your own souls ; and if you look around you in the world and see thousands in darkness and perishing for want of light ; the very first instinct of your hearts will be to make known God's ways upon the earth and His saving health among all nations. And when either by His own grand arrangements or through your humble exertions that day shall arrive when the whole earth shall be covered with His glory, and His name shall be exalted above every name, and one song shall occupy all na- tions ; when "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory, and thanksgiving, and praise, and honor," shall be the universal an- them ; then God's name will be hallowed in science, hallowed in creation, hallowed in his- tory, hallowed in the visible Church, hallowed in individual hearts, and prayer shall cease to be offered, for we shall not pray the Lord's Prayer as now, but we sliall translate it into praise, and say, " Our Father, hallowed is thy name; th}-^ kingdom is come ; thy will is done in heaven THE ADORING WORSHIPPER. 101 as it is done on earth ; thou hast given us daily bread ; thou hast forgiven us all our sins ; thou hast delivered us from every evil, and led us into no temptation ; and thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen." We hallow this name, not out of terror, or dismay, not to escape a pit full of pain, or to reach a paradise full of pleasure, but because we love Him who so deeply loved us. Our inspira- tion is not the hope of heaven, but the self-for- getful passion of gratitude and love. 102 TEACH US TO PRAY. IV. A MISSIONARY DESIRE. " Thy Kingdom come." — Matt. vi. 10. " Thy kingdom come. " is literally, " come that kingdom of thine;" "that very kingdom of thine ;" as if jDreviously predicted in the propliets, and looked for by the peojDle of God. In considering this petition, and the great truths it necessarily involves, we are tempted to ask as we read the petition, " Thy kingdom come," has God ceased to reign? Is not His kingdom a perpetual presence ? Does He not rule in the midst of the nations of the earth? Is He not the King and Governor of all ? Does He not cover all space with His presence, and control all events by His power ; gniding stars in their orbits, counting the hairs of the head, inspecting A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 103 the minutest atom, and weighing the heaviest orb ; so that the greatest is not above and beyond Him, the least is not beneath Him? Is He not therefore King and Knler over all all the earth? I answer. He is. God is as much in the facts of history, as He is in the texts of the Bible ; and every fact that occurs at home or abroad is as much associated with God in some shape as any one text that we can select from the Kew Testa- ment Scriptures. It is altogether an erroneous notion we sometimes entertain, that God speaks in the Bible only, that He lives in a place of public worship only ; and that religion and religious thoughts have to do with religions and theologi- cal things only. God speaks in providence as emphatically as He speaks in the Bible. God is amid the tents of Meshech as truly as in the sanctuaries of England. God is not restrained to what we call consecrated places ; He fills all space with His presence ; and He is nearer the humblest heart that prays to Him upon the ocean's bosom than He is to the encaustic tiles 104 TEACH US TO FRAY. and the tesselated pavement of the noblest cathe- dral on the continent of Europe. But it is no less true that a great interruption of God's pre- sence occurred nearly six thousand years ago. God made man holy, therefore happy ; His vice- gerent upon earth, to rule and govern in His name, subjecting to His jurisdiction all created things. But explain it as you like, or be puzzled by it as you may, sin the great disturbing ele- ment crept into the world ; and from that day to this, and, as far as we can see, till sin shall be expunged and all things restored to their origi- nal orbit, the world will be distracted and p'er- plexed by antagonisms and hostilities, and with men that resist His will, deny His jurisdiction, and often and impiously defy His judgments. We see around us in the world at this moment and each in his own heart — that little world in which he has a still deeper stake — affinities hos- tile to God. There is not a soul on earth that has not sometimes, perhaps not expressed words, but felt on some occasions, "I wish there were A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 105 no God : I wish He did not see me ; I wish He did not know what I am about." Such thoughts have occurred to many more than once. Yet wliat fearful thoughts ! The most awful atheism and blasphemy combined are in these. That one thought felt in one single individual is evi- dence of something that has gone wrong in this world. How also can we explain tears that waste it, the pestilences that have swept it, the blood that has deluged its greenest spots, and made them very aceldemas ; except upon the supposition that some dire intrusive element has crept into our world, as fever creeps into the human physical economy, and disturbed, dis- organized, made feverish and restless, all hu- manity all created things ; and that while the kingdom will come, the evidence is irresistible in every land, and more or less in the sensations of every heart, that the kingdom in its fullness, in its glory, and in its completeness, is not yet come. It is the burden of prophecy, it is the subject of prayer, it is not yet the record of his- 106 TEACH U^i TO FRAY. toiy before us. The origin and the explanation of all this disturbance is that man sinned ; and this explains all. You cannot explain our pre- sent physical or moral position without the Book of Genesis. Philosophers have tried it ; men that smiled at the idea of a woman taking an apple from a tree and bringing by such a trivial thing death into the world and all our woe, have presented their solutions ; but not only have infidels been amazed, but their own successors have smiled that any could be such fools as to believe tlieir own solutions : and we fall back upon this simple, severe, but sublime record, of Genesis, that that one act did open the flood-gates of sin ; and we and our children taste the bitterness of that apple that Eve thought would taste so sweet, as it was so plea- sant to the eye. The fact itself of any one sin viewed in its outward act seems a trivial thing. "What is stealing'^. Putting your hand on an- other man's purse — a :! ere mechanical act. How should putting your hand into another A MISSION iRY DESIRE. JoT man's purse and filling that liand with s few gold sovereigns, transport you beyond the sea to Botany Bay ? It seems absurd ; but if; is so. Why is it so? Because that one act is in its moral nature very bad, and is evidence of a wrong state within, and the source of many evils without. "When Eve took the apple, if apple it was, from the forbidden tree, it was evidence of emotions rising from the depths of her heart, alien to her true nature, hostile to God, denying His supremacy : and telling Him to His face, " You have said this fruit is bad and will do great mischief if I touch it. But is is so beau- tiful ; and then I am told by this wise personage who has introduced himself to my notice with- out an introduction or an apology, it will make make me so wise ; and therefore though thou, O God, hast told me this, yet I think my judgment is perfectly trustworthy ; and I will give de- ference to it." There was thus induced a moral state of things altogether wrong. But you say, " What a pity that God made such a tree, with 108 TEACH us TO PRAY. such consequences !" Rather exclaim, What a pity that God made you a creature : this is as rational an ohjection. The very law of a crea- ture is obedience and subjection to a creator ; and as there must be obedience, which is an outward thing, and the expression of an inner state, there must be an outward sacrament or outward symbol by which that obedience shall be visibly perpetuated, or visibly broken. God might have said to Eve, " You shall not walk in that path ; you shall not go near that flower ; yon shall not look into that ])riglit stream ; you shall not smell that fragrant rose." An}'^ one of these would have been substantially the same. There was no poison in that tree ; there was no moral sin in that fruit that she ate, any more than in the fragrance of any of the flowers in the garden. The sin was in doing what God for- bade ; and that outward act was the flrst step in apostacy from God, and brought into the world death and all our woe. But why did God allow her to do so ? might He not have prevented all A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 109 tliis by preventing her touching it ? Such ob- jector would be the very first to complain tliat God restrains our will. What is it that men clamor for every day ? independence: each man wishing to be a sovereign for himself. And tlie very objection that you urge against our consti- tution rebounds upon yourselves, God made Eve free ; with every inducement to persevere in obedience ; with every dissuasive to violate that simple law; with every inclination to obey, with every disinclination to rebel. And yet she rebelled. And if the Eves of England had been placed in her circumstances they would have broken the law sooner, and if possible, precipi- tated a greater ruin upon them and their de- scendants. If you ask, why has God allowed sin to enter ? There I must stop. Whence sin came I cannot explain ; we only know there are mysteries far back of all that we do know, tliat make us feel in our proudest moments very humble, or at least very little; and teach philo- sophers to say, what the greatest and chiefest of 110 TEA ClI US TO Pit A Y. tliem all so becautifully said, "I am but a child gathering shells washed up by the sea waves ; the great depths of the ocean are unsounded by human plumb-line and far beyond." Instead of quibbling about the why, or disputing the wherefore, let us rejoice that the issue of all will be greater glory to God ; and that this blessed fact I am commissioned to preach to every human being, that not one living soul tliat lieai'S the Gospel will ever be condemned for what Eve did ; but if condemned it will be for this, that he has rejected the great remedy, Christ and Him crucified ; which puts right all that Eve left as her legacy of wrong, giving glory to God and salvation to the very chiefest of sinners. There is in every prophecy, the earliest begin- ning in Paradise itself, the intimation of a king- dom mor^ glorious at the close of this dispensa- tion than that which constituted its dawn and its commencement upon earth. It was first an- nounced in Paradise itself, " The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head." "We find the A MISSIONARY DESIRE. HI dying Patriarch, before lie closed his eyes upon his sons, speaking of a Shiloh who should come to reign, and to whom the gathering of the na- tions should be. David sings its joys, Daniel proclaims its dawning glories ; Jesus appeared the King of it ; and Pontius Pilate, contrary to his own designs, was constrained to inscribe the magnificent truth upon the Cross of Him that will be crowned, "Jesus of ISTazareth the King of the Jews." To ascertain the nature of this kingdom, let us first of all view it as the kingdom of grace, existent and progressive now ; com- posed, first, of principles, perfect in themselves, but imperfectly developed in and by us; and next, of persons, accepted in themselves, yet im- perfect in sanctification. Secondly, let us view it as the kingdom of glory, where there are per- fect principles perfectly developed, and perfect subjects perfectly sanctified. Let us view it, then, first as the kingdom of grace ; namely, with principles in themselves perfect, but im- perfectly developed in us ; and also as composed 1X2 TEACE US TO PRAY. of persons accepted in Clirist, but imperfect in themselves. Now at present this kingdom is very much a hidden and unimpressive influence. " The world knows us not," says John, " as it knew him not." Xobody at tliis moment can infallibly chalk out the Church of Christ ; no one glancing over all that surround a communion table, or kneel together at the footstool of tlie heavenly grace, can say, This is a Christian and that is not. And the moment we begin to discri- minate and weed, as we would wish, the tares from the wheat, we find do not diminish the num- ber of the tares, and we do great injury to the precious wheat. This kingdom is at this moment growing in the silence and the secrecy of indi- vidual hearts, in the sequestered and lonely places of the world ; its great characteristic being, while its blessed King and Lord at present is clad in obloquy and contempt, that " not many rich, not many great, not many noble, are called." It is like the light of the morning, that dawns softly, then increases more and more unto the perfect A MISSIONARY DESIRE. J 13 day ; or like tlie fruit trees and flowers in spring, there is a long preliminary process beneath the soil and out of sight, before the fragrant blossoms of May and the golden fruits of Autumn come forth. This kingdom first comes into us, and then we come into it. It becomes in each Christian a personal possession; "The kingdom is within you." And lastly we become its subjects, and the heirs of the kingdom of God. Here, too, now, is the difference between God's way of promotino- the highest good and man's way. Man begins at the circumference, and works inwards towards the heart ; God begins by planting His kingdom a living germ in the individual heart ; and thereby influencing the whole man, and progressively giving tone and shape to all society. The con- stant tendency of man is, to think that he can regenerate the world by science, by literature, by steam-engines, by railroads, by newspapers, by Acts of Parliament; and every day he find.-j, though he pursues his course as if he.had never failed in it, how great and palpable his mistakes 114 TEACH us TO FRAY. are. But wheu God goes forth to revolutionize the world, lie does so by regenerating individual hearts, and radiating from those hearts an in- fluence that makes the world holier, and happier, and wiser. The constant shout of the world is, " Lo here ; lo there ;" the constant response from heaven is, " The kingdom of God is within you ;" and if it be not there, it is not yet the time to look for it elsewhere. Man can beautify the world ; but he can neither make the world, nor right it when it is gone wrong. There is nmcli that he can do ; but he has to learn that there is much more that it is folly, if not atheism, to at- tempt to do. This kingdom is defined by an apostle in words that are extremely comprehen- sive. Paul says, "The kingdom of God" — this kingdom of grace that we pray may come — " the kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." There is the magnificent definition of what the kingdom of God is. It is first negative ; " It is not meat and drink." And these two A MISSIONARY DESIRE. II5 words are used for all external, appreciable, eccle- siastical, or secular things. It is nothing outer. Kot ceremony; these may be too many, or they may be too severe, or they may be too few : but these do not constitute one atom of the kingdom of heaven. There may be a liturgy, or there may be none ; there may be infant baptism, or there may be adult baptism ; there may be kneeling, or there may be standing. But these things are mere extrinsic arrangements of no value ; they do not constitute an atom of the kingdum of heaven ; for it is not meat nor drink. Xor is it, in the next place, anything ritual. It is neither the robes of a priest, nor the position of the building, nor the attitude — east, west, or north, or south — of the worshipper. It is neither Episcopacy nor Presbytery ; it is neither Estab- lished Church nor Dissent. You may be Chris- tian in any of these, and you may be Christian in none of these. These are the mere fringes on the robe, they are not the robe itself; the mere decorations, not the substance. Christianity can 116 TEACH us TO PRAY. live and flourish with them ; it can live in spite of them. " The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink." These things vary like the clouds in the sk}'^ ; but the stars in the darkest night sliine briglit and luminous when all the clouds have swept past them. These things vary as the politics of the world, useful, expedient ; one it may be more preferable than the other ; but none of these are essential. And remarkable it is, the great battles that agitate, and deface, and discredit, the Christian Church, are not upon the inner ground which I proceed to unfold, but upon this outside ground which is defined by the Apostle as " meat and drink," or form and ceremony. What is the quarrel between one? Episcopacy or Presbytery. Between others it is infant baptism or adult baptism. Between oth- ers it is a liturgy or no liturgy. And the bigotry is not all upon one side. I have met members of the Scottish Church, so bigoted tliat they have believed, and said they believed, it was im])ossi- ble to worship God through the very beautiful I A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 117 liturgy of the Chnrcli of England. And I have met members of the Church of England who regard those as scarcely above Jews or Mahom- etans who do not worship according to their forms. There is no monopoly of bigotry in any Church. "Wherever man attaches an over-im- portance to " meat and drink," to form and cere- mony, to Episcopacy or Presbytery, he is at least on perilous ground; he is certainly on highly controversial ground, for it is there that all the volcanic explosions have occurred that have made infidels more bitter, and the Church of Christ to be less influential as a kingdom among man- kind. But this kingdom is none of these. What is it ? It is, says the Apostle, " righteousness." First an outer state, then an inner character./ Here is the outer state ; " He that knew no sin was made sin for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God by him." That is my sins as a believer were imputed to Christ, and He suf- fered all the penalty ; His righteousness as the Saviour is imputed to me, and I receive, therefore, 118 TEACH US TO PRAY. and therefore alone, all the honour, the happiness and the glory. In other words, ever}' snhject of this kingdom is clad in wliite rohes, wliicli is tlie righteousness of saints. He is justified by that only righteousness which Clirist bequeathed as the Lord our righteousness. In other words, my title to heaven, my right to everlasting glor3% — that which I will plead, and satisfied that the plea can no more be rejected than God can be dethron- ed, — is not anything I am, or anything I have done, or anything I have paid, or anything I have suifered ; but that which has been done and paid for me, the righteousness alone of Jesus Christ my Lord. This righteousness is also internal or character. Christ's righteousness, my title, is imputed to me, and remains the outside fair robe inwhich I am clad ; the Holy Spirit's righteous- ness is'imparted to me, and my heart is inlaid with it as the most precious and enduring orna- ment. And wherever there is this outer right- eousness, constituting my title to heaven, there is this inner character, constituting my fitness and A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 119 my qualification for heaven. "We are justified by the righteousness of Clirist, imputed to us as a title ; and we are sanctified by the righteousness of the Spirit, imparted to us as a character. The first constituent element of the kingdom of heaven is therefore righteousness. He who is thusjusti- fied, and thus sanctified, and thus born again, is a subject of the kingdom of God, whether he worship in a meeting-house, a chapel, a church, a cathedral, on the banks of a river, or on the brow of a mountain. God has enfranchised him as free of the universe ; and, whatever be the sect or tlie denomination that he may belong to, he is a member of the kingdom of Christ and an heir of the kingdom of glory. Wliat a pity that we do not keep this great truth, clear, firm, fast, in our inmost hearts. In proportion to the importance we attach to the inner thing, righteousness, will be the smallness of the importance we attach to the outer thing, called " meat and drink." And hence, when this feeling is right we shall like best the church — whatever be its form or its ecclesias- ._! 120 TEACH US TO PRAT. tical polity, if there be nothing in it essentially ■wrong, — in which these everlasting truths are brought home to our minds with the greatest clearness, impressed upon our hearts with the greatest emphasis ; where, in short, we learn most clearly the way that leads to heaven, and the happiness that may be drunk from many of those secret and sequestered springs that are in it, and that God has left for our good. The second element of this kingdom is peace. " Peace is the very earliest fruit of righteousness. Justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." We are told in Scripture that the natural heart is not only hostile to God, but enmity to God. "We are told in the same Scripture that the instant my sins are forgiven ; and that I can see on the clearest grounds that I can be admitted into lieaven by the righteousness of Him whom I embrace as my only Saviour ; all my fears of the future are dissipated, all my dread of the after consequences of death is annihilated and I can go forward into scenes of peril, into A MISSIONARY DESIRE. jgl places of danger, into siclaness, into tlie grave it- self, not insensible to these things, for that would be stoicism, but triumphing over these thino-s through the possession of that peace which springs from the deep conviction that I am justified by the righteousness of Christ alone. The atmosphere of my soul may be shattered by the storms of con- flicting passions, and my heart oppressed by the fierce democracy that they create within it, but I no sooner lay hold upon Christ, the King of Righteousness, the Saviour, than its atmosphere is calmed, its storms are hushed ; and I enjoy peace, even when I listen to the thunders of Sinai ; peace when I gaze on its lightning flashes athwart a clouded sky ; peace when I look at the great White Throne ; peace when I look abroad at all the turmoil of the world in which we live : an inner peace that is not the denial of my sin- fulness, but casting it all upon Him who has borne it all away ; a peace that is not ease, but conflict with sin ; not acquiescence in evil for the sake of quiet, but conflict with evil for the sake 122 TEACH US TO PRAY. of Christ. " In the w«rld je shall have tribula- tion, but in me ye shall have peace." " Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." The kingdom of God is righteousness in me, and l)eace that passeth understanding. Here is the true Peace Society ; — namely, the king- dom of God. You never can secure peace by outward applications. If the human body has degenerated into a state of disease, all the plas- ters you can apply will not heal it. The cure must be something that will touch its internal springs of health. If the volcano is pouring out its streams of molten lava, all the showers of heaven will not quench it, you must go deeper than that, and take away the secret sources from which its fires are fed. So war in the world, and among the nations of the earth, is to be put an end to, not by speeches against it, nor by a uni- versal compact, " I am determined not to make war any more." The result of this will be only the more wicked, taking the opportunity of in- vading the least suspecting, and turning the un- A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 123 suspiciousness of the one to tlie benefit and aggrandizement of the other. The true way to secure peace is not, depend upon it, to bum your fleet, nor yet to disband your army, it is rather to be the other way. The true way to obtain lasting peace, a peace that nations, com- munities, individuals, will feel and hold fast, is to spread that blessed Gospel till it rises and reaches the cold heart of the northern autocrat, pervades the bosoms of kings and emperors, and cabinet ministers, and statesmen ; and when all men have learned how precious this Gospel is, and have tasted the sweetness of its peace, then, and only then, the sword will not be locked in its scabbard, as some would propose, but turned into the ploughshare, and the spear will not be left in the manufactory, as some say, but beaten into the pruning-hook, and the nations will war no more. The third element of this kingdom is joy. " Righteousness, peace, and joy." It begins in righteousness, it advances in peace, it culminates 124 7 EACH US TO PRAY. and flowers in joy. Joy is to peace, just what sunshine is to daylight ; a brighter manifestation of happiness. And now where these three fruits, righteousness, and peace, and joy, are found, tliere you have wliat our Lord calls the kingdom of God within you. Only let no Christian he discouraged. It is possible that some who read this have got hold of the righteousness which is the first element, but are yet strangers to the peace and joy that follow ; or it may be- that others have a firm grasp of the righteousness, but their peace very wavering, and their joy very faint and dim. Nevertheless, trust, be patient, read, pray : and righteousness will dif- fuse itself in an atmosphere of peace, and that peace will create the sunshine of joy, and you will learn that God will not quench the faintest spark, or extinguish, or forsake, or forget the lowest cry for righteousness, peace, and joy. Having thus seen the constituent elements of this kingdom of grace, let us now turn to the subjects of it. The elements of it are righteous- A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 125 ness, peace, joy ; the subjects of it are the pos- sessors of these elements. They are called in Scrip- ture " the sons of God," " a chosen generation, a holy nation," " the heirs of God," " the servants of God." The kingdom comes first into their hearts, they are then translated as subjects into this kingdom. Instead of enumerating their characteristics from the Ke-w Testament, let me state that they constitute altogether a Catholic kingdom. There is not a word in the IlTew Tes- tament more beautiful than that word " Catho- lic." It is because we are Catholics that we never can consent to be iioman Catholics, or Anglican Catholics. The meaning of the word " Catholic " is " over all." Hence Peter's Epis- tles are addressed to the Catholics. John's Epistle is addressed to the Catholics, that is, to those Christians of every name, denomination, form, ceremony, usage, throughout the whole world, in whose hearts there has been planted that kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, and joy. This kingdom embraces not merely 126 TEACH US TO PRAY. contemporaneous Christians, but all Christians of all ages that are past, and Christians that are now in heaven and in glory. There is but one universal Church ; part of which is not yet born, but is in the purposes of God ; part of Mdiich is living, but not yet born again ; part of which is now in heaven, and part of which is struggling amid the trials, the storms, and perplexities of this present world. All these combined together constitute the one family of Christ, the one holy Catholic kingdom ; to which Christ's name is the only pass-word, to be a member of wdiich is requisite that you belong neither to Episcopacy, nor Presbytery, nor Independency; but that you have in ^^our hearts righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And this company, some of whom existed before the Flood, some in the days of Abraham, some in the desert with Moses, some in tlie Church of Rome, thousands and increasing thousands of whom are in every denomination upon eartli, all together when complete, shall be presented to Christ a glorious A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 127 Church, without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle, or any such thing. But for any one to call himself a Catholic, whilst he denounces all that submit not to his ecclesiastical polity, is to misappro- priate the word and mistake his own character. This kingdom is a united kingdom. There may be no visible uniformity discoverable by the eye, there may be on the contrary great variety of aspect ; different ceremonies ; different forms and usages, and yet true unity. The great blun- der into which most people fall when they hear the pretensions of the Roman Catholic Church arises from want of distinguishing two things infinitely different. The Roman Catholic Church has uniformity, but she has no unity. The Pro- testant Church has unity, but it has no uni- formity. Uniformity is a thing superinduced from without, not something originated from within ; but unity is something originated from within ; identity of belief, of principle, of trust, of joy, and of hope. And among all true Christians, the great truths that they hold in 128 TEACH US TO PRAY. common, outshine infinitely all the points of collision, and unhappily discord, that sometimes break out amongst them. And if true Christians thought more of the great things and the glori- ous thmgs on which they agree, and troubled themselves less about the little things, and often paltry things, about which they differ, there would be not increase of unity, for that is already perfect, but there would be increase of brotherly love, affection and sympathy, through- out the whole Catholic and visible Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. In one sense I admit the Church of Rome has unitj^, but it is not in the highest sense ; but it teaches us a lesson. In the Roman Catholic Church, all the divisions that prevail amid their denominations, which they call by a higher sounding word, orders, are forgiven each by the other and all by the Pope, on the condition that Pwedemptorists, and Friars, and Passionists, and Jesuits, and all the rest, shall cling to the chair of St. Peter, as it is called ; and hold the Pope to be their head and A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 129 tlieir centre. That teaches ns a great lessun. All the differences that subsist among Christiana should be forgiven and forgotten, on condition that all cling to the Cross of Christ and to the Son of God, the only Saviour, King, and Lord. Tliey forgive their differences because of their hold of a human creature ; we may forgive ours, seeing that we are children of the same Father, brethren of the same Elder Brother, subjects of the same King, and heirs of the same glory. It is in the next place a holy kingdom. Kot that every subject of it is perfectly holy ; nay, it is too true that the best Christians sin, and the holiest man upon earth must say every day, " If I say that I have no sin, I deceive myself, and the truth is not in me." But the difference be- tween a Christian and a worldly man sinning is this. If a Christian sin through some sore, sud- den, unexpected trial, his very j&rst impulse is to be recovered, reinstated in the enjoyment ot forgiveness, learning from the past the path of safety for the future. But when a worldling sina 6^« 130 TEACH US TO PRAY. lie remains in it, wallows in it, delights in it, feels it to be his joy. When a man is cast into tlie sea, he escapes from it as fast as he can, he cannot live in it, it is not his element, and he would not be there if he could escape from it. So with the Christian who is led into sin, ii is not his element, he hates it, he shrinks from it, and he cannot continue there, it is not the ele- ment made for him, nor he made for it. And in the next place, it is a happy kingdom. After all, Christians are the happiest men. And it would be very strange if God were to make worldlings happy, and leave Christians sad. It has always appeared to me that the only happy man upon earth must be a Christian, and if he be not happy, do not say Christianity is a gloomy thing, and preaching evangelical reli- gion makes men miserable, but " These men have not seized its grand and salient truths, and have not yet become thoroughly impressed with its sanctifying and its ennobling influence." Lastly, there is the kingdom of glory, on which A MISSIONARY DESIRE. \^\ I cannot dwell. When all kingdoms that oppose themselves shall be beaten down, the kingdom of Mammon craving for supremacy shall be utterly destroyed, the kingdom of Antichrist shall sink like a millstone in the deep sea, and no more be heard of at all. The kingdom of Mahomet shall disappear, already waning and almost extinguish- ed from Europe. The kingdom of Satan shall come to an end, the Jews shall be gathered home to their own land, and to the god of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Those bodies that we de- posit in the grave to be kept and treasured there, united to Christ till the resurrection, we shall come back from heaven to receive again, and put on these bright shrines for glorious souls, as tro- phies of what redeeming love has done and what the Cross has purchased. And there shall be at the last day not a handful, not a solitary few, but a mighty multitude that no man can number, out of every nation, and people, and kindred, and tribe and tongue. Death shall be destroyed, his very footprints shall be effaced from the earth. 132 TEACH US TO PRAY. Graves shall cease. There shall be no more sacra- ments, for we need no symbols where the original is present. There will be no more prayer, it will be translated into praise. There will be no more preaching, but we shall all know even as we are known, and all shall be taught of God ; and all nations shall be happy, and the whole earth shall be filled with His glory. Now it is prayer, "Thy kingdom come ; " then it will be the anthem peal, " Hallelujah ! the Lord God Omnipotent reigueth. The kingdom is come." Meantime, the slave toil- ing in the mines cries, "Thy kingdom come." The poor over-wrought needle-woman, working from early on Saturday morning, often till early on Sunday morning, to minister to the thought- lessness of the fasliionable few, cries," Thy king- dom come." Tlie nations groaning under war, earth torn by artillery, the sea ploughed by hostile fleets, all nature groaning and travailing in pain, longing to be delivered, lifts up one piercing prayer, " Tiiy kingdom come." And it will come, and God will be glorified, and earth A MISSIONARY DESIRE. 133 will be happy, and all things restored to more than their original glory, and the King shall reign aud prosper over all the earth. The last and only possible universal empire approaches— the waters of sin ebb daily— the first rays of the morning sun gild the mountain- tops with rosy light— the cries of six thousand years are about to be answered— out of chaos will emerge an image of beauty and glory, such as heaven never saw and earth never beheld. " O Thou ever begotten light and perfect Image of the Father, come out of Thy royal chamber. O Prince of the kings of the earth, put on the visible robes of Thy Imperial Majesty— take up Thy unlimited sceptre, for the voice of Thy Bride calls Tliee, and all creatures sigh to be delivered." 131 TEACH US TO PRAY. V. A SUBMISSIVE HEART. " Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. — Matt. ri. 10. I STATED in my first discourse upon the open- ing address of this most sublime, yet simple, Prayer, — so sublime that the highest suint may still study it, and yet so simple that the youngest child may learn it, — that it begins first of all in one Gospel with "After this manner pray," lest we should suppose that in the words there was inherent that virtue which is only in the name of Him in whom they are pi'esented. But in an- other Gospel it is given, " When ye pray, say," teaching us that the words have their value, that they are so appropriate, so expressive, because in- spired ; Jiat better words wo do not need, simpler ones we cannot conceive: and, therefore, to use this Prayer in the public assoinblies of the people A SUBMISSIVE HEART. I35 of God, seeing; a duty clearly inferred from what onr blessed Lord lias said. I noticed in the next place its opening ;;ddress, "Father," the great restoration of our sonship as children, and His relationship as a Father. But lest we should be selfish it is " Ou?' Father," the ftitherhood of God, the grandest revelation in Christ Jesus, the brotherhood of all believers, the necessary infer- ence from it, and therefore " Our Father." I noticed also "In heaven," teaching us that heaven is our ultimate, our common, and, thanks be to God, our certain home. The fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of all believers, the same common and happy home, opening its everlasting gates to receive the wjrst and the oldest that flee to that Father in the name of the one Saviour, breathing in the spirit of adoption, " Abba, Father, Our Father in heaven." I then noticed how the three petitions that follow seem almost to contain a shadow of a Triune Jeho- vah. " Hallowed be thy name," the Father ; " Thy kingdom come," Christ the King ; " Thy 136 TEACH us TO PRAY. will be done in us," the work of the Holy Spirit in us ; "Thy will be done in earth even as it is done in heaven." I noticed too the interesting thought thut the text, " Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things will be added," is here unfolded in the daily prayer that Christians are taught to use. The Christian begins first by recognizing what is due to God, before he ventures to ask what is need- ful for himself. He begins by saying, "Our Father, hallowed first of all be thy name ;" next, "Thy kingdom come;" next, "Thy will be done;" then, "Give us our daily bread, forgive us our sins, lead us not into temptation." I noticed also the interesting thought that we have first of all the riches and fulness of God, we have last of all the emptiness and necessities of the creature. " Our Father, thy kingdom, tJty name, thy will," that is the fulness of God. Then, secondly, our wants, " Give us, forgive wut it in another form, are you at this moment in some circum- stances of peril? Is some one in whom you are deeply interested exposed to peril ? Aid, assist, minister with unwearied hand, and with an attention that never flags and a sympathy that never fails ; but yet look higher. Have you at this moment a parent, a brother, a husband, amid darkening scenes where tragedy seems to follow traged}', as if there were some mystery that we can neither unravel, nor exj^lain, nor _J A SUBMISSIVE UEART. 149 carry to a triiunpliant close '^ Do not be afruid, do not cease to feel ; but still cast your care upon Him who cares for you. Here is the only light in the midst of all ; God's will is carrying out. The process may be a terrible one ; the expenditure awful ; the losses beyond all arith- metic to calculate, or all words adequately to ex-press : we know not what He doth now ; but I have not the least doubt, we shall know. His is a mighty hand that none can resist ; but, oh blessed thought ! it is a loving hand that none should fear, suspect, or shrink from, even when we cannot understand the why and the where- fore of its action. It is quite true that this thought, this deep thought, of God's will being carried out, does not turn shadow into sunshine ; it will not replace in the deserted home the appearance that tilled it as with music, and liirhted it with sunshine. It is true it will not reverse the past, or bring back them that are gone ; it does not dilute the intensity of your sorrow ; but it does take the sting from it. It 150 TEACH US TO PRAY. does nrit extinguisli your feelings, Init it quells the corroding fever, it lays the beatings of tlie anxious heait ; it shows you that submission is service to God, when you freely and heartily render it. When Aaron saw his two sons struck dead for their crimes, it is most eloquently writ- ten, " He held his peace." When Moses, fir one rash word at the smiting of the rock at Meribah, was told he could not enter the bind of eartlily promise, he neither murmured nor i-epined, but submitted. And when Job lieard of shock thunder- ing on shock, and calamity treading on the heels of calamity, he held fast his faith, and refused to give up his trust. When Stephen saw rushing on him, to stone him to death, those he had tried to benefit, he prayed for them. And the Great Cap- tain of the faith offered as His first prayer, " Fath- er, forgive them." " Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith ; who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame ; and is now set down at the riglit hand of A SUBMISSIVE HEART. \^\ God." "Wliat comforts us in tlie thought of all this is, that all the predictions contained in Scrip- ture are not one of them impeded in their march a single day by the most powerful opposition the most depraved can offer. God's purpose is, " The whole earth shall be filled with my glory ; the kingdoms of this world shall become mine." Sin shall be expunged, Satan shall be cast out ; the sleeping dead shall be quickened ; the waking living shall be changed ; and the whole earth shall be filled with His glory. And what seems to us an obstruction we shall find, by experience and by patient waiting, to have been an impulse. Pharaoh, the Egyptian autocrat of old, resolv- ed to hold fast the prisoners of hope in the dun- geons and the slave-quarries of Egypt. He seemed to have all his own way for a season. But what was the actual fact. That slavery, M^ith the auto- crat presiding over it, was but the dark back ground of a magnificent panorama, revealing on its outspread face the sea cloven in twain, — the rock giving forth water, — Israel marching in triumph- 152 TEACH US TO TRAY. ant exodus to Canaan ; and lastly, finding them- selves in the rest on earth that awaited the peo- ple of God. When we look al)road now npon what is taking place on the earth, we are often tempted to doubt, to fear, or to fancy that some- thing has gone wrong. In the great Kevolution of 1793, good men and holy men came rashly to the conclnsion that God had given up the world to Satan and to sin. Bat the issues have proved it was all the reverse. And now " wars and ru- mors of wars " that come thuuderino; on every breeze ; the restlessness that we see in our own country and elsewhere, as if the vibrations of the great earthquake i)f 1848 were not yet laid, — that exhaustion of social confidence, that failure of trust in those in whom we were wont implicitly to repose it, that darkening of the future yet deeper and deeper ; those perplexities and diffi- culties felt and expressed by our leading men in the high places of the land ; those beginnings of sorrows painful to be borne, and terrible to con- template, that few proplresied, and which they A SCBMISSIFE HEART.. I53 that predicted seemed to others exceeding what was possible or probable ; all nevertheless the march of events to a glorious issue ; were included in the grand programme of eternity, and embraced in the original purpose of God. AVe cannot alter them, we cannot improve them, but we can pray as we witness them, " Our Father, thy will be done in earth, even as it is done in heaven." Let us look at this clause in another aspect. We are at this moment, perhaps, laboring in the ministry, or acting in some religious society, or in some way trying to win souls. Do we see no suc- cess attending our labors ; no blessing descend upon them ? Do we see those to whom we looked up fail us ? prospects that shone in the distant hori- zon once, obscured and darkened now ? We are not to despond, we are not to give up, we are still less to despair. It may be God's great will that we should toil, harrow, plough, weed, sow — very humble work ; and that others who are to come after us should carry home their sheaves in the glad harvest rejoicing. If such l)e God's 154: TEACH US TO PRAY. will, Ave must mind the duty that devolves upon us, however arduous it may be ; and rejoice that others will enjoy the j^riyilege denied ns ; for it is still God's will done on earth, even as it is done in heaven. Let us now contemplate the second aspect of this clause, or God's will as it ought to be car- ried out in His precepts, as expressed in the pas- sages we have already read. " If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." "This is the will of God, your sanctification." "This is the will of God, that ye believe in Jesus whom he hath sent." " Whoso will do the will of God is my brother, and my sister, and my mother." Now this will, or what it ought to be, i**, in our attempt to fulfil it, our very highest happiness. God has so linked allegiance to Himself with the enjoyment of happiness and peace, that you never can be happy in this world without illus- trating and embodying in your life what is felt previously in the heart — obedience to the will A SUBMISSIVE HEART. 155 and commandment of God, And we pray in this Prayer that our lives may be a transcript of Christ's; that His will may dominate in onr hearts ; that we may be living epistles, seen and read of all men ; that His will may be done in us, through us, by us ; and that we shall wel- come what we see to be His will, whether it come in bridal robes, clothed and radiant witli joy, or in sackcloth and weeds of woe, as at a funeral procession ; not asking what shall be the issue, but satisfied to discover that what we see, and feel, and, it may be, lament, is the will of our Father in heaven. This will we pray may be done in us, through ns, by us, as it is done in heaven. Some, in explaining this, have said that this means, as it is done by angels in heaven. I do not think it relates to them. I do not find angels represented in Scrijiture in any aspect as the models that we are to imitate, or their attainments as the height and pitch to which our aspirations are to aim. The great secret of much of the evil that crept into 156 TEACH US TO PR A Y. the Christian Church, and overspread tlie whole of mediseval and Western Europe, was the idea that angel life is a model or type of tlie life that Christians are to express and embody in tliis world. "We are not to imitate the angels : we have nothing to do with the angels as our exam- ples ; it is their duty to minister to us; and nowhere in Scripture is a model which is not imitable by us, and which we ought not to try to imitate, set forth as the groat model of Chris- tian character. I think the will done in heaven is by that portion of the great family of onr Father whicli has now crossed the flood ; and who do that will perfectly; and which the por- tion of that family still left outside in this outer court, pray may be done in us, through us, and by us. His frail family on earth, as it is done by, and through, and with Tlis perfect and redeemed and ransomed family above. If we desire to ascertain how they do it, we have only to o]ien that magnificent, but often neglected book, the book of Revelations ; and there you find " they A SUBMISSIVE HEART. 157 are before tlie throne ;" that " tliey serve him day and night in his temple ; they hunger no more, neither thirst any more; they are fed by the Lamb, they are led to living fountains of ^vater; and all tears have been wiped away from their eyes. And they sing a new song. And these are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Li their mouth is found no guile ; they are without fault before the throne of God." What we pray for, there- fore, is, that the earth may become a portion of heaven ; that time may melt into eternity ; and that God's will, now done by the redeemed, the justified, the sanctified, the perfect above, may be day by day approximated to in its perfection amid the unsanctified and the imperfect upon earth. But how is it done by them ? First, it is done perfectly. Every precept is exhausted in their obedience ; and all precepts from tlie least to the greatest they are living personations of. In the second place, His will is done by them without ceasing. "They serve him day 158 TEACH US TO PRAY. .and night without ceasing." It is not the obe- dience of passion but of principle ; it is not an impulse that, obeyed to-daj, exhausts its spring, and leaves them to move off at a tangent and in another direction to-morrow. It is ceaseless. And it is, in the next place, without a single ex- ception, interruption, or disturbance. There is there, we are told, " a great multitude that no man can number, out of every kindred, and nation, and people, and tongue." There are degrees of glory ; for " one star differeth from another star in glory." There are diversities of gifts in heaven, and yet there is no discord in their song, no shadow on their life, no disturb- ance in their peace, but all God's will is carried out by all, in all its details, with all their might ; and in the next place, without reluctance or re- gret. At present we often feel — I admit it is sinful, but it is fact — duties to be burdensome, deniuls to be painful, services to be sacrifice. It is a yoke ; though it be an easy one, it is still a yoke. Christ's will is a burden, alight one I ad- A SUBMISSIVE HEART. I59 mit, but still a burden. And the Christian feels on earth that he cannot do all that he would, and is obliged to say what Paul was constrained to say, " The good that I would, I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do." In this world a Christian is in a cold, uncongenial, and wintry clime ; exposed to the beating storms and the descending hail, the fairest blossoms are fleet- est, and oftenest nipped by unexpected frosts. But in that better land he blooms no longer an exotic, but indigenous; he is in his own clime, amid the sunshine of his Father's house, in the company of them who have passed with him through much tribulation ; and there without re- luctance and without regret, but as the expres- sion of his spontaneous and instinctive delight, he bears fragrant fruit, beautiful to look on, and p-lorifvino; to that God who has made him what he is. And lastly, there they serve without end. The service is ceaseless ; they weary not, they rest not ; by a singular though apparent contra- diction, " they rest from their labors," and yet 160 TEACH T'S TO PRAT. rest not. Tlie song is ever new because it is never exhausted, the service is ever sweet and never sacrifice ; and what now we feel to be in some degree painful, self-denjing, perplexing, difficult to do, we shall there feel to be the in- crease of our enjoyment, not the exhaustion or the dilution of it. Thus we pray, " Thy will be done " in the imperfect Church below day by day increasingly, until it reach the standard after which it is done in the perfect Church above. The lessons we learn from all this are various and precious. First of all, the law binds in heaven just as it binds on earth, that is, the law is done in glory as it is done in the realms of grace. Secondly, this is one of the springs of the happiness of heaven, that God's law is there done perfectly. Why is the happiness of the Christian imperfect on earth ? Just because his heart is not fully holy and his character is not yet perfect. Why is the happiness of the re- deemed in heaven perfect ? Because God's will is there done ]>erfecfly. A SUBMISSIVE HEART. \Ql As we look around us how mucli there is to indiice us to pray. Look at the visible Church, torn by disputes, rent by controversies. What ground for prayer that God's will may be so done that this poor, darkened, imperfect, sinful Church may yet, and that speedily, be developed into what it shall be, a glorious Church, without spot, or wrinkle, or blemish, or any such thing. Look abroad at the world at this moment ; what dark- ness in its distant realms, what misery in its homes, what restlessness amid its populations, wliat sufferings from the sword, what evidences of poverty, and distress, and famine, and disease, and sorrow, and sickness, and death ! And as we gaze on the sliattered world and upon its weep- ing tenantry, are we not instinctively prompted to pray from the very depths of our hearts, " Thy will be done in earth, even as it is done in heaven." Look at the Moslem, sensual and de- based, overspreading the loveliest lands of the East. Look at the Russian, worshipping a wooden cross as his God, and having no other religion 162 TEACH US TO PRAY. than what is material and sensuous. Look at the Romanist, giving to the Virgin Mary the place, the honor, and the glory that is due to God. And can we, as we see such sorrowful spectacles, help giving expression to the prayer, " Thy will be done here, even as it is done in heaven !" Look to Pagan lands, to India, to Africa, to any sec- tion of the globe that you like, and our prayer must still be, " Thy will be done." And blessed be His name, it will be done. The kingdom shall come ; His name will be hallowed. His will shall be done, the whole earth shall be filled with His glory, the prayers of David the son of Jesse shall be ended ; and the culminating glory of this kingdom shall arrive, and the expansion of this prayer into praise will come, when we shall no longer j^ray, " Thy kingdom come," but v/hen we shall sing — a mighty multitude that no man can number — " Hallelujah ! the kingdom is come, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." God's will is clearly written out in His Holy word — His will is not yet translated into every A SUBMISSIVE HEART. 163 tongue, phenomenon, tliought, mind, and heart. N'ations are everywhere rising np against it in ignorance of it. But steadily His purposes pass into facts, and in tlie shop, the school, the press, the parliament, the Church, and the world. His will is developed. Bj and by earth shall reflect the splendor of heaven, and men be the representatives of God, and the universe the grand temple in which His will is felt, and sung, and done, for ever and ever. 164 TEACH US TO PRAY. Yl. THE CRT OF THE CHILDREN. " Give us this day our daily bread." — Matt. vi. 11. " Give us this day our daily bread," is well paraphrased in tiie words of a catechism full of the soundest sentiment, — " Of God's free gift we may receive a competent portion of tlie good things of this life, and enjoy His blessing with them." Let us ponder this clause in its most expressive and comprehensive Prayer — a Prayer obligatory upon every section of the Christian church, used always in its services of old, and never to be omitted now ; so simple that a child can understand it, so rich in thought that a dy- ing saint will still pray it, and not to cease until the form of prayer has culminated into the form of praise, and all heaven and earth say, no THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 165 longer with stammering lips, kneeling at the footstool, " Hallowed be thy name, \\\y kingdom come, thj will be dune," but when heaven and earth standing before the throne clad in wliite robes, with palms in their hands, shall sing, " Thy name is hallowed, thy kingdom is come, thy will is done in this earth, even as it has been done in heaven, and now we are fed with asking, and forgiven, that forgiveness never to be re- pealed or to be revoked for ever." We have prayed away in the course of this Prayer the terrbr which drives us from God as if he were a tyrant, when we prayed, and were taught, we trust, by the Spirit to say, " Our Father." We have prayed down selfishness — — that idolatry of self which is all attention to its own wants, however tiivial or few, and all inattention to the claims of God and the wants of mankind, however paramount and weighty — when we were taught to say, " Our Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come." We began to pray first as in heaven, "Our 166 TEACH US TO PRAT. Father which art in heaven ;" and next to en- deavor to bring down a portion of its glory ; we now resume our place upon the earth, and begin to pray from the earth to lieaven for the supply of wants that liere must be satisfied, "Give us this day our daily bread." We soared upward to heaven in adoring faith, saying " Our Father which art in heaven ;" God comes down to us now in beneficent love, giving us daily bread. In the first half of the Prayer we sought the kingdom of God and His righteousness first, in the last half of the Prayer all tliese things we ask to be added. The first half is the fulness of God, the second half of the Prayer an expres- sion of the wants and necessities of mankind, " Give us tliis day our daily bread," "The mere creature, unrenewed in the Gospel, cries first, last, middle, and without end, "Give us this day our daily bread." For this he toils every day, for this he prays continually. His anxious and only query is breathed on the streets, " What shall I eat, what shall I drink, and wherewithal THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 167 shall I be clothed ?" Or he turns his question into prayer, and asks not for the lite to came, for of that he dreams not ; but for this present life, "Give us this day our daily bread." One man makes his daily bread his all. For this he toils, prays, and lives. Another starves and stints, and even tortures the body with every imagin- able denial, refusing daily bread, as if this were merit in the sight of God. The one is in the world and of the world, a sensualist or an infi- del ; the other, in order to get out of the world, foolishly flees from it, and thinks he escapes its temptations, its perils, and its sins, by running from its duties and its obligations. The true Christian neither idolizes the body by making its wants liis all, nor does he deny the body what are its just and legitimate demands. He has learned from God, "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these tilings." He that made the body fearfully and wonder- fully at the first, does not refuse to provide for it ; and he that tends its sleeping dust a hundred 108 TEACH US TO FRAY. fathoms in the deep, deep sea, or beneath the green sod, will not surely refuse to jDrovide for it daily bread while it lives on earth in the light of heaven, a temple of the Holy Ghost. There is a materialism that makes the body all, there is a spiritualism that would try to live as if we had no body at all. The first is reprobated by the Apostle when he says, " "Wiiose God is their belly, whose end is destruction ;" the second is reprobated by the same Apostle when he con- demns " neglecting the body," as one of the brands of the great Papal Apostasy. What a wonderlul prescience, what intense common sense, what forethought, what evidence of inspi- ration is in this book! The same holy writer who reprobates living to the flesii, and for the flesh, as if that were man's chief end, no less firmly reprobates the asceticism of the monk, the friar, and the nun, when he denounces, " neglecting the body." What a contrjist to both these extremes is the conduct of the early Christians ! It is not said of theui, they fasted THE CRY OF TUE ClllLDREN. 16^ and denied themselves the food that was needful for their efficient rerviee to the Lord, nor is it said, they pampered their appetites, and were absorbed in cares about what they should eat and drink, and wherewithal they should be clothed ; but in language simple, significant, and just, it is written, " They did eat their meat with gladness and with singleness of heart." We are neither to fast like the monk nor to feast like the epicurean, hut to eat and drink like the Christian ; and whatever we do, to do all to the glory of God, and in the light of His holy word. The very first idea we are taught here in 'this prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread," is dependence upon God. How beautifully is this expressed by the Psalmist when he says, " The eyes of all things wait on thee." What a thought! "The eyes of all things wait on thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season." The sparrow on the house-top ; the eagle on his mountain eyrie ; the stormy petrel careering on lYO TEACH us TO PRAY. the winds and over the restless waves; tlie lion in his native forest, making it ring with the eciioes ot'his royal voice ; the watch-dog baying in the stillness of the night ; the cattle lowing on a thousand hills; the bee humming in tlie sunsiiine on unwearied wing ; the leviathan of the deep, the minnow in the stream, the trout in the brook ; all lift their eyes to God, and cry in language never unheard, and express wants never refused, " Our Father, give us this day our daily bread." " The eyes of all things wait on thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season." Abstractly, we all recognize this de- pendence upon God ; practically, I fear we do not. How often do we find ourselves, as Chris- tian men, attributing to second causes that which comes down a direct and gracious trans- mission from our heavenly Father ! Second causes, as they are called by a very questionable phrase, are really and truly the earliest emergence of God's purposes in visible shape. For instance, the orbs must shine, winds must blow, rains must TEE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. \^\ fall, clouds must gather ; and a whole series of processes go on in the sky above, and in the soil below, before the harvest of next autumn can be reaped. We attribute the golden harvest to these processes, instead of attributing those pro- cesses to God, and giving Him alone all the glory of the harvest. There is no vitality in laws ; the vitality is in the lawgiver. And if He is pleased to work through laws, it is just as much God's work as when He acts without them. When you see the few loaves by a word turned into food for five thousand, you say, "There is God." But, God's footsteps are just as unmis- takeable in the golden harvest of every year as in turning the few loaves into food for five thou- sand. When you see the water in the jars turned into wine, you say, "That is the finger of God," But you are so accustomed to see the earth, and the rain, and the sunshine making the vine flourish, the grapes ripen, and the wine be pressed out of them to cheer man's heart, tliat you say, "This is nature; or second causes.'* 172 TEACH US TO PRAY. God is in the one as truly as in the other; only at Cana of Galilee he lifted the curtain and let men see it ; in the vines and in the corn of this year He is behind the scene, and you can see the ef- fects only of His action and presence. But it may be asked, and it has been repeated- ly asked by many, Can this prayer, so suitable to the poor man, who has to toil for his breakfast before he is allowed to partake of it, be lifted up as suitably by the rich man, who has much goods laid up for many years to come, whose barns are full, while all the good things and the great things of this world are at his disposal? This prayer suited David, the shepherd son of Jesse ; and it suited no less his own princely son Solomon. Job, when he was the richest Emir of the East, needed to pray thus ; Joseph, with all the granaries of Egypt at his command, did also pray. " Our Father, give us this day our daily bread." One act of indiscretion, one extravagant specula- tion, on the part of the rich, may sweep away all the accumulations of a lifetime. And there- THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 173 fore the richest needs to pray that God would continue to him what in the past He has given him— daily bread. A blight upon our harvest, a worm gnawing at the root, a premature or unex- pected frost, an overwhelming deluge of wind, and rain, and lightning, and tempest, may leave us without bread for next year ; and the poor in their hunger will lay their hands upon the wealth of the rich ; and the wealthy will feel amid the horrors of such a convulsion that they too needed to pray, though they believed it not, " Give us this day our daily bread." Rich and poor are more bound, and tied, and linked together than at first sight appears. When the rich think they have only ground for pride or for praise, and none for prayer, they are more to be pitied than the poorest man who earns his daily bread, and lifts his daily litany, " Give us this day our daily bread." But to show that the rich need to pray this as well as the poor, we must not forget the fact, that to have bread is not necessarily to have nourishment. We need not merely bread, but the 174 TEACH US TO PRAY. power of exti'acting iiutriinent from that bread after we have eaten it. TJie poor pine frequently for want of bread ; but the rich j^erish as frequently for want of appetite to eat it. 1 know not which is most to be pited — the poor man, who has an appetite, and no bread ; or the rich man, who has plenty of bread, but no appetite, or capacity of being nourished and fed by it. Money can purchase bread ; but all the money of England cannot purchase health. And if it needs two thmgs, health within as well as bread without, that man may live ; then the richest and the poorest nmst kneel upon the same dead, low level, and cry with the same fervor, " O Lord, our Father, give us this day our daily bread." We need also the blessing with the bread, or the the bread will be poison ; and that blessing will make a crumb a banquet, withheld it makes a banquet poison; "for man doth not live by bread alone," but by something needed to give that bread its value, " by eveiy word that pro- ceedeth out of the mouth of God." THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 175 Let us look at this beautiful Prayer in another aspect. We have seen, first of all, the expres- sion that runs througli it of dependence upon God. We have seen, in the second place, the absolute need of rich and poor, in all the varied grades and circumstances of social life, to breathe this same prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread." Let us look at what is suggested by this petition, one of the most interesting thoughts contained in the whole Prayer, namely, that God is here regarded as the Giver, " Give us this day our daily bread." The lirst and earliest thought of God, which we learn in the light of the Gos- pel to renounce, is that He is a hard taskmaster, a stern exactor ; ever dem(p,nding duties, never supplying strength to enable us to fulfil them. Our most frequent thoughts of God are those of one constantly commanding or exacting ; rarely do we clierish thoughts of God as of one con- stantly giving, and leaving the gift to suggest wliat we owe to the Giver, in tlie shape of re- sponsive gratitude, adoration, and praise. If we 176 TEACH US TO PR \Y tliink of God always as an exactor, if our last and our earliest thoughts of Him are tliose of a being enthroned on Sinai, ever launching forth the terrible command, "Thou shalt, and thou shalt not," instinctively we come to cherisli to- ward Him the feelings of slaves ; we slirink from His presence, we are capable of no noble and elevating obedience ; we walk with Him as a slave walks with his master ; ever paying what He is ever exacting, and never feeling towards Him an emotion of gratitude or responsive love. But if, on the other hand, we look upon God only as the Giver — the Giver of the greatest blessings, the greatest graces, and the sweetest oftenest, and as an exactor never — our feelings will soon swell into confidence, and gratitude, and joy, and adoring love. Our apprehension of God as the giver is evangelical, our apprehen- sion of God as the exactor is essentially legal. If you wish to render God the noblest obedi- ence, forget tliat He exacts anytliing; tliink that He gives everything ; and the gifts of God, like TEE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. I77 seeds deposited in the heart, will germinate and grow up, and produce all manner of precious and t'ragran*: fruit ; till it is evinced that he only who entertains thoughts of God as a Father, ever giving, is most holy, most bountiful, most just ; while he who has thoughts of God as one ever exacting und demanding duties, and never giving blessings, lives a wretched life, and exhi- bits a low standard of obedience. It was he that thought God was a hard taskmaster, reaping where he had not sown, who rendered nothing in return. It was he who received five talents, and looked upon the master as the great giver, who multiplied the five, by diligent and labori- ous increase, into ten. Let us ever think of God as the giver. !N'ever be afraid that this will lead to license. The legal way, if I may use the ex- pression, the way that never was in practical existence since Adam fell, is demanding of the creature obedience ; and the result invariably has been that the natural heart, enmity to Him, has recoiled from Him and fled ; and prayed 8* 178 TEACH US TO PRAY. that it might not hear tlie sound of words any more. But in the Gospel the great idea of G<>d is of one giving grace and glory, natural bread and living bread; and then, witliout adding a command, leaving it to the creature's heart, thus enriched and blessed, to feel and count as it may, " How much owest thou unto my Lord ?" And what too is very remarkable in this aspect of tliis interesting Prayer, our own idea of our own relationship to God very much gives tone and coloring to our feelings in refer- ence to others. Man is very much to others what his idea of God is to himself. They who look upon God as an exactor will exact most of their fellows, and they that look upon God as the bountiful giver will be first to give most richly and munificently to others. Hence, by a great law, the greatest tyrant must necessarily be the most irreligious man; and the greatest and tru- est philanthropist must have the root of his philanthropy in true and enlightened Christian- ity. When men see God as the giver of all the^ THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 179 have, and the giver of more than lie promised ; the giver of all tliey t3njoy at the footstool, and the giver of all He has promised beside the throne: their hearts are opened in responsive gratitude to Him, and in rich and inexhaustible liberality among all mankind. But when we are drilled and initiated in the dreadful idea that God is a severe taskmaster, constantly demanding obedience, but giving nothing wherewith to dis- charge it, we harden into the feeling and charac- ter of slaves towards Him; and in the recoil we become taskmasters and tyrants towards all the rest of maidcind. So true is it that religion is the cement of all national and social life ; so true is it that kings, and queens, and emperors, will be gracious and merciful, and beneficent, and good, in the ratio in which their minds be- come enlightened, and their hearts impressed with true and living religion. If you exact from man and give nothing, it is in his very nature to recoil. You insist bv your Parliament that man shall hallow tiie Sabbath, — a process, however. 180 TEACH US TO PRAY. that will not succeed in making him trr.l}^ do so, — the poor man and the nnenliglitened man in- stantly look lip to the Parliament as exacting like a hard taskmaster. But if, when you exacted obedience in hallowing the Sabbath, you had first given a portion of the Saturday, you would have found that the gift of half the Saturday would have been so appreciated by the poor, when they saw you first as the giver, that they would have listened to you as the exactor on the Sunday of what was right, and dutiful, and just. But alas, too often, in Congress, Cabinet, and Divan, man accepts any rule of life but the divine one, any precedent but the true one ; yet he always finds in the long run that the nearer all legislation is conformed to, and catches, the inspiration of this blessed Book, the more popu- lar, practical, and useful it becomes. Depend upon it the Bible is a thousand years ahead of the 19th century ; and the 19th century, with all its attainments, a thousand years behind it. Some one perhaps may be disposed to add THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. Igl If God be tlie giver of bread to all His crea tnres, and in that liglit we are now to regard Him ; would it not make the gift still more un- equivocal, and the gratitude of the recipient still more intense, if God were to give us always bread, without requiring that we should toil and work for it? I answer, j^o. At first blush tliat seems to you right ; on real consideration it will appear utterly absurd. God did not canonize indolence in Paradise; for Adam and Eve were appointed to toil ; when toil, however, was en- jo3"ment, and not, as it is on this side of Para- dise, often drudgery, exhaustion, and death. The curse pronounced upon man was, " In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." And every man, by a great law, must work either his brain, or his hand, or his foot ; he must in some way, by a law ancient as the earliest wrecks of Paradise, earn his daily bread. But the pecu- liarity of Christianity is not that it repeals the curse by making it cease to be ; but that it over- rules the curse into a richer and more enduring 182 TEACH us TO FRAY. blessing. And hence it takes the toil, which in its iirst stroke, was a cnrse, and makes it now to be daily bread; to be through Christ, and in Christ, and in moderation, a positive blessing. Do you find men that have nothing to do, happy ? Just the reverse. Their first thing is rush into strange speculations, and t^uixotic schemes, for want of something to do. And who do we find is the happiest man ? The man that thanks God when he rises for his rest, goes forth in Cod's strength to toil all day ; and comes home at night to thank God again for His pro- tecting and persevering goodness, and to taste, wliat, depend upon it, the rich never eat, tlie sweetest bread on earth, that which has been earned by God's blessing upon the labor of one's own hands. If you were to ask bread from God without working for it, it would be equivalent to asking a stone, or rather asking of Ilim a ser- pent. Does not all history attest that it has been where man has had most to toil, that he has attained the highet/t excellence as a social THE CRY OF TUB CHILDREN. 183 being ? Is it not on rugged soils, and amid win- ter colds, that the noblest specimens of nations have developed themselves? It is the devil's prescription, " Command these stones to be made bread ;" it is Christ's declaration, " Man doth not live by bread alone ; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And it is therefore the Christian's prayer, " Give me wisdom to guide me ; strength to labor, health to enjoy. Our Father, give us this day our daily bread." " Give us this day our daily bread." This word is very remarkable. It is not, give us for month, or for this year, but "Give us this day our daily bread." It is Christ's command trans- lated into prayer, when He said, "Take no thought for to-morrow." The Greek word means, carping, troublesome thought. " Take no thought for to-morrow," for to-morrow will take care of itself. Or, as it is beautifully worded in the very chapter from which this text is taken, " Behold the fowls of the air; for they 184 TEACH us TO PRAY. SOW not, neitlier do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your lieavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they ? And wliy take ye thought for raiment ? Consider tlie liUes of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, sliall he not much more clothe yon, O ye of little faith 1 Therefore take no thought," — no carping, irrita- ting thought, — "saying. What shall we eat? or. What shall we driuk? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? for " — how beautiful — " your heaven- ly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." Or as it is in one of the Psalms, " He knoweth our frame ; he reraembereth that we are dust." T5ut you object, that when one regards it in this light, it tends to throw back all so- ciety into a state of savagism. Would you wish man to be the fisher in the stream, the hunter ir THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 185 the woods ; dependent on the precarious success for the bread each day that lie is to eat ? I answer, No. This prayer destroys all anxious hoarding, not enlightened forethought. It des- troys all improvidence, not Christian prudence. It bids you labor for bread and pray for it. And when there is to day more than you can eat, let it eaten to-mori-ow, after you have satisfied the hunger of the needy and the dependent about you; and so doing you will act in the spirit of the prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread." But I reverse my reasoning, and I put the ques- tion to you, if you object to this as not indicating that providence and forethought that ought to exist in what you call a commercial country, does your anxious care about to-morrow do you any good whilst you feel it? Does such anxiety about the autumn enable the farmer to weed and ti) sow with greater efficiency? Does it make the merchant more successful? Is it not all the reverse ? Excessive anxiety about to-morrow ia taking to-morrow's burden and to-day's burden 186 TEACH US TO PRAY. that is, the weight of two days, upon shoulders tliat are only strong enough to bear one day's load. Your anxiety about to-morrow, in addi- tion to your inevitable anxiety about to day, is taking two days' burden upon shoulders fitted only to bear the load and pressure of one. And instead of your anxious thoughts about yuur Christmas payments, or about next week's com- mercial bills, making you one whit more able to meet them, you find you are harassing yourselves to-da}', and you are not adding to your prepara- tions for next day. Whereas, if you toil to-day in God's strength, seeking daily bread, acting neither extravagantly nor avariciously, you will find that He that sends to-day's bread will not forget you to-morrow; and that if you are care- ful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication make your wants known to God, you will neither have the spirit cf the miser, nor the spirit of the gambler, nor the spirit of the man ever iriitated, ever anxious, and tlierefore never successful ; but the spirit of him who THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 187 prajed of old, " Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with food convenient for me." A man's life consisteth not in the things tliat he possesseth. Covetousness is idolatry. "•Give us this day our daily bread." This "us" suggests a most interesting thought. We cannot ask for ourselves the supply of our daily wants without asking bread for all our brethren of mankind. What a beautiful provision is here, that we cannot approach God as applicants our- selves, without instantly feeling that we are inter ceding priests for the wants of all ! This great law runs through the whole of God's moral and material government. For instance, the seed cast into the soil in spring, it is notorious to every farmer, does not all come up. On the contrary three-fifths of the seed sown in spring goes to feed the worms of the earth and birds of the air, and you cannot help it. If you should try to shoot all the birds in the air, and should suc- ceed, you will find that you have multiplied the worms in the earth. And if you were to with- 1 188 7 EACH US TO PRAY. hold tlie three-fiftlis, and sow only tlie two-fifths, tliinking you %vonld starve the hirds and tlie worms both, you would soon find 3'ou would merely punish yourselves and starve mankind. God has made a law, there is no escape from it, that only two-fifths of all that the farmer sows shall grow up into the harvest, in order that none may sow only for themselves. God has incor- porated this law with your very prayers ; that no man should be able, in the exercise of a selfish monopoly, to pray, " Give n.e this day my daily bread ;" but that every one that prays as the Master teaches, shall be constrained in the exer- cise of catholic liberalitj' and sympathy to pray, " Give us this day our daily bread." It was the miserable prodigal that said to his father, " Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me ;" it is the sanctified Christian that prays, " Give us this day our daily bread." Property is sacred ; com- munism is antichristian ; but property is indi- cated in the very bosom of this clause to have its duties and its responsibilities also. THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN ^ 39 I cannot help noticing an objection I have often heard, and frequently read from Roman Catholic divines, that all the pauperism now found in England is simply, they say, the result of Protestantism ; whereas, in tbeir countries, where they have monks, and nuns, and erem- ites, and anchorites, and ascetics of all sorts, the administrators of all the property of the land, there is little or no poverty. I answer by ask- ing where do we find the pauperism of Eng- land ? Not among the people wlio go to church, and chapel, and Sunday-school. This is notorious enough ; it is among the people that despise all these, and have no religion at all. And therefore tlie reason why there is so much poverty in England, is that the Protest- antism which is accused as its parent has really not reached the masses that are the subjects of that pauperism. But when they speak of Pro- testantism being the source of all the poverty of England ; is there no poverty in Ireland ? Is that a happy and a prosperous land ? Head the 190 TEACH us TO PRAY. remarks of every visitor; they will tell you that the squalid poverty of that land, where the priests have all their own way, is a by -word among the nations of the earth. Is there no poverty in Italy? I am told the beggars there outnumber the monks ; that begging is carried on everywhere from morning to night ; and that if you wish to see poverty in its most squalid and repulsive shape, you must go to Romish Italy, and Austria, and Spain. Wher- ever Protestantism prevails in all its purity, peo- ple become independent; there you may help the labourer and he will thankfully accept it, but he will not descend to be a pau[)er. But wherever you find that great superstition which flings this objection against us, you find begging is a profession, so respectable a profession that eccle- siastics adopt it. Instead of Protestantism being the mother of pauperism, it repudiates it, and ends it in proportion as it spreads. But Komanism, wherever it exists, raises swarms of beggars as its legitimate product ; and therefore has the respou THE CRY OF THE CEILDEEN. 191 sibility of all the mendicants that are scattered over the length and breadth of the country in wiiich it dominates and pre-vails. This very Gos- pel, on whose forefront is written that magnificent thought, " The Gospel is preached to the poor," nevertheless, tells the monk, " If any man will not work, neither should he eat." And wherever tin's law dominates, sustained as it is by the hifflier sanctions of this blessed Book, man will respect himself, and take assistance when he needs it, and you owe it when you have it ; but he will not, if he can help it, become a dependent mendicant upon any man's bounty whatever. I venture to say that in Scotland, the most Protest- ant country probably in the world, with all its faults, at this moment you will find a much less proportion of beggars than in any country upon earth. You will find natives of that country in every land, reflecting so far credit upon their na- tion, and indicating wherever they go that the religion that teaches men to have a hope in hea- ven, inspires them to exercise a trade or to toil and labour upon earth. ._J 192 TEACH CS TO PRAY. In offering up this prayer, then, " Give lis this day our daily bread," I revert to the thought with which I set out in noticing it, that the poor are inchided when we, the richest in the Land, pray, " Give us this day our daily bread." The poor reap your fields, they build your palaces they dye your purple, they weave or spin your tine linen ; and when you include them in your litany at the throne of grace, you only do what is the discharge of a grateful obligation, and not an imperious and inevitable command. Let the spar- row, fed without garners ; and the lily, clad with- out a wardrobe ; above all, let the magnificent truth, " He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all ; how shall he not with him freely give us all things," teach us to depend upon His faithfulness ; to look up to Him for the exercise of His bounty ; and never to forget that the least blessing that we have came by the way of t.lie Cross. God will not give a crumb of bread excei)t tlirouo-h Christ ; He will not refuse a crown of glory in His name and for His sake. THE CRY OF TEE CHILDREN. I93 And above all, in conclusion, let me ask you, while seeking and toiling for — and so coinbiuing the means and the blessing — your daily bread, never to foi-get that there is a higher bread, eveji living bread, that cometh down from heaven, of which we need also to eat. Let us evermore ask that bread. Christ is the bread of life. And hap- py will that man be who gets neither poverty nor riches, but food convenient for him to eat below ; and is nourished meanwhile and sustained by that living biead which fits him for a home beyond the stars. And may God evermore give us daily bread ; may He evermore give us living bread. And wdien we think how great and how manifold His mercies aie, may we never hesitate to respond to Him in gratitude and j^raise. " Tlie eyes of all things wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season." The granaries of Egypt are ex- hausted, and the hopes of the harvestmen occa- sionally fail. But there is still bread for to-day. Be thankful for to-day, and do not worry your 9 194 TEACH US TO PRAY. spirits about to-morrow. The dreaded to-morrow, source of sleepless nights, no sooner comes tliau its shadows flee as we cross its margin. As we enter its cloud a voice calls down, " Your bread shall be given, and your water shall be sure." TEE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 105 YII. THE CRT OF THE SINFUL. " And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." — Matt. vi. 12. In my first discourse upon this interesting and precious Prayer I noticed the revelation of God as a Father ; of every Christian as a brother ; and of our common and eternal home in heaven ; — the fatherhood of God, the brotlierhood of Christians, the everlasting home of all that be- lieve. We considered, in the next place, the meaning of that prayer, " Hallowed be thy name ;" that is, may it be exalted, magnified, gloritied, made known. We noticed that God is glorified in proportion as He is known. A finite being needs his finite characteristics aug- mented in order to be honored ; bnt an infinite being is honored and glorified in proportion as he is revealed. We next referred to the clause, 196 TEACR us TO PRAY. " Tliy kingdom come." "The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink ; but righteousness, peace, joy." The kingdom of grace ends in the king- dom of glory ; when the great King shall reign over all the earth. We noticed the petition, " Give us this day our daily bread ;" man's need of daily bread ; his common wants that need a common and every-day supply. Now we come to the central clause in this sublime and expres- sive litany, around which in some degree all the rest revolve ; and without which, as far as we are concerned, the rest would be of no profit, " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debt- ors." Or, as it is written in another Gospel, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." In the first half of the Prayer, we find man seeking first the glory and the kingdom of God ; and in the second half, man seeking blessings and mercies for him- self and for all his brethren of mankind. In the first half we have all the fulness and the richness of God, " Hallowed be thy name ; thy kingdom TEE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 197 come ; thy will be clone." In the last half we have all the wants, necessities, and needs of mankind. "Give us bread; forgive us sin; deliver us from evil ; lead us into no tempta- tion." We have given God first of all the glory ; we have asked next the blessing for our- selves. We have also embodied in prayer what we ought ever to exhibit in onr practice, " Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous- ness ; and all other things will be added." There is running through the whole strain of this Pfayer the feeling, "Give us bread, and forgive us sin, and deliver us from evil ; but oidy in that way that will hallow Thy name, and advance Thy kingdom and do Thy will." I noticed also in my general remarks upon this Prayer, how comprehensive it is ; and also the singular fact, that in one Gospel it is varied in its language from the way it is given in another Gospel, in order to teach us there is no magic in the words. And yet, when our Lord says in one of these Gospels, "Pray," he adds, "When ye pray, 198 TEACH US TO PRAY. say;'''' but in this Gospel, "After this manner pray." It seems, therefore, it is not absolutely verbatim as it is given in any one of the Gos- pels, but it does seem, nevertheless, so conipre hensive, so rich, so precious, that I feel that public worship in which this Prayer is not used as the Saviour taught it, to say the least, is ex- tremely defective. We have asked our Father to give us dail}'- bread ; owning our dependence upon Him — humbling yet ennobling thought, — our depen- dence upon Him for the least crumb of brejfd that we eat below, and for the brightest crown of glory that we anticipate above. We now ask of the same, " Our Father " the pardon of sin ; as vital and precious a pre-requisite for the life to come, as daily bread is for the life that now is. "We cry as creatures, " Give us daily bread ;" we now cry as sinners, " Forgive us our sins and trespasses." We have acknowledged in the last petition wants that God alone can fill ; we acknowledge in this petition sins that God alone THE CRY OF THE SINFUL. I99 can forgive. The sense of hunger makes us pray, "Give us daily bread;" the sense of sin awakens the cry, " Forgive us our sins." If we had a choice, and it is a happy tiling that we rarely have, we would rather choose that God would not give, than that He would not forgive. No gifts, such as the richest ever inherited ; no width and splendor of dominion, such as the greatest conqueror ever carved out by his sword ; can be any compensation in a dying hour in the absence of peace with God. 'But where there is forgiveness of sin, and we know that we have it, it sweetens the blessings that we possess, and it makes easily endurable the want of them. For in sickness and in sorrow, or at seventy — in all time of our wealth, in all time of our tribulation, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, this is peace, this is power : " Blessed is the man whose sins are foi'given, whose transgres- sions are covered ; and to whom the Lord im- piiteth no iniquity." But before we own our- selves sinners, seeking pardon, we previously 200 ^^^ CH US TO PRAY. confessed ourselves sons in the jDresence of our Father. Sons, however, as we are by grace, we have not ceased to be sinners by nature. " If we," the sons of God, " say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us : but if we," sons, " confess our sins, he," our Father in heaven, " is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrlghteoubness." We have not only inherited sin, but we have added to the weight of the inheritance by our personal and practical transgressions. This is not the phice to enter now on any vindication of what is so true, our inheritance of Adam's sin. It may however be wortliy of remark, in connec- tion with this, for the sake of those who may doubt or deny it, that suppose that each babe Ijorn into the world were born an Adam or an Eve, innocent and undefiled as they in Paradise before they fell ; what, and how sorrowful, would be your thoughts as you first gazed upon that babe ! Here would be another terrible ex- periment, whether this child shall stand or fall? TEE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 201 here, too, would arise the awful foreboding, if this child fall, do we know of any remedy? for there is no Gospel applicable here. How much more precious is the thought that this babe, laden with Adam's sin, is not the nursling of despair, that you have not to go to heaven to bring down, nor to go into the deep to fish up ; but that close to you is the Lamb of God, wait- ing to bear that burden away. The father has sinned and the children suffer ; this is the uni- versal law, we are all familiar with it. The possessor of an estate, for instance, squanders it ; his children are beggars in consequence. The drunkard destroys his health ; his children are diseased. Thus we may read in the aspects of social life what the Spirit has inspired in every page of the Bible, "By one man's disobedience many were," and by some other man's dis- obedience every day many are still, " made sinners." In asking this great blessing, forgiveness, let me entreat of you to ascertain where you stand. 202 TEACH US TO PRAY. The commencement, " Our Father," is not a pre- face, lost the instant you enter into the body of the Prayer; it is the key-note, the ground note, of every clause in this magnificent Prayer. It is, " Our Father, hallowed be thy name ; Our Father, give us daily bread ; Our Father, for give us our trespasses, our debts, as we forgive our debtors, or them that trespass or sin against us." When we pray for pardon, we must re- member that we are sinners, but we must never forget that we are sons. "When we kneel to pray day by day, we do not kneel before God as an angry Judge ; ourselves frightened, terrified, cringing criminals, but as sons before God, our Father. We do not deprecate His wrath, but we ask in the spirit of sonship llis fatlierly mercy. The whole prayer of the world is depre- cation of wrath ; the whole prayer of the Chris- tian is imprecation of blessing. Tlie man of the world stands before God a criminal in the dock ; dreading, shrinking deprecating : the Christian kneels before his Father in heaven, and as a son, TEE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 203 a sinful son — often a prodigal son — always a sin- ful son, he asks of a father who never forgets, nor forsakes, nor turns a deaf ear, mercy and for- giveness. We do not ask forgiveness that God may be our father : but we go to our Father, and ask of Him forgiveness because He is our Father in Christ Jesus. If you can carry the feeling with you when you pray, that you are really approaching a loving Father, and approaching Him as sons and heirs, asking tlie pardon of sin, it will not make you hate sin less, but it will make you admire the Saviour more, and love our Father also yet more. There is no real, deep, poignant sense of sin until you have a deep joyous sense of God as your father. When the moral law discloses your sins, you feel and see them ; but there is a rising and rebellious feeling in our inmost heart that impels you to think the law too severe, the legislator too exacting. But when you draw near to God, and see your sins in the light of a Father's face, you feel that your sins have been ingratitude, and that you have 204 TEACH US TO PRAY. smitten not a king, a sovereign, a legislator, but a parent. And hence, when tlie prodigal, felt where he was, and whence he had fallen, and what he was, the deej^est spring of penitence in his heart was in that bright recollection in his memory, "Father." And hence he said, "I will arise and go to my father," holding fast his pa- ternal and filial relationship ; and seeing Jiis sins only the more heinous because they were sins not against a master, but against a father. The Christian will ever have the deepest sorrow for sin, the deepest sense of its lieinousness, while his deepest impressions of that sin are pregnant with hope ; whereas the natural man's deepest conviction of sin drives him nearest to despair. A Christian's sense of sin carries him to our Father ; an unregenerate man's sense of sin car- ries him away from our Father. This petition, "Forgive us our debts," is in harmony with and linked to all the rest of the previous petitions of tliis Prayer. God hallows His name when lie grants forgiveness of sin. THE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 205 What is God's name '( It is proclaimed in Exodus, " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in good- ness and truth, keeping mercj for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." And therefore when a Christian says, " Our Father, forgive us our sins," he is really praying also, " Our Father, let tliy name be hallowed in doing so." And also, when a Christian prays, "Forgive us our sins," he promotes God's king- dom, for every sin that is forgiven is a stage nearer its development, every sinner that is par- doned is a new subject placed beneath its benefi- cent sceptre. We also exhibit an expression of His will. And when God forgives us our sins, God tlie great giver of all, and the exactor of nothing, gives us daily bread as the expression of His goodness ; and God the great giver of all, and the exactor of nohting, forgives us our sins as the expression of His mercy. Thus, ever as we utter each petition, ever as we use each clause to express a new want, we cast light and 20^ TEAOHVS TO PRAY. glory uj)on all the previous clauses. Each peti- tion as we advance reminds us of the depths and sins that need forgiveness. Is God the Father ? How little of the joyous and confiding sense of sons have we cherished ! Does not the in- stinctive thought grow up iii each heart that God is a terrible, angry being, from whom we shrink ? and is it not the last thought we attain, a thought implanted by grace, that He is a Father we may confidingly approach to? AVhen we have uttered "Our Father," how little of fraternal, brotherly, sisterly feeling have v/e cherished towards all our brethren of the same household ! When we pray, " Our Father in heaven," how little have our thoughts and affec- tions aspired to, and found their resting-place in, that blessed home ! When we pray, " Thy name be hallowed," how often have we sought to exalt other names to a level with His, or uttered that name rashly, or given it a subordinate place ! When we pray, "Thy kingdom come," how many obstructions have we presented to its pro- - THE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 207 gress, how little have we clone to promote it, how few and far between the sacrifices we have made for it ! When we pray, " Thy will be done," we are reminded that we have tried to do onr own will in spite of what we know to be God's will, and wished our own will only done, and His will altogether subordinate. When we have prayed, " Give us daily bread," how often have we snatched the bread, and given no glory to the bread-giver ! How often have we attributed to human causes and to secondary laws the glory due to God alone ! Thus the very blessings that we ask disclose in their bosom the sins of which we are guilty, and we can see our sins not only reflected from the great White Throne, where they cannot be forgiven, but from the throne of grace also, where they can be forgiven as soon as we ask forgiveness. There is here another interesting thought. It is this : in praying for forgiveness each for him- self, we are necessitated to pray for forgiveness for all mankind. We do not here say, nor in- 208 TEACH US TO PRA Y. deed in any one clause of this Prayer, " Forgive me my sins," but " Forgive us f^ we arc mem- bers of a brotherhood ruined by sin, and we seek now to be members of a brotherhood restored by grace. We cannot pray as sinners, " Forgive," without praying as priests, and supplicating for- giveness for all that are connected and associated with us. God has so ordered it that no man can seek a blessing for himself in the spirit of the Gospel without seeking blessings for all his brethren of mankind. The onl}^ book that extin- guishes selfish monopoly, — the wretched feeling that cares for our own wants, however small, and nothing for the wants of others, however great, — is the Bible. He who can pray the Lord's Prayer from the very heart, with the spirit and the understanding, must be a Chris- tian of no common type. Yet we must never forget it is possible to repeat a thousand Pater Nosters, and yet never to have prayed one " Our Father." It is possible to pray as they do on tlie continent of Europe, as a penance, instead of THE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 209 praying it as a privilege. What a monstrous idea that a priest should say to a poor sinner, " You have sinned, and as an expiation, atone- ment, and punishment for your sins, you must repeat Pater Fosters, or Our Fathers, twenty, thirty, or forty times." What a horrible carica- ture of the Gospel to make that a punishment which is essentially a privilege, to make that ex- piation which is a child's address to a loving and affectionate Father ! Only let me add, though it may interrupt the strain of my remarks, w^iat is notwithstanding important, that many Protest- ants have a little of this old Romish leaven still lingering in their hearts. Luther well said, " Every man is born with a Pope in his heart ;" we would all be Popes, and they that would pull down the Pope many a time would wish to occu- py his place. We are all born with this Popish disposition. How does it develope itself ! Enter into some High Church family, tainted with the new Tractarian leaven. A child has miscon- ducted itself at Church on Sunday morning. At 210 TEACH US TO PRAY. three o'clock, after lunch, the mother takes the cliild, and tells it what it has done; and then says, " You must learn a collect this afteinoon as a punishment for what you have done." What is this? The parent plajing the priest, and introducing Popery into the nursery. But, you say, surely the Scotch Church must be free from that ; it can have no tendency of that sort. There is just as much Popery in this matter in the Scotch Church as there is in the English. I have heard a mother say to her child in Scotland, " Ton have been very naughty, learn a Para- phrase, learn the 23rd Psalm." The truth is, Popery is the monopoly of no Church upon earth, it belongs to the human heart, the grace of God alone can put it down. Let us teach our chil- dren, let us teach in our nursery and in our schools, that to be allowed to go into God's pre- sence and say, " Our Father," is a greater honor than to be introduced into the presence of our earthly sovereign ; and that to be allowed to say, " Our Father," isalike the greatest happiness and THE CRY OF THE SINFUL. £11 highest honor; never, oh! never, a punishment an expiation, or a penance. Our sins are here set forth under the aspect of debts. In another Gospel it is, " Forgive us our trespasses ;" or wherein he have transgressed the law. In this Gospel it is, "Forgive us our debts :" or what we owe to God. Everj man upon earth is a debtor, a deep debtor to God. You owe Him the love of all the heart, all the soul, of all the strength, of every hour, in every place. And when you have done this, as no hu- man being ever has done it, you have no merit ; you have only paid that which 3-ou owed. The idea of deserving of God when all is already mortgaged, or of paying God beyond what we owe, when we cannot pay one tithe of what we already owe, is monstrous and absurd. Debts in this world may be forgotten; but debts to God are never forgotten until they are forgiven. In this world the creditor can seize the body only of the debtor; in that other world soul and body are involved in a common wreck. Unless our 212 TEACH US TO PRAW sins are forgiven now, they will rise in crashes and reverberations at the judgment-seat of Christ. Though every one we have injured should each from his grave cry, "I forgive^" "I forgive," " I forgive," jei our debts are not can- celled, our sins are not forgiven. Nor can an eternity of suffering cancel them. It is a griev- ous mistake to suppose that man's sin, as a learned Professor dreams, and wiites, and preaches, — can be exhausted hereafter ; that the Protestant place of torment is merely a sort of Protestant Purgatory. If any sufferings that man can undergo for millions of years can atone for his sins, then it was not right, nor expedient, nor just, that God should become man, and hang upon a cross in infinite agony and sufferings for me. But the very fact that it needed the Atone- ment to cover, cancel, and forgive, is irrefragable proof that there was no power in jnan to exhaust sin. The idea of a sinner exliausting sin here- after is absurd ; because whilst he is paying tlie penalty he is always sinning, and always there- THE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 213 fore incurring, by the very necessity of the case, a new penalty. If a person banished to a penal colony, for seven years, as punishment for some great crime, during the seven years commits the same crime again, he incurs seven years more of punishment ; and if the same crime a third time, it is seven years more. But the lost in misery, by the very law and necessity of their fallen na- ture, are ever sinning, ever suffering ; never, therefore, expiating and atoning. Far better would those that think so, be employed in show- ing how wide open are the gates of heaven, and how welcome is every human being to enter in, than in trying to dilute the miseries of the lost, and impress men with the idea that hell is not so terrible as it is. Kot that I think preaching hell will ever win a single soul : that is not God's way ; God's way is to win by a demonstration of love ; by preaching Calvary, not Sinai ; by attraction, not by coercion ; by preaching Christ, not penalty. God alone forgives sin. I wish especially to 214 TEACH US TO PRA Y. notice tliis, there is a notion abroad tliat the priest — if there be such a person in the ministry — has power to forgive sin. If you k)ok at sin in its just light, you will see at once, from its na- ture, the absurdity of this perversion. Sin lias a twofold aspect ; first, its oft'ence to God, and second, its injury to a brother. If I were to steal from any one a sovereign, that act would have two aspects, and strike in two directions. First of all, it would be injury done to my brother: and secondly, it would be dishonesty in the sight of God, or the infraction of His moral law. The injury to my brother, that brother can forgive, and he is called upon to do so ; but the sin that is in the act, which extends to God, God alone can forgive. Whatever offence, therefore, I commit ngainst a priest, or a prelate, or a Pope, or a man, I would ask each to forgive ; but that which underlies the act, which goes beyond what we see, and strikes at the throne of Deity, being sin against God, God alone can forgive. Therefore, I believe the THE CRY OF THE SINFUL. 215 words of David are literally and strictly true, " Against thee, tliee only have I sinned ;" injury I have done to Uriah, but sin I have committed against Thee. He asks of God the forgiveness of the sin, because as sin it was committed against Him alone. God alone forgives sin, and, therefore, in this Prayer we ask of our Father the forgiveness of our trespasses, or the cancel- ling of our debts. And, blessed thought ! when He does forgive, He does it entirely. "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." When Alexander gave rewards he gave them, as he said, like a king. When God forgives sins. He forgives them like a God. God our Father is the author, Christ's atonement the means, His mediation the channel, our own souls the subjects. And when He forgives He for- gives without any equivalent. I am af^-aid that word " forgive " is sometimes misunderstood. We say, " Give us bread ; forgive us our sin." It is understood as if it were, " Give us forgive- 216 TEACn us TO PRAY. ness for something." But the origin of the Saxou word "forgive" is not give in room of, :." We then rise again to the bosom of God, our Father, ending, "Thine is the kingdom; thine the power; thine the glory ;" and prayers and answers, like the angels that the Patriarch saw, descending and ascending, from "Our Father" to " Amen," up- on Jesus, the Son of man. Therefore Christ is in every clause ; Christ in the cry, " Our Father ;" Christ in tlie petition, " Forgive us ;" Christ in the anthem-peal, " Thine the kingdom ; the power and the glory is thine." 292 TEACH US TO PRAY. Let us now weigli well the three element^; tliat are here ascribed to God ; " the kingdom, tlie power and tlie glory," Eacli is a reason why prayer should be answered. "Thine is ttic king- dom." All the resources of the kingdom are at Thy disposal ; all the contents of sovereignty, wider than sceptre can sway, are before Thee. Thine is royal abundance, Tliine is royal ninnifi- cence. Satan is a usurper ; Thine is the king- dom, — cast him out. Sin is an intrusion, an in- terpolation ; not made by God, thrust in by Satan ; Thine is the kingdom, — disinfect the world of it. Thine, not Satan's is the kingdom. His it is, to a great extent in present possession ; but it is the possession of the usurper, not the right of the lawful king and monarch. And therefore let the T^oman, listening to Jesus as lie uttered these words, "Thine is the king- dom," thinking of his victorious eagles, and say- ing in his heart, " Ceesar's is the kingdom," learn he is wrong; "For thine, O Lord, is the kingdom." Let the Herodian who stood by. ADORATION 293 and believed that Herod's was the kingdom, and gave the Idumaeau all the praise, the glory, and the honor, while God smote him, learn, not Herod's, but thine is the kingdom." These were puppets of a day ; " thine is the king- dom for ever." Let the modern Konianist ascribe the kingdom to him he calls in his igno- rance the Yicar of Christ ; let him paint him with his tiara as king of heaven, and king of earth, and king of hell. He is a usurper ; for God's is the kingdom. Let the materialist par- cel earth into kingdoms, and assign the material laws by which they are governed ; not theirs but God's is the kingdom. Let avarice and ambition give the kingdom to their respective idols ; they are doomed to be destroyed. And all eternity will attest, what all Christians have proclaimed, " Tiiine, O Lord, is the kingdom." And louder than all, rising above all, from countless holy hearts and from countless happy homes, will be this ascription, "Thou art the blessed and the only Potentate ; Tliine is the greatness, Thine the 294 TEACH US TO PR A Y. power, and Thine the gloiy ; all things are of Thee and all things come of Thee ; and we will cast our crowns before Thee ; and view the earth as Th}^ footstool and heaven as Thy throne ; and hail and crown Thee as King and Lord of all." " Thine," also, it is added, "is the power." How expressive is that. Power equal to the ■width of His royal possessions. To have prop- erty, but not have the power to make use of it, is a very painful state. But to have property wide as infinitude, lasting as eternity ; and to have the power that can give it and distribute it when, where, and how one pleases ; tbat indeed is power. " Thine is the power to give the largest blessing we have asked ; Thine is the power to make a few barley loaves to be a festal entertain- ment; Thine is the power to forgive sins; Thine is the power to lead not into temptation ; Thine is the power to deliver us from evil ; Thine is the power to give us daily bread. Let Satan intrench himself as he may; Thine is the power to dislodge him. Let sin spread its poison as it ADORATION. 295 may ; Thine is the power to neutralize and to cast it out. Let sorrow wring the heart, and give birth to tears; Thine is tlie power to heal, to stanch, and to remove it." We speak of the powers that be: these are but reflections of His. We speak of the powers of nature : these are but evidences of His presence. We speak of the power of statesmen, of the power of money, of the power of influence : these are but tlie crot- chets of a day ; for power belongeth unto God. " Unto thee, O Lord, also belongeth mercy ; Thine is the power to raise the dead, Thine the power to change the living ; Thine the power to cast out death ; Thine the power to bind Satan for a thousand years; Thine the power to bring down from heaven the new Jerusalem like a bride adorned for the bridegroom, and to bring- in the reign of everlasting and uninterrupted peace." " And thine " also, it is added, " is the glory." The kingdom is Thine : all within its inflnite and boundless domain are the riches on which Thou 296 TEACH US TO PRA Y. art eiitlironed. The ])ower is Thine ; Tliou hast jurisdiction over all ; power to wield, to w^ork, to employ, to give, to make use of all. But of this kingdom, wide as space, of these trophies that Tliy power achieves, great as omnipotence, the glory is not man's ; the glory is entirely Thine : the glory of being what Thou art, as " I am," the First and the Last ; the glory of giving where there is no claim ; the glory of forgiving where there is no merit ; the glory of delivering where there is no strength ; the glory of preserv- ing where there is ceaseless liability to fall. Thine is the glory of creation. Once it was the very mirror of God ; it is now broken into frag- ments, and each fragment dimmed and stained by the breath of sin. And yet there remain, in this fallen and dismantled earth, traces enough of its aboriginal grandeur to let us feel it was a God that made it ; havoc and wreck enough of man's sin to let us feel what a terrible thing sin is. But whatever beauty lingers in its seques- tered nooks ; whatever fragrance is exhaled fiom ADORATION. 297 its loveliest flowers ; whatever brilliancy is in the stars, the flowers of the sky ; whatever beauty is in the flowers, the stars of the earth ; these set forth Thy glory : Thy smiles gave to every blossom its tints : Thy breath gave to every flower its fragrance. All that is in the earth, and all that is in the sea, and all that is in tlie heaven, and all that lingers and remains of beauty, glory, and excellence, reflects Thyself! for " the heavens declare Thy glory ; the firma- ment showeth forth thy handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night show- eth knowledge." That 19th Psalm is often very much mistaken. It is in our version, "There is no speech nor language ; the voice of tlie stars and of the firmament, giving God the glory, is not heard." But this is not the translation. These words are no doubt true, " There is no speech nor language in which their voice is not heard." But in the original it is far more elo- quent : " The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day 13^ 298 TEACH US TO PRAY. unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night teacheth knowledge." But as if correcting liim- self, he says, " No, there is no speech, there is no hinguage ; their voice is not heard ; yet their line is gone out through all the ends of the earth ;" their silence is their expressive elo- quence. And if his be the glory of creation, His, in the next place, is the glory of providence. He re- strains what He does not approve, He over- rules what he must condemn. We sometimes thought when the boom of the cannon sounded in many a sorrowing heart, borne on the eastern gale from Sebastopol, and we heard of the brave that found there a gory grave ; we sometimes thought, " Surely God has for- gotten the earth ; and given up men to destroy one another." But we judged rashly; God was in the Crimea and in India as He is in any Christian congregation ; He was watching all that was there with an eye as omniscient, with a heart as rich in sympathy, as in the midst of this great ADORATION. £99 metropolis and in the lioly flocks that assemble in it. And out of all that transpired in the dis- tant East you may see emerging the fnlfihnent of ancient prophecies, salvation to countless tliousands, glory to His name, and a benefit and a. blessing to mankind. It was through a cross that salvation came ; it is still by a baptism of tears that the world's progress is promoted and secured. It is true of Christians, it is true of all in one sense, " Through much tribulation we must pass on to a better, a holier, and a happier state." His then is the glory of providence ; and where glory is not given Him as a free offering, it is exacted as a reluctant sacrifice. Pharaoh glorifies God just as the Apostle Paul does. Pharaoh gives it as a reluctant sacrifice ; Paul gives it up as a joyous and a free-will offering. But above all. Thine, O Lord, is the glory of redeeming love. Creation sets forth His glory ; creation as it will be, will reflect it in yet brighter rays. Providence sets forth His glory ; for what is history ? Prophecy fulfilled. What is 300 TEACH US TO PRAY. prophecy ? History stretching into the future. What are both ? God in tlie world. But in a higher sense still redemption reflects His glory. There He is seen to be just while He justifies the sinner that believes. Whatever good is experi- enced in your life, whatever sense of pardon is tasted in your heart, whatever hope you are free to cherish for the future, whatever commnnion you have with God, whatever affection you feel as a child to Him you recognise as a Father ; whatever has been done for you in the past , whatever is promised to you in the future ; all, all, all give the undivided glory to God ; the good, the joy, the blessing, only to you. And a day comes when this earth, like a precious gem, shall be engraven with the name and reflect only the glory of God ; when all its redeemed ones, a mighty company, shall cast their crowns before the Lamb, and say, " Not unto us, but unto thy name, O Lord, be the glory." A day comes when all prayers shall cease, for there shall be no wants; and all praise shall: increase, for there ADORATION. 301 shall be nothing but joys to thank God for ; and a miglity multitude, whom no man can num- ber, saying, " Salvation unto our God and to the Lamb for ever and ever." And then from angels in heaven, witnessing that glorious phenomenon, a redeemed church ; and from earth below, de- livered from its groans, its travail, and its agony, shall be heard the loud and the jubilant" Amen ;" " So be it." " The faithful and the true Witness, Christ Jesus, has commenced and closed the won- drous story ;" and angels that sang at His birth, " Glory to God in the highest ; on earth peace, and good will towards man ;" shall sing when lie is crowned Lord of all, "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever." Have we learned to pray the Lord's Prayer ? A poor monk can repeat his hundred Paternosters a day ; but without offering one single prayer. A true Christian can repeat a single clause, " Deliver us from evil," in the true spirit, and solemnity, and fervour of prayer. Have you felt your wants, your sins, your temptations, your 302 TEACH US TO PRAY. perils ? and have you learned that Christ alone is able to deliver from them all? He, blessed thonght ! has satisfied to the uttermost ; therefore He can save sinners to the uttermost also. His blood upon a sinner's head is the heaviest judg- ment; His blood upon a sinner's heart is the greatest mercy, the richest blessing. And oh surely, surely that precious blood that satisfied the justice of God may well satisfy and appease all the accusations of your conscience, and give you peace, even the peace tliat passeth under- standing. It matters not who are our accusers if Christ be our Advocate. He knows not himself as he ought who does not see his need of Christ; and he does not value Christ as he ought who does not see the sufficiency of Christ. There is nothing in this prayer that He will give for our sakes ; there is nothing in it that He will with- hold for Christ's sake. Have you thus prayed ? Have you thus presented it? And if we cannot yet pray it as we would, we can at least preface ADORATION. 303 it with the petition of the disciples, " Lord, teach us to pray." Thhie, not Caesar's, not Herod's, not chance's, is the kingdom. God reigns, and all on earth are His servants, or His subjects, or His sons. Thine is the power, equal to the forgiveness of the greatest sin, the fuliihnent of the largest pro- mise, the accomplishment of the richest good. Tliine, not man's, not the priest's, not the crea- ture's, is the glory. TEE END. CARLETON, PUBLISHER, (LATE PvUDD & CAKLETON,) 413 Broadway, NEW YORK. ^r ^ NEW BOOKS And New Editions Recently Issued by CARLETON, PUBLISHER, (LATE EUDD & CARLETON.) 418 BJiOABWAT, NEW YORK. 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