aK^l'* Of^^SMT^v^ BV 230 .H29 1883 Hall, Newman, 1816-1902 The Lord's prayer THE LOED'S PRAYEE A PRACTICAL MEDITATION. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBE, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON, . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, . . . GEO. HERBERT. NEW YORK, . . . SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. THE LORD'S PRAYER A PRACTICAL MEDITATION. BY NEWMAN '''hall, LL.B. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 1883. THIS HUMBLE CONTRIBUTION TO THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IS LAID ON THE ALTAR THAT SANCTIFIETH THE GIFT, IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY AID IN THE DEVOUT AND PRACTICAL STUDY OF THE PRAYER OF THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. ►k PREFACE. My theme is old, but so comprehensive and im- portant that its interest is ever new. The quarry, however diHgently worked, is inex- haustible ; but its most valuable treasures are most readily found, and are public property. A commentary which excluded every topic already discussed would lose in usefulness more than it gained in originality. Every age is enriched by inheritance. The stream becomes fuller the farther it flows. Thus, to compensate the lack of novelty in the theme, I have not hesitated to profit by the labours of predecessors, both by quotation, in every case indicated, and by suggestion. My special thanks are recorded to my friend the Rev. Edward G. Cecil for varied and valuable aid in revision. NEWMAN HALL. Christ Church, Lambeth, October 1883. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. I. Prayer Reasonable and Useful, 4 2. Direct Benefits of Prayer, 6 Objections to Prayer, 7 3. Reflex Benefits, 12 4. Christ's Authority for Prayer, 16 5. Method of Prayer- 18 Form or Freedom, 18 Brevity, 27 6. Model of Prayer — 29 Its Authorship, 29 General Scope, 32 CHAPTER n. THE INVOCATION. 'our father which art in heaven.' 1. Divine Fatherhood — ''Father^ . 2. Fatherhood by Creation, 3. Fatherhood by Redemption, 4. Blessings involved in the Fatherhood, 5. Universal Brotherhood — ' Our,' 6. Majesty of the Father — 'In Heaven^ 7. Practical Lessons, 39 44 46 49 56 63 70 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE FIRST PETITION. ' HALLOWED BE THY NAME.' 1. The Place of this Petition, 2. The Meaning, . 3. What is involved, 4. Reasons for the Petition, 84 91 94 109 CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND PETITION 'THY KINGDOM COME.' 1. The Kingdom Spiritual, . . . . .117 2. Difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdoms of the World, . . . . . . .122 3. The Coming of the Kingdom, . . . . .128 4. The Millennial Reign, . . . . . -133 5. Prayer for the Kingdom, . . . . .163 CHAPTER V. THE THIRD PETITION. ■THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.' I. The Will of God, ..... 176 2. God's Potential Will, ..... 178 3. God's Preceptive Will, ..... 179 4. Why should God's Will be done ? . . . 181 5. Angelic Nature, ...... 183 6. Angelic Obedience, ..... 186 7. Passive Obedience, ..... 201 8. Illustrations, ...... 205 9. Example of Christ, ..... 210 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER VI. THE FOURTH PETITION. 'GIVE us THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD.' 1. Meaning, Place, and Reasonableness, 2. The Giver — Our Father, 3. The Gift — Daily Bread, 4. Community of the Gift — Us, 5. Conditions of the Gift — Ozir, Honesty, Industry, 6. Period of the Gift — This day, Covetousness, 7. Prayer for the Gift, PAGE 220 228 242 242 247 252 260 CHAPTER Vn. THE FIFTH PETITION. ' AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR DEBTORS.' 1. Sin as a Debt to God, 2. The Debts of God's Pardoned Children, 3. Our Father's Forgiveness, 4. Prayer for Pardonj 5. Forgiveness of one another. Human Forgiveness, A Condition of Divine, 269 287 298 310 322 323 329 CHAPTER VHI. THE SIXTH PETITION. 'lead US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.' Connection with Prayer for Pardon, 1. Meaning of Temptation, 2. Meaning of the Prayer, . 339 342 348 xu CONTENTS. 3. Consolation for the Tempted, 4. Practical Lessons, Not to go into Temptation, . Resist in the Way appointed. Turn Hindrances into Helps, Not bring Others into Temptation, Compassion towards the Fallen, 360 363 363 374 377 382 385 CHAPTER IX. THE SEVENTH PETITION. BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL. Meaning oi di^o rov vovripoi', 387 I. The Evil One, .... 390 Personality of the Devil, 391 Agency of the Devil, . 399 Resistance to the Devil, 406 2. The Evil resulting from Sin, 411 3. The Evil in Ourselves, . 418 CHAPTER X. THE DO XO LOGY. I. A Confession of Faith, ..... 438 The Kingdom, ..... 430 The Power, . . . . ... 433 The Glory, ...... 437 2. An Argument in Prayer, .... 439 3. An Ascription of Praise, ..... 443 4. ' For ever,' ...... 446 5. Amen, ....... 450 THE LORD'S PRAYER. (revised version.) St. Matthew vi. 9-13. Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. St. Luke xi. 2-4. Father, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we And forgive us our sins ; for we also have forgiven our debtors. ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And bring us not into temptation. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. X, NOV Vd&i THE LORD'S PRAYER. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. THE prayer which our Lord solemnly delivered to the disciples as a model In their approaches to God, and which has been therefore designated ' The Lord's Prayer,' is recorded by two Evangelists, and was spoken on two different occasions. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord was re- proving the superstition which regarded the frequent iteration of mere words as acceptable with God ; and the pharisaism which made a public parade of prayer in order to obtain the praise of men. Matt. vl. 5-13. St. Luke records that at a later period of Christ's minlstr)^, * As He was praying In a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his dis- ciples.' This disciple may have forgotten the earlier instruction. Or he may have regarded it as too brief, or designed for the general multitude to whom it was addressed, and so asked for some counsel 4 THE LORD S PRAYER. Specially applicable to the inner circle of the disciples, similar to some teaching so given to the more Intimate friends and followers of the Baptist. But our Lord gave no fuller instructions. He added none exclu- sively for the use of the favoured band of Apostles. He simply repeated the subject-matter of the same Divine model, as containing the essence of all we need to ask, and as showing the spirit and manner of all acceptable prayer. Luke xi. 1-4. On both occasions the reasonableness and duty of prayer were taken for granted ; the Divine authority of our Lord being superadded to that of the older Revelation. To this subject, the reasonableness of prayer, we shall first refer ; then, to the manner of prayer ; and afterwards, to the origin and general scope of this particular model. May He whose Name gives it such sanctity, help our medi- tations, and thus, by the Holy Ghost, promote in us ' the spirit of grace and supplication.' ' Lord, teach us to pray.' L — Prayer Reasonable and Useful. Prayer and piety are inseparable. Religion is the intercourse of the soul with God, of which prayer is the expression. Prayer is not therefore simply one of many other features or duties of religion ; but is essential to its existence, and the practice of it has always been co-extensive with anything worthy of its name. To borrow the words of Gulzot : ' Alone, of all living beings on the earth, man prays. There is not PRAYER REASONABLE AND USEFUL. 5 among all his moral Instincts a more universal, a more invincible one than prayer. The child betakes himself to it with ready docility ; aged men return to it as a refuge against decay and isolation. Prayer rises spontaneously from young lips that can scarcely lisp the name of God, and from expiring ones that have scarcely strength left to pronounce it. Among every people, celebrated or obscure, civilized or bar- barous, acts and formulae of prayer meet us at every step. Everywhere there are living men, under certain circumstances, at certain hours, under certain impres- sions of the soul, whose eyes are raised, whose hands are clasped, whose knees are bent to implore, or thank, or adore, or appease — with joy or terror, publicly or in the secret of his own heart, it is to prayer man turns as a last resource to fill the void places of his soul, or bear the burdens of his life. It is in prayer he seeks, when all else fails, a support for his weakness, and comfort in his sorrows.' Account for it as disbelievers in prayer may, the fact remains, that human nature is so constituted that the acknowledgment of a superior Being by adoration and petition, harmonizes with our intellec- tual and moral capacities and instincts. As Pro- fessor H. R. Reynolds says : ' One of the distinctive peculiarities of man is an effort and desire to com- mune with the mysterious Power in which he lives, and moves, and has his being. The widely-spread belief, that man may draw near to God, that he may transfer his thoughts and wishes to the mind of the Eternal, proclaims his sense of a Divine relationship 6 THE LORD S PRAYER. between himself and God. As the magnetic needle points to the unseen pole, so the soul, before it is hardened or demagnetized by the rude blows of the world, will point to the home and heart of the Great Father.' ^ Prayer, as an act of homage, is due to the Creator and Universal Lord. If we are conscious of emotions of awe, wonder, and delight in the presence of natural objects, how much more are such emotions reasonable in the presence of the Author of Nature ! And when we know Him as our own Maker and Lord, on whom we are dependent for breath and all things, we feel it befitting that we render Him adoration, extolling His greatness, expressing our dependence, seeking His favour, and thanking Him for His eifts. t> n. — Direct Benefits of Prayer. The almost universal practice of prayer to the present day is proof of a general belief in its utility. Its reflex benefit to the mind is not disputed; but this is incidental. Men pray, expecting some direct advantage, not because of the wholesomeness of the exercise. The reflex benefit would not exist but for such expectation prompting the petition, i ^'^SS'^^S ^ garden may improve the health, but the \ hope of produce speeds the digging. Such direct and positive benefits in answer to prayer, all Holy Scripture and the authority of Christ, encourage us to expect. 1 T/ie Philosophy of Prayer. direct benefits of prayer. 7 Objections. {a) That God knows already whatever we can tell Him. Yes, and He knows far better than we do, what we really need. But He would also know our wishes from ourselves. An earthly parent may know many of the child's desires and griefs, but likes to hear them from the child's own lips, because they interest the parent, and the habit of telling them cultivates filial affection in the child. In prayer we are not X instructing God but communing with Him, and lifting up our minds into the region of His own.' ib) That we cannot improve God's methods nor alter His decrees. These methods and decrees co-exist with our own moral nature. His Will does not destroy the free- dom of our own. The benefit to accrue to us from a certain action on His part, may depend on a corre- sponding fitness in ourselves. The gift, to be bene- ficial, needs certain qualities in the recipient. The purpose of God may therefore embrace the prayer of man ; the object of which is not to improve His plans, but only to complete their manifestation. God may, in answer to our prayer, change His methods without any fluctuation of purpose. A sailor alters his tack to reach his port. A father carries out his abiding intention by altering his treatment ac- cording to the child's conduct. A physician varies his medicine with varying symptoms, in order to accom- plish his unvarying purpose of cure. And so, though 8 THE lord's prayer. by prayer we cannot improve the Divine plans, prayer may so alter our own moral condition as to render suitable a change of method on God's part, which will bring us the very blessing we ask. ' The sovereignty of God does not override the want, the will, the tears, the cry of His children ; but does, in the first instance, express itself through that very want — those tears and those strong desires. It is not that man changes God's purpose, but that man verily and indeed discovers that purpose through his own earnest prayer.'^ A practical reply to the objection that we cannot improve the Divine arrangements is given in the daily life of every sane person. Are all God's purposes eternally fixed and unalterably sure ? But every one tries to guard his body from accident, improve his estate, and secure the comforts of life. If we think we can improve our condition by exertions of our own, is it foolish to hope God may improve them in answer to our prayer ? (c) That if God is willing to give all good, asking is superfluous. Again we answer that our asking may be a neces- sary condition of His giving. The seed may be good, but will be wasted unless the soil be prepared to receive it. Without healthy appetite, wholesome food may injure. The soul must ' hunger and thirst after righteousness ' before it can be filled ; and prayer cultivates as well as reveals this spiritual appetite. So also gifts of Providence may require the receptivity ' H. R. Reynolds, D.D, DIRECT BENEFITS OF PRAYER. 9 which prayer cultivates, to render those gifts bene- ficial. By prayer we come into the Divine store- house, where God's gifts are waiting for us. ' Those things which God intends for us, we bring to ourselves by the mediation of holy prayers.'^ God's light is always shining, but into the region of it we must come as He has ordained. ' God is always ready to give us His light, but we are not prepared to receive it when darkening ourselves in the lust of worldly things. Thus prayer becomes the turning of the heart to Him who is always prepared to give, if we will receive what He eives. Unto a fountain so vast, the empty vessel must be moved.' " {d) No place for prayer in the realm of Law. It is alleged that all existing things are subject to definite forces which operate uniformly and irre- sistibly, so that prayer can have no influence in bringing to pass any desired event. But amonor natural forces that of Will cannot be omitted. It is one of the chief motive powers on the earth. It is the force of which we know most, because we know it by our own consciousness. By our will we can influence that of others, through instruction and persuasion, and prompt them to set in motion a train of physical causation which may bring to pass events otherwise impossible. I may by personal influence (call it prayer) induce the crew of a lifeboat to save shipwrecked seamen, whom other- wise the waves, by natural law, would destroy. I may by persuasion (prayer) induce a physician to go 1 Bishop Jeremy Taylor. "^ Augustine, Archbishop Trench. 10 THE LORD S PRAYER. to a man seemingly at death's door, and he, not by miracle, but by working within the sphere of law, may save a life which otherwise, by physical law, would have been the victim of disease. I may, by the exercise of my own will, hold out my arms to catch, when falling from a window, the child whom other- wise the law of gravitation would have killed. If then even I, by the exercise of my will, can interpose to bring about new results in the operation of natural law, and can influence other wills to do the same, it cannot be impossible that God, the Author of Nature and her laws, without any interference with order, may do, in answer to prayer, what my fellow-creature can do on my request, and what I can do myself Must the Divine order shut out the operation of the Divine will ? Shall the uniform working of natural law be consistent with the exercise of freedom on my part, and not with that of freedom on God's part ? We do not believe that the * Reign of Law ' excludes the agency of the * Lord of Law.' Whence came the laws but from the Divine Mind ? ' I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,' and not in eternal forces without thought, emotion, or character. He is free to act in modes novel to us, yet in harmony with law. Seeming changes may be law's developments, and my prayer and His response may be parts of the eternal order ; God working according to pre-arranged principles which are developed when- ever their appropriate sphere of operation unfolds. Thus our prayers may bring about the very conditions in which the results we ask may come to pass, in harmony with the higher order which includes moral DIRECT BENEFITS OF PRAYER. I I as well as physical forces. This argument assumes the universal reien of Law. But we believe in the reio^n of Grace.^ Such objections have been current In all ages ; yet in all ages prayer has been offered to the God of the Bible ; and the worshippers have included the wisest and best of men. The Old Testament abounds with illustrations. Poets, statesmen, heroes, prophets, have prayed. Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, brought petitions to God, habitually, earnestly, and in full assurance of faith. They have had numberless counterparts up to the present day. Have all men who in all ages and lands have thus gratified the special yearning, and employed the highest faculties of the mind, been mistaken? If so, 'the whole human race has a lie enshrined in its inmost heart ; and this lie perpetually emerges age after age, genera- tion after generation, in the child and the philosopher, in the heathen and the Christian. If it be so, the most noble are the most deceived ; those who have risen highest, and who have in the largest extent blessed their fellow-men, have been the most entirely baffled and deluded ; while, on the other hand, the sensualist, the barbarian with the fewest ideas, the imbecile who is most like the brute that perisheth, has made, in a matter that is fundamental to happiness, honour, and useful- ness, the nearest approach to the truth of things.' ^ O men of science ! all honour to you in your own sphere. Show us the beauty, the wisdom, the benefi- cence of God, by showing us the order that pervades 1 Prayer; its Reasonableness and Efficacy. By Newman Hall. ^ Reynolds. 12 THE LORDS PRAYER. . His works. But do not shut Him out of His own creation. Do not say that your experiments with microscope and telescope include all the facts of the universe, when the facts of Christianity and the facts of consciousness are not within your induction. There are facts which are incapable of being subjected to scientific scrutiny. God will not, at your bidding, come into your laboratory, cross the field of your telescope, or enter the wing of some hospital which you may choose to designate for experiments upon His handiwork. ' There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in yowx philosophy' ' More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreanns of ; For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, Both for themselves and those who call them friends ? For so the whole round world is every way, Bound by gold chains around the feet of God.'^ HI. — Reflex Benefits of Prayer. Belief in the reasonableness of prayer, and its efficacy in obtaining what we ask, is sustained by the influence of prayer on the mind itself. Hiimility. — Pride is parent of numberless faults and miseries. This is nourished by our supposed superiority over others. But in the presence of the Infinite we feel our insignificance. In proportion as by prayer we have really met with God, we are less disposed unduly to exalt ourselves over our fellow- creatures, since we are all alike but * dust and ashes ' in His sio;ht. When we see God we 'abhor our- selves.' Job xlii. 5, 6. ^ Tennyson. REFLEX BENEFITS OF PRAYER. 1 3 Dignity. — There can be no greater honour than to be allowed to hold personal intercourse with God. In prayer the human soul converses with the Divine. We are admitted to a private Individual audience in the Presence Chamber of the Infinite. We cannot leave it feeling we are worthless atoms, mere grains of sand in a desert, drops in the ocean ; unnoticed, uncared for, helpless, and hopeless. No ! we are living persons, and are in direct communion with a personal God, who hears our voice, reads our heart, helps our need. This sense of dignity is in perfect harmony with humility — a grand humility, a self- abasing dignity, which will make us respect both ourselves and all our fellows, and should keep us from dragging our nobility in the mud of sinful indulofence. Sincerity. — We are apt to study mere appearance before our fellow-men, to wear a mask, to hide our defects, to magnify our merits, or simulate those we do not possess. We even try to impose on ourselves ; and present a portraiture to conscience as a true reflection of our character which will not bear ex- amination. This insincerity, so injurious to our moral nature, can have no place before Him who knows the secrets of all hearts. The mask we sport before our fellow-creatures must be thrown off. The fallacies we plead at the bar of our own consciousness, we dare not utter to God. In prayer we learn to know ourselves, to discover our hidden faults, to test the true nature of our motives and conduct. Holiness. — If the God we worship be the God of the Bible, we shall come from His presence impressed 14 THE LORDS PRAYER. with such a reverence for His holiness that we must instinctively shrink from, contact with its opposite. It is one thing to credit the fact that God is holy ; it is quite another thing to feel that we are in the very presence of that holy God. Thus it is that the habit of praying induces the habit of obeying. It conveys no new truth, but it strengthens holy impulses. We cannot come direct from an interview with the king and violate his laws ; from converse with our Father, and forofet the claims of His love. Moderation of Desire. — Longings which may become absorbing and perilous passions, poisoning our whole life, must be checked when we try to bring them before God in prayer. When we wish for some questionable pleasure, some unrighteous gain, the gratification of vanity or revenge, and by the heating of this internal furnace of wrongful desire are in danger of some explosion which might be our ruin, let us try to express such desire in prayer to God, and the effort will reprove and possibly destroy it. There is so much we cannot ask God to give ! We should be ashamed, afraid to ask it ! * We cannot take a vile or angry passion, and breathe it out as a prayer to God. There is too much native grandeur, too much of God within us for that. Blessed be God, it is a hard thing to take an unbrotherly thought, and offer it as sacrifice to Him ; to triumph over our brother, and then turn our anger into prayer. There are no wings to raise such thoughts to heaven ; such pleadings would blister and blast our lips as we breathed them forth. '^ ^ Reynolds. REFLEX BENEFITS OF PRAYER. 1 5 Trust and Courage. — If we have any real faith In prayer, and without some faith there can be no prayer, we shall come from the Divine Presence with some hope, if not assurance, that our prayer is heard, and that needful help will be given. This will enable us to bear our trials more patiently ; to brace our- selves anew for difficult duty ; to press onward In the path in which we were ready to faint ; to continue the fight we were ready basely to surrender. Peace and Consolation. — By the mere telling our troubles to a sympathizing friend, the burden is lightened, the bitter cup sweetened, the wound soothed and half healed. Much more should this be the result of pouring forth our heart - sorrows before a compassionate God who is our Father. If ' by prayer and supplication we make known our requests unto God,' we need ' be anxious for nothing, and the peace of God which passeth all under- standing will keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.' Phil. iv. 6, 7. Gratitude. — This is an emotion always pleasurable in itself. Recognition of the giver enhances the gift. Gratitude prompts to willing service of its object. Gratitude to God therefore stimulates obedience, and promotes our own happiness. Prayer cultivates gratitude, by linking benefits with Him from whom they are asked. They who do not pray are not likely to praise. ' In the earnest asking is the needful preparation for receiving with due thank- fulness ; while, on the contrary, the unsought would often remain the unacknowledged also.' ^ Prayer thus ^ Augustine, Trench. 1 6 THE lord's prayer. elevates earthly benefits into Divine blessings, so that the humblest fare of God's providing yields greater delio-ht than costliest dainties reo'arded as the result of accident, or of our own unaided efforts. Does an objector say that all this reflex benefit of prayer is only the natural effect of certain Ideas on our minds ? Then it is evident that our moral organization is adapted to this exercise, and we infer that our Maker and the Being to whom we pray are one and the same ; for He who bids us pray has so constituted us that compliance with His law responds to our moral nature, satisfies, purifies, exalts, and orladdens it. £> IV. — Christ's Authority for Prayer. Christ spoke by His Spirit in the Old Testament, which abounds In commands to pray, examples of prayer, and promises and. proofs of answers to prayer. When, in the fulness of time, * the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,' He showed by His own practice, as well as taught by His precepts, the duty, privilege, and usefulness of prayer. Though Divine He prayed, because He was also human, and shared our weaknesses and wants. He prayed for a blessing on the bread He broke, for help in the miracles He wrought, for comfort in the sorrows He endured. He retired to mountain solitudes for prayer. Luke vi. 12. He prayed in the upper chamber for His disciples, John xvll. ; in the garden and on the cross for Himself, Luke xxii. 39-44, Matt, xxvii. 46; and for His murderers. Luke xxIII. 34. CHRIST S AUTHORITY FOR PRAYER. I 7 He has gone up to heaven to pray, and sitteth on the right hand of God to intercede. Rom. viii. 34. If He, without stain of sin, and in perfect accord with God, needed to pray, how much more must we ! And this He enjoined on His followers by precept and promise. ' Ask, and ye shall receive.' ' If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him!' Matt. vii. 7-11. It was when He had been praying that the disciple said, ' Lord, teach us to pray.' And Jesus said, ' When ye pray, say. Our Father.' His great work was to help man's approach to God. His mediation was to remove the obstacle of our guilt. His Spirit was to remove the disinclination of our hearts. He was ' the Way;' and He said, ' No man cometh unto the Father but by me.' Acceptance of His salvation brought men at once into the presence of their Father. Faith in Him was life ; and the evidence and exercise of the Divine life in the soul was prayer. He brought men into a condition in which prayer was a necessity. He so guided the stream that it must fall into and flow along with the great river. He taught His disciples 'always to pray, and not to faint.' If they are to conquer in the strife with sin, the armour of God will not avail unless they ' cry day and nio^ht unto Him.' When our Lord gave this prayer, He ignored all objections. There was no question as to whether the disciples prayed or not. Of course they did. All devout Jews did. The only question was as to the 1 8 THE lord's prayer. matter and manner of prayer. ' When ye pray.' Our Lord knew all the objections that ever had been, that ever could be, raised against prayer, yet He said, Pray! He was the Author of Nature, the Creator of the worlds, the Head of the universe of Law, knowing the operation of all forces, yet He said, Pray ! He was from eternity in the bosom of the Father, sharing the Father's counsels and eternal purposes, yet He said, Pray ! And therefore, whatever doubts may remain unsolved, we still will pray. We believe in Him who died and rose and ascended to glory. He who conquered death and the grave can, should He so please, suspend the order of Nature in answer to prayer. Nothing is impossible with Him to whom is given ' all power in heaven and earth.' And with full assurance we may pray, when He, who is the only- begotten Son, Himself pleads with the Father on our behalf. ' From the lowest to the highest, from the inarticulate cry of the child to the very midst of the throne, prayer is the sign of life, the measure of progress, the necessity that is laid upon immortal souls.' ^ V. — The Method of Prayer. I , Form or Freedom f Our Lord, in reproving vain and superstitious repetition, said, as recorded by St. Matthew, ' After this manner therefore, pray ye.' And on the other occasion recorded by St. Luke, ' When ye pray, say,' etc. The desires of the heart are to be expressed. ^ H. R. Reynolds. THE METHOD OF PRAYER. I9 We must not be content with inward meditation, which is liable to pass off in frivolous thoughts or mental drowsiness. ' When ye pray, say! It is true that God regards fervent desire as prayer, and that no words avail without it ; yet our Lord teaches us to express the desires of the heart, which are increased and made definite by utterance. * Take with you words, and turn to the Lord ; say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously : so will we render the calves of our lips.' Hos. xiv. 2. An enthusiastic admirer of nature, or one capable of much abstract thought and deep emotion, may sometimes have been conscious of a sublimer worship than any capable of expression. ' In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the Hving God, Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; Wrapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power That made him ; it was blessedness and love.' ^ And there are times when the believer is conscious that * the Spirit maketh intercession within him with o-roaninofs which cannot be uttered.' Yet these are exceptional seasons. If all prayer were to be denied vocal utterance, little prayer would be left. Our Lord Himself, holding ineffable Spirit-communion with His Father, expressed His divinely-human lonofinofs in human words. This our Lord taught us to do. But in what words ? Surely sometimes in the very form pre- ^ Wordsworth, The Wanderer. 20 THE LORD S PRAYER. scribed. But did He mean that we should be restricted to the use of this alone ? Were this so, the two versions would be identical. But they vary. In the Revised Version of St. Luke we have simply * Father,' instead of * Our Father which art in heaven.' ' Thy will be done ' is omitted. Instead of ' give us this day,' S09 t'lfuv arjjxepov, we have * give us day by day,' hi^ov rjiuv to Kad^ rjfiipav. Instead of debts, o^eiX-qfjbara, we have sins, aixapria^ ; and instead of ' as we also have forgiven our debtors,' &>? koX yfie2<; a^ Mdio_^a\^ethis form of words, emphatically taught thatmerejwiirdsjwere..valn^__ In reproving the Phari- sees, He applied to them the words of Isaiah : ' This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips ; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.' Matt. xv. 8, 9. ^ Reynolds. THE METPIOD OF PRAYER. 27 And equally in vain do we pray, whether in words of our own, or in forms composed by the holiest men and sanctioned by centuries of worship, or in these very words taught by Christ Himself, unless the heart ascends to God. Alas ! how often we have to confess : ' My words fly up, my thoughts remain below ; Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go.' ' 2. Brevity. Another question arises. Our Lord gave us, as a model, a prayer characterized by brevity. Did He mean that no prayer should be longer than this model ? His own example is opposed to such an idea. We read on one occasion of His continuing 'all night in prayer to God.' Luke vi. 12. In the garden He spent a long time in prayer — again and again returning from His disciples to hold communion with His Father, often 'saying the same words.' Matt. xxvi. 44. After His ascension the disciples ' continued with one accord in prayer and supplication.' St. Paul exhorts Christians to ' pray without ceasing,' and to ' continue instant in prayer.' The Scribes were liable to ' greater condemnation,' not for prolonged devotion but because, to cloak robbery, they 'for a pretence made long prayers.' Mark xii. 40. The Lord warned His disciples not to imitate the heathen who thought their gods would hear them for ' much speaking' in prayer. Matt. vi. 7. He censured mere verbal utterances in place of heart- desires ; prayers to be noticed by man instead of to ■^ Shakespeare. 28 THE lord's prayer. be accepted by God ; prayers never intended to reach heaven ; but accomplishing their end on the earth, from which they had no wings to soar. The reproof of * long prayers ' has relation, therefore, rather to public prayer, where other men are listeners, than to those which are heard by God alone. When our Lord was very long in prayer, it was in private, as on the moun- tain ; and with His chosen few, as in the upper room and in the garden. A speaker with abundance of matter and freedom of utterance, should consider that others may not have the leisure or disposition to follow him, and should be on his guard not to utter, in the audi- ence of men, personal prayers which should be reserved for his inner chamber. 'It is a bad sign when the prayers made before men are longer than those heard only by God.' ' God is in heaven, and thou upon earth ; therefore let thy words be few.' Eccles. v. 2. Every prayer, however few the words, is long if it comes not from the heart ; no prayer is long which is the soul's true expression. * Men judge a speech to be long or short, not so much by the quantity of words, as by the sense : thus, as men judge by the sense of speech, God judgeth by the affection of prayer, which is the true sense of it; so the quality is the rule of the quantity with Him, There is no prayer too long to Him, provided it be all enlivened with affection; no idle repetition, where the heart says every word over again as often, and more often than the tongue.'^' * He that speaks without desire is long, though he speak but two syllables.' ^ ' Leighton. * Jeremy Taylor. ITS AUTHORSHIP. 29 VI. — The Lord's Prayer. This title might more accurately be given to the prayer of intercession recorded by St. John. That was the expression of our Lord's own desires to His Father. In it there is no mention of sin to be forgiven. This is the disciples' prayer, not the Master's. But as it was emphatically and solemnly given to themon two occasions by their Lord, as His own ideal of the prayer of sinful and frail men, the Church, from early times, has loved to designate it as specially His own. K I. Its Authorship. Some critics have said, that as the several peti- tions may be found in Jewish writings, the prayer is not original, and therefore not ' the Lord's.' For the assumed proofs of this, the reader is referred to Tholuck's exposition. He says that the collection of Jewish prayers * contains many excellent ones, borrowed both in thought and expression from the Old Testament. Supposing such prayers to have existed in those days, why should not the Saviour, in order to nurture His disciples in the good which they already possessed, have delivered the best petitions they contained, worked up in His mind to a beautiful whole ? So far from a believer takinsf offence at this, the circumstance would suggest a still deeper reflection, such as is expressed by Grotius : " So far off is the Lord from all affectation of un- necessary novelty." . . . The supposition, however, must nevertheless be rejected, and rejected on the ground that the agreement which has been asserted 30 THE LORD S PRAYER. between this prayer and prayers of the Rabbis is wholly null. This has been already perceived by Kuinol, Fritzsche, Henneberg, Gebser, Olshausen, so that one might look upon the opinion as almost antiquated.' ^ Dean Alford says : ' If pious Jews had framed such petitions, our Lord, who came TrXrjpcoaaL everything that was good under the Old Covenant, might in a higher sense and spiritual meaning have recommended the same form to His disciples. But such does not appear to have been the fact.' ^ / Our Lord expressly said that He had come, not to destroy the older revelation, but to fulfil ; not to ignore any portion of truth already known, but to supplement it. Accordingly, His teaching abounded with allu- sions to the Old Testament. He often quoted its words as expressive of His own feelings. He died with them on His lips. It would indeed be strange if the petitions in a form solemnly given as being specially in accordance with the Divine will, had no parallel whatever in the thoughts and devotions of the Old Testament Church. Thus, although the charac- ter of God as Father was not prominent, yet it was known. ' Doubtless Thou art our Father,' etc., Isa. Ixiii. 1 6; 'If then I be a Father, where is mine honour .'^ saith the Lord of hosts.' Mai. i. 6. The hallowing of the name was commanded through Moses : ' Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ;' illustrated by David : ' From the rising of the sun to the Sfoinof down of the same, the Lord's name is to be praised,' Ps. cxiii. 3 ; and guaranteed by Jehovah : *I will sanctify my great name.' Ezek. xxxvi. 23. * Tholuck, Sermon on the Mount. ^ Notes on Greek Testament. ITS AUTHORSHIP. 3 1 The kingdom was portrayed and prayed for in Ps. Ixxii., and predicted by Daniel. The doing the will of God was the subject of frequent petitions : ' Teach me to do Thy will ; ' ' Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies.' Agur prayed : * Feed me with food convenient for me.' Prov. xxx. 8. Forgiveness was assured when the Lord passed by before Moses, and proclaimed : ' The Lord God, merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity.' Ex. xxxiv. 5, 6. And for it the Israelites were encouraged to pray by Isaiah and all the prophets : ' Let the wicked return unto the Lord, and He will abundantly pardon.' Isa. Iv. 7. To be delivered from temptation and saved from evil was the burden of many of David's prayers : ' Oh, let me not wander from Thy commandments. Remove from me the way of lying. Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity. Let not any iniquity have dominion over me.' Ps. cxix. And this was answered by the Divine promise : ' The Lord will preserve thee from all evil. He will preserve thy soul.' Ps. cxxi. 7. There was no need therefore for our Lord to search the writings of Jewish Rabbis in order to compile this formulary. Its truths were already revealed by His own Spirit through the prophets. What He did was to gather into a focus the scattered rays ; to bring out into clearer light what had been indistinctly seen ; to give prominence to what had been in the background ; to arrange in progressive order what had hitherto existed in disjointed frag- ments. It is this combination, this concentration of 32 THE LORD S PRAYER. SO much into a space so small, this taking up of gems which had lain about amid the general stores of the Church, and setting them all together in this circlet of purest gold ; it is not only what is included but what is omitted ; it is not the separate petitions, in- valuable as they are, but their combination in a prayer unrivalled not only for its substance, but for * the full brevity, the deep plainness, the comely sim- plicity of expression ;'^ — it is all this which constitutes its superiority to all mere human utterances of devo- tion. ' The Lord's Prayer, for a succession of solemn thoughts, for fixing the attention upon a few great points, for suitableness to every condition, for suffici- ency, for conciseness without obscurity, for the weight and real importance of its petitions, is without an equal or a rival : ' "" these features entitle it to be called ' The Lord's Prayer.' 2. The General Scope. As the Ten Commandments are a summary of our duties, so the Lord's Prayer is a summary of what ought to be our desires. Both relate first to God, and then to man. The Decalogue begins with duties we owe to God, and passes on to those we owe to one another. The prayer begins with desires for God, and ends with desires for ourselves. The first four commands, to have no other God, to worship no image, to reverence the Name, and to observe the Sabbath of God, corre- spond with the prayers that His name may be hallowed, His kingdom come, and His will be done. ^ Isaac Barrow. ^ Paley. THE GENERAL SCOPE. 33 The next command and the next petition may be regarded as transitional in order. The claims of God are illustrated in those of parents ; and our duties to parents have their origin and highest Illustration in the honour we owe to God. The Command to honour earthly parents suggests the title of God in the Prayer, reminding us both of duty and privilege. The parental relation is Divine, and involves mutual functions ; and the bread we ask is the gift of God in heaven for His children's wants on earth. Thus both in the Code and the Prayer we are here brought down to the human level. The rest of the commandments forbid the sins to which our lusts expose us. The rest of the petitions seek deliverance from the evils into which sin brings us. We ask God first for His own good things, and then for deliverance from our own evil things. And as the Decalogue is prefaced by a statement of His claims on the obedience of the Israelites as their Deliverer from Egypt, so the Prayer is prefaced by the comprehensive plea of the invocation : ' Our Father which art in heaven.' Ex. XX. 1-17. It might be expected that there would be resem- blances between the Prayer, and the Beatitudes which had just been pronounced. The Prayer teaches that God is our Father, and the Beatitude declares that ' peacemakers shall be called the children of God.' His name is hallowed by the humble and 'meek.' The privileges of the kingdom belong to ' the poor in spirit ; ' for even now, ' theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' The will of God is done only by * the pure in heart.' The prayer for daily bread has a spiritual 34 THE LORDS PRAYER. as well as physical application, and they realize it who ' hunger and thirst after righteousness.' Sorrowing for sin, we pray that our trespasses may be forgiven, and are assured that ' Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.' We profess that we who ask forgiveness, practise it towards others, and we are taught that * Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' We ask to be delivered from, temptation and all evil, and are assured that, even though persecuted for righteousness' sake, we shall not only be preserved from harm, but that ' great shall be our reward in heaven.' Matt. v. 1-12. Some have found In the first three petitions, an illustration of the Holy Trinity. We pray that the Name of the Father may be hallowed ; that the Kingdom, administered by the Son, may come ; and that such obedience as is rendered in heaven, and can only result from the influence of the Holy Spirit, may be rendered on earth. The prayer Is not formally in the name of Jesus. He had not yet fully developed His mediatorial character and work. Subsequently, on the eve of offering Himself as the sacrifice for sin. He distinctly taught His disciples to pray in His name. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father In my name. He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name : ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.' John xvi. 23, 24. It Is not only in accordance with His teaching that we should thus come before God, but it would be difficult for any one who loved Him as Saviour, to omit His name in any prayer to the THE GENERAL SCOPE. 35 Father. Yet much more than the mere use of the word is required if we would pray in His name. We must come to God relying on His mediation, asking what He has taught us to desire, seeking His glory, and to be aided by His Spirit, else the formula alone will not fulfil the condition. Thus the Apostles prayed. Some of their petitions were offered directly to Christ. See Acts vii. 59, 60, ix. 13, 14, xxii. 18- 21 ; I Cor. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9 ; Rev. xxii. 20. Other prayers, without the formula at their close, contained the name of Christ, expressing reliance, homage, ser- vice, adoration. Prayer and praise to God, as ' the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,* was offered in this name. See 2 Cor. i. 3, ii. 14; Eph. i. 17; Phil, i. 9-1 1 ; Col. i. 9-20; I Thess. i. 2, 3, iii. 11-13; 2 Thess. iii. 5; Heb. iv. 14-16, xiii. 20, 21, etc. That this method of appealing to God was uniform and constant, we may gather from the words of St. Paul : * Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.' Eph. ii. 18. From these examples it is evident, that it is not so much the mention of Christ at the end of the prayer, as the breathing through the whole of it of faith and love towards Christ, which constitutes praying in His name. It is this reliance on Him while we pray, and this blending of our will with His in our petitions, which, without the customary clause, render a prayer more truly Christian than any number of repetitions of the mere name in the absence of this spirit. And therefore this prayer, because taught by Himself, as the very essence of what we should ask for, is eminently a prayer in His name, when, without the o 6 THE lord's prayer. formula, we offer It in obedience to His teaching, and relying on His mediation. Although our Lord, In giving this prayer, neither forbade nor commanded forms of devotion in general, nor confined His disciples to this In particular, we may regard it as a complete summary of all lawful petitions. ' After this manner ' means. If not by this very form, yet in this spirit, and for these benefits. Adoration of every kind, prayer for the Divine glory, for the spread of truth, holiness, and happiness, and for help to do and suffer the will of God, are embraced in the first portion of It. Supplication for every real necessity of our nature, the satisfaction of every pure Instinct, bodily, mental, social. Is involved In asking for daily bread ; the confession of all sin, and the plea for all pardon, are in the prayer * Forgive ; ' grace to bear with and to forgive others. In the condition annexed ; succour in all temptations, trials, sorrows, and final deliverance from every form of evil. In the closing petitions. Whatever It Is lawful to pray for is embodied here ; and therefore at all times, and under all circumstances, all mankind may pray * after this manner.' The Lord's Prayer Is thus a centre of Christian unity. They who use liturgies never omit this. They who repudiate the pre -composed prayer of men, with few exceptions avail themselves of this prayer of the Lord Jesus. Whatever the difference of Church government, whatever the variation of creed, all blend their voices harmoniously here. Surely they must be really united, however seem- ingly divided, who from the heart send up to heaven THE GENERAL SCOPE, 37 such requests. In the words of the Dean of Llandaff, * They who can pray together the Lord's Prayer in spirit and in truth, must be substantially one. The Church of all space and of all time meets and is one in the Master's prayer.' ^ Thus is the Lord's Prayer a Divine bond of brotherhood for ail who use it. It is a fulfilment of the condition joined to the promise, * If two of you agree as touching anything ye shall ask, it shall be given.' It may be urged with full confidence, inas- much as we are assured, ' If we ask anything accord- ing to His will, He heareth us;' and the prayer He Himself taught must be according to His will, when offered in the true spirit of it. We may be sure that His intercession in heaven blends with our prayers on earth, when we pray ' after this manner.' It is a prayer capable of ever varied amplification. We may crowd a volume into each clause. We may, in protracted supplication, 'continue all night in prayer to God,' and yet keep within its limits and be guilty of no vain repetitions. It is suitable for seasons of safety and peril, joy and sorrow, health and sickness, festival and funeral. We may offer it amid the activities of life, and when drawing near to the gates of death. It is suited to all ages and all minds. There are depths in it which the most thoughtful intellect cannot fathom, and shallows where little children may lave their feet : heights which the strongest climber cannot scale, and valleys where the weak and wounded may rest and be refreshed. It was given for the Church universal, 1 C. J. Vaughan, D.D. 3o THE LORDS PRAYER. in every stage of development, both as a whole and in each member. The new-born child of God may acceptably present it, though he only understands as a child ; the matured believer finds increasing help in it as he puts away childish things. What the poet so beautifully says of prayer in its various utterances, may be said of this one particular prayer, this one and the same utterance, according to the different thoughts and emotions of those who offer it : ' Prayer is the simplest form of speech, That infant lips can try ; Prayer the sublimest strains that reach The Majesty on high.'^ ^ Montgomery. CHAPTER II. THE INVOCATION. ' OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN.' I. — The Divine Fatherhood. WE look back with loving remembrance to our first conscious acts of prayer. We think of the kind father who told us of our other Father above the blue sky : or we recall the time when we knelt at our mother's knee, and felt her soft hand hold ours, as she taught our child-lips to say, ' Our Father which art in heaven.' So, when the Church was in its infancy, the Saviour, acting towards His disciples as to ' one whom his mother comforteth,' taught that infant Church to pray. And now, in its maturity, that Church recalls the early lesson, and treasures those sweet words, and with no epithet so loves to approach God as with this : * Our Father which art in heaven.' He is a Spirit, invisible, infinite. No one hath seen or can see God. Yet we may in some measure know Him by His works. ' The invisible things of Him are clearly seen by the things that are made ; even His eternal power and Godhead.' Rom. i. 20. But the heart yearns for more knowledge of God than these things can give. In our own nature there are emotions as well as thoughts. Our relationships 40 THE LORDS PRAYER. and the Instincts connected with them are more to us than what we possess or can do. Of these instincts none are stronger than the parental. Children know the treasure of a father's, a mother's tender affection ; and the happiness of trustfully confiding to them every sorrow or desire. And parents know how musical to them is the voice of the loving child, and how great is their delight to listen and to help. Can such feelings be shared by Deity ? Not if He be a mere abstraction, a principle, a force, a formula : or if, being a Person, He is only calm thought and inexorable will. But why may I not regard Him as Father, If He is known by His works ? The noblest of these works within our knowledcre is man : and we are taught that He made man in His own image. Therefore in man's intellect, conscience, and will ; in his benevolence, pity, and affection ; in all that we most admire in human nature we may surely trace the Creator as much as In the flowers of the field and the stars of heaven. But these parental affections are insepar- able from humanity, and are the most worthy its V"^ Divine original. If man is made in the Divine image, these must exist in the model. We may then Infer a real, substantial resemblance In the Divine nature to this fatherliness in human nature ; the faultless ideal of the copy which, though sin has defaced it, Is yet so beautiful. We are not left to speculation. He has Himself come to earth to make His nature known, in the person of the man Christ Jesus. Not In the form THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD, 4 1 of some grand archangel, but In human nature, He has revealed His heart to men. What other form could be so appropriate if man himself was made after the imaee of God — an imagre existing therefore from eternity ? What if God did not only adopt our nature, but also manifest to men the Eternal Type from which man was originally moulded ; so that Christ was the very Image of God, because perfect man ? And now, God 'manifest in the flesh,' He who could say, * He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,' is asked by men how they may best approach God, by what title address Him, by what name know Him, what relationship claim with Him. And God, incarnate in the man, speaking to men, some of whom felt the tenderness of parental love, all of whom knew the trustful love of children, replied : 'When ye pray, say. Father' ! Not * Great Creator,' * Majestic Ruler,' * Omniscient Judge.' He is all these. But the idea of Him we are habitually to cherish, the title we are chiefly to use. Is one which assures us that our prayer will certainly be heard, for God Himself teaches us to call Him ' Father.' Some say it is only a figure of speech. They may give it a grand name, and call it an anthropo- morphism. But suppose, in using a term adapted to our nature, God employs the exact term adapted to the model on which that nature was framed ; so that, instead of borrowing from human paternity, human paternity is only an imperfect copy of His own ? How they err who deem they exalt the Divine 42 THE LORD S PRAYER. Majesty by depriving it of such emotions as this term suggests ; * who would make heaven clear by making it cold, and would assert the dignity of the Divine Essence by emptying it of its love, and reducino^ it into nothin2:ness.' ^ Figures of speech are not facts, but may mean much more. Earth's facts must be infinitely inferior to heaven's glories, yet may help us to conceive of them. A figure used by God is not a fiction, but a gracious method to assist our infant powers to attain some faint idea of what exceeds all power of language fully to explain. He who made the father's heart, and knows what is in man, adopts the title ' Father,' and bids us so think of and address Him. Indistinctly seen by Old Testament saints, this truth, which is life and immortality, was brought into clearer light by the gospel. The title * Father,' feebly felt, was seldom uttered by the lips of worshippers who adored the great, the terrible, the Almighty God, the infinite ' I AM.' Now we know that amono-st all other titles there is none so dear to Himself, none He so loves to hear from His children, as this. Thus approaching, we recognize His power without trembling at it, and adore His holiness without shrinking from it ; we can exult in all His perfections as children who share in His honour, and while bowing before Him with reverence may rejoice with confidence. Atheism says there is nothing but what we perceive by our senses ; and that all things are the result of law that has no author, and forces that ^ F. D. Maurice. THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 43 have no originator ! Pantheism, with a web of words, would entangle God in His works, and blend the soul itself with Deity. Paganism, admitting personality, represents Him, one or multiform, as a Being whom it is necessary to placate by offerings, and whom we must approach with dread. But the soul, divinely taught, rejoices to recognize in the Creator and Ruler of the Universe a personal God who is not wrath, but love, and who bids us approach Him with child-like confidence as we say, * Our Father which art In heaven.' Agnosticism has searched the universe and has found many things, but cannot discover God. It says, if such a Being exists, He hides Himself from most diligent search of geologist, chemist, and astronomer. He is not to be found in the depths below, nor the heights above, nor among the living things on the earth. If existent. He is unknown and unknowable. How blessed they who are as certain He is their Father as they are >^^, that He exists; who by faith see His face, hear His voice, feel His hand, and respond to His love; who have daily intercourse with Him ; and ever coming forth anew from such communion are more sure of His Being than they are of that of any earthly friend ! He is not to them an * Unknown God;' He is their Father. The little child, shrinking timidly from every stranger, flies to its father's open arms. He may be gigantic in form and solemn in feature ; and as he returns from field of toil or scene of strife, may be to strangers an object of fear ; but his own little one, as his step is heard on the threshold, runs to clasp his 44 THE LORDS PRAYER. knee and be folded in his arms. And so the mighty God, before whom angels veil their faces, encourages us to run and meet His advance, to appeal to Him, to trust Him, to love Him as * Father.' n. — The Fatherhood of God by Creation. To Him we owe our existence. Our earthly parents are only links in the chain of dependent causation ; but He who made all things is God. Whatever the methods of formation in the material universe, whether by a separate fiat creating each distinct species in its full maturity, or whether by slow process of evolution from lower forms, a Primal Originator there must be, adequate in power and wisdom to form a universe replete with evidences of strength and design, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. In all things we trace ' The unambiguous footsteps of the God Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds. Nature is but a name for an effect, Whose cause is God. . . . Not a flower But shows some touch in freckle, streak, or stain, Of His unrivalled pencil.' ^ Strange, that In an age of scientific discovery there should be any who fail to recognize the Maker and Designer of works which, the better they are known, inspire the more admiration in the beholders. Lord Bacon said he would rather believe all the fables of the Talmud or Koran, than that this universal frame of nature was without a God. ^ Cowper, The Task. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD BY CREATION. 45 Of all the evidences of a wise Creator none are more impressive than those nearest to us — in man himself. Every advance in anatomical and physio- logical science only demonstrates more clearly that we are ' fearfully and wonderfully made.' Any single organ should suffice for proof: the hand so fitted for multiform service, the feet for walking, the ear for hearing, the eye for seeing; the marvellous mechanism within — for breathing, nutrition, and all other functions necessary for life, the adaptation of these to each other ; the intellectual and moral nature in harmony with the physical ; and all in harmony with the external world ; — these so distinctly speak of their Divine Original, that even heathen writers, such as the poet quoted by St. Paul, confessed, ' We are also His offspring.' Acts xvii. 28. I see a portrait and admire the outline, the colour- ing, the mind and character revealed, the expressive eye, the meaning in the mouth. I contemplate a statue, so perfect in its representation of the human form, that the marble seems to breathe. Should any beholder suggest that no painter had drawn skilful brush across that canvas, that no sculptor, with cunning chisel, had shaped that marble, but that both picture and statue had come Into existence without any personal agency or exercise of thought, such a critic would be regarded either as joking or as insane. And can I look on the human artist who produced those works, possessing the life of which those pro- ductions only wear the semblance, and refuse to recognize In him the handiwork of the Divine Artist, the Father of men ? 46 THE lord's prayer. III. — The Fatherhood of God by Redemption. Although, as Creator, God is the Father of all men, yet, as ' all men have sinned,' they have forfeited the higher privileges of sonship, our restoration to which was the object of the mission of Christ. * The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.' The nature of His mediation it is not the purpose of these pages to discuss; but the result is stated by the Evangelist : * As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name :' John i. 12 : and by St. Paul : ' God sent forth His Son, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son.' Gal. iv. 4-7. Sonship is here restricted to believers in Christ. They obtain remission of guilt through His atone- ment, and renewal of nature by His Spirit. The sentence of banishment is annulled, and their unfit- ness for dwelling in God, as their Home, is removed by regenerating and sanctifying grace. All others remain under condemnation, and are in a state of alienation from God. This distinction is plainly set forth by Christ and His Apostles. To the Jews who rejected Him, but boasted, 'We have one Father, even God,' He replied, ' If God were your Father, ye would love me : ye are of your father the devil.' John viii. 41, 44. In the parable of the sower, ' The good seed are the children of the kingdom ; but the tares are the children of the wicked one.' Matt. xiii. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD BY REDEMPTION. 47 38. St. Paul distinguishes between those who being ' in the flesh cannot please God,' and those who ' are in Christ Jesus.' These alone in the highest sense can call God Father. ' For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.' Rom. viii. 14. They alone receive 'the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.' The children of God are described as having been * dead in trespasses and sins,' and therefore not children of God, prior to their being ' quickened,' but ' the children of wrath, even as others.' Eph. ii. 1-3. And the distinction is again clearly drawn by St. John : ' Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God ! Who- soever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for His seed remaineth in him. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.' I John iii. i, 9, 10. It was only to disciples Jesus said : ' I ascend to my Father and your Father.' John XX. 17. If then all men are children of God, they cannot be so in the same sense. Between them there exists the difference of light from darkness, of life from death. It cannot therefore be scriptural to speak of the unregenerate as needing only to see and recognize a relationship already existing. They are in a state of death, and need to be ' quickened ' before they can truly say, ' Abba, Father.' Our Lord declared with solemn emphasis, ' Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- dom of God.' John iii. 3. Without this new birth he cannot therefore be a child of God. ' For ye are 48 THE lord's prayer. all the children of God by faith in the Lord Jesus.' Gal. iii. 26. The 'all' is here limited to the posses- sion of faith. In the absence of conversion, repent- ance, forgiveness, filial obedience, there is no evidence that any one belongs to ' the children of God ' rather than to ' the children of the devil.' No one should be buoyed up with the false hope of being saved by virtue of relationship to the Father, while discarding His love and violating His laws. May we not then appeal to sinners In any sense as His children, or encourage them to call Him Father ? Yes ; even as the prodigal, who, far from home and feedinof on the husks of his own wickedness, still claimed the relationship, saying : * I will arise and go to my father! He knew that his father loved him still, and he hoped to be received back as a servant, if not as a son. But he would not obtain the allow- ance of even one of his father's ' servants ' if he re- mained away in guilty rebellion against him. So long he must expect nothing better than swine for com- pany and husks for food. There is a vital difference between the dutiful child at home and the rebellious profligate in self-chosen exile, although both may have one father. God's children by creation become living children only by grace. ' This my son was dead, and is alive ao-aln ; he was lost, and is found.' Luke xv. 24. Sinners are ' lost ' until they return to God : they are ' dead ' until by believing in Christ they live anew. God is still their Father, inasmuch as He created them, has provided a way for their return, and invites them home. ' Return, ye backsliding children, saith BLESSINGS INVOLVED IN THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 49 the Lord.' Sinners may be appealed to as having in God a Father who has not ceased to care for them, and who, if they return, will see them when far off, and welcome them home ; so that none are excluded from the privilege of thus addressing the Most High : ' Our Father which art in heaven.' IV. — The Blessings involved in the Divine Fatherhood. I. Love. This is all - comprehensive. From the fatherly heart of Deity, as from a fountain, all benefits flow to men. That ' God is Love ' is a erand revelation : that God is 'Father' is grander still. This comes nearer home to the human heart, and should not fail of being understood. For, as already shown, it is not a mere figure of speech, but a great reality, having more beneath it and not less than our loftiest concep- tions can picture, and our strongest yearnings crave. Earthly parents, the tenderest and best, do not fully realize the Divine ideal of fatherhood, and therefore our highest conceptions, based on human experience, inadequately represent what God is to His children. How qreat then is the encourao-ement eiven us to pray when we address God as Father ! All pleas are blended in this one opening word. A Father ! Earthly parents love their children before those children love them : they love those children in spite of very inaccurate knowledge on the children's part, very feeble affection and imperfect obedience, in spite of undutifulness and even rebellion ; D 50 THE LORD S PRAYER. they love them unselfishly, hoping for nothing but the response of love, their delight in any act of service rendered by those children arising from the love that prompts it. And so our Father loves us with all the love the word can suggest, and is able to do for us all that such love desires to do. We are encouraged by fatherly love to expect 2. Sustenance. An earthly parent provides for the child, which, at least in its early life, would otherwise perish. So our Father in heaven cares for us. 'No good thing will He withhold.' He who made us is well acquainted with our necessities : ' He knoweth our frame.' We are not left to ourselves, or treated as if we could do without the necessaries of existence. * Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.' Matt. vi. 32. He feeds the fowls of the air; much more will He feed and clothe the children of His grace. Only during childhood do we absolutely depend on an earthly parent : but we never cease to need, and shall never cease to experience, our heavenly Father's care. In the person of Jesus He appealed to the heart of earthly fathers. Matt. vii. 7-1 1. Though degenerate and selfish, yet they give their children the good things needed. How much more will God, the perfectly righteous and loving Father, act in accordance with His name, and supply His children's wants ! If He gives the greater gift of His Spirit, whereby we say ' Father,' He will not deny those lesser gifts required for the body in which that Spirit dwells. Rom. viii. 15-32. BLESSINGS INVOLVED IN THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 5 1 3. Protection. An earthly parent is the guardian of the child, employing alt his strength and resources, if need be, to protect it from harm. So the eye of God is on every child of His. His omniscience keeps watch, His omnipotence shelters, His providence directs. * The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlastinor arms.' * God is our refuge and strength; therefore will not we fear;' for this refuge is ' Our Father.' 4. Education. No wise father neglects the drawing forth, the educing of the bodily and mental faculties of his child. He will never allow mere fondness and petting, the pleasure of the hour, to supersede the training which is needed to fit for the long future of life. The earthly author of that life is bound to develop it. So our heavenly Father trains His children for His service here and His glory hereafter. He instructs them by His word and by His Spirit, and exercises them in all godliness. Many a difficult lesson must be learnt, many a hard task performed. Like children at school, we sometimes question the utility of the lesson, and murmur at the difficulty of the task. Very much that a father insists on in the education of his child, can be understood and appreciated only in its relation to the enlarging capacity of the child for the work of manhood. And so with our Father in heaven, who is not merely interested in our present comfort, but seeks our permanent wellbeing. He is training us for immortality. 52 THE LORDS PRAYER. / * The ills we see, The mysteries of sorrow, deep and long, The dark enigmas of permitted wrong, Have all one key; This strange sad world is but our Father's school, All chance and change His love shall grandly overrule. ' How sv/eet to know The trials which we cannot comprehend Have each their own divinely purposed end : He traineth so For higher learning, ever onward reaching For fuller knowledge yet, and His own deeper teaching. ' What though to-day Thou canst not trace at all the hidden reason For His strange dealings through the trial season, Trust and obey. '■' In after life and light all shall be plain and clear.' ^ Such education, as the poetess so sweetly sings, must involve 5. Discipline. This no wise parent neglects. Greater injury cannot be done to a child than to spare reproof and correction when needed. Of course it is painful to the parent, more so than to the child ; but it would be unkind clemency and pernicious selfishness to withhold it. A child without discipline grows up to be a misery to itself and a plague to others. So our heavenly Father will suffer no child of His to perish through neglect, on His part, of needful chastisement. ' Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. God dealeth with you as with sons ; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ?' Heb. xii. 6, 7. If even the * Captain of Salvation ' was * made perfect through suffering,' much more is it necessary for God, ' in bringing many sons unto glory,' to ^ F. R. Havergal. BLESSINGS INVOLVED IN THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 53 appoint for them the ' tribulation that worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.' Of sorrows which He sends we may be assured that they are among the ' all things ' that ' work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose ;' because He who ordains them is ' Our Father.' Heb. ii. 10; Rom. V. 3, 4, viii. 28. ' A Father, whose authority, in show When most severe, and mustering all its force, Was but the graver countenance of love : Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, may lower. And utter now and then an awful voice, But has a blessing in its darkest frown. Threatening at once, and nourishing the plant.' '■ 6. Consolation. This idea is bound up in the very words Father, Mother. How tender our memories of the time when we buried our childish griefs in their embrace ! What earthly comforter can be compared to a mother ? Bearing her little one in her bosom, shielding it from the cold, supplying its wants from her own life-stream, soothing its griefs by her tender caresses and the gentle murmur of her voice, 'dandling it on her knees' (as the divinely- directed prophet graphically depicts) ; then, when grown older, entering into all its childish griefs and troubles, not despising them because trifles to her, but patiently listening and earnestly consoling, because to that little one those troubles are real and ereat : after- wards, when the child has become the man, so making his sorrows her own that the heart, locked ^ Cowper, TJie Task. 54 THE LORDS PRAYER. up perhaps to all besides, can unburden itself on that bosom where in infancy it first found solace : never wearied by the long enumeration of woes, and by what to others would be the tedious repetition of the same sad tale ; cheerfully sharing the trouble even when there may be little hope of lightening it ; never treating it with levity or indifference ; advising, but at such a time never rebuking ; and even when that child may have been the cause of her bitterest grief — when his troubles have come on him by his own folly or wickedness — when he has forsaken his childhood's home, and scorned the love of his parents, yet, when he comes to her with a heart bursting with anguish, forgetting all his faults in the contemplation of his sorrows, and with undiminished tenderness, folding him to her breast, wiping his tears, palliating his errors, pleading his cause — O how a mother comforteth ! ^ And God who inspired that maternal tenderness, and who gave the father's heart its pity, says : ' Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him ; ' and, * As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.' How fully assured may we be that the compassion of any earthly parent is surpassed by His who says: 'Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee.' Isa. xlix. 15. All this, and much more than this, was revealed by Him who, as the Word, came to express in His spirit and conduct as man, the tender ^ Newman Hall, Antidote to Fear. BLESSINGS INVOLVED IN THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 55 compassion of * the God of all consolation,' whom we address as * Our Father.' 7. Intercourse. A father does not treat his children as strangers or visitors ; but is on terms of loving familiarity with them. They are not kept at a distance, as courtiers by a stately monarch, but are ' at home ' with him. Even so, we may draw near to God ; not merely on stated occasions of solemn wor- ship ; but in the retirement of our chamber, and also amidst the varied cares and toils, the sorrows and joys of daily life. Not only may we bring to Him our greatest necessities and bitterest griefs, but may pour out to Him as children to an earthly parent, all our little cares, purposes, hopes and fears, and know He loves to listen. 8. Inheritance. A father wishes to lay up In store for his children's use when he shall himself be no longer with them. This may be carried to excess, so as to encourage in the child neglect of all self-exertion. Many a rich heir has been ruined in character by excess of wealth for which he did not work. And at the best, the inheritance bequeathed by earthly parents lasts but for a little while, and must in turn be left to others. But God provides for His children 'an Inheritance Incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away ' — wealth which we could never secure by our own exertions ; yet the hope of which stimulates to all holy Industry, and makes us rich Indeed. If we are 56 THE lord's prayer. ' children, then heirs ; heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ' Thus are we assured of needful parental provision, protection, education, discipline, consola- tion, intercourse and inheritance, by this first word, ' Father.' V. — Universal Brotherpiood in the Divine Fatherhood. — ' Our.' As the word ' Father ' indicates our relationship to God, the word ' Our ' indicates the relationship that binds us together as members of His family. We must first, as individuals, learn to say, ' My Father.' Many use the word 'Our' thoughtlessly, forgetting that it implies the individual acceptance of God in this relationship. It is easy to say, * We are all sinners ; ' but it is difficult to confess, with no attempt to lessen our guilt by sharing it, ' I, myself, am a sinner.' And so it is comparatively easy to recognize a general fatherhood in God, without yielding the heart in solemn surrender as an individual, saying, 'My Father.' The Father appeals to us severally — ' My son, give me thy heart. Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, " My Father, Thou art the guide of my youth " ? ' And so the prodigal said, ' I will arise and go to my Father.' Thus all sinners must return one by one. Thus every believer makes his personal confession and yields his personal allegiance : ' O God, Thou art my God ; ' and with adoring faith exclaims, * My Lord and my God.' So our Lord teaches in this very discourse. ' Thou, when thou UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD IN DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 57 prayest, enter into thy closet, and pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.' Matt. vi. 6. It is the truth embodied in 'Our' which, in my first approaches to Him in prayer, encourages me to say ' My.' For how do I know God is willing to be Father to me, except because He is Father to all besides ? What special qualification do I possess, what merit, what Divine call, what internal assurance, that emboldens me thus to appeal ? I shall utterly despair if I am to establish such a special personal plea. If I could persuade myself of such peculiar right to-day, such persuasion, resulting from my own mind, might disappear with to-morrow's clouded sky. It is only as one amongst mankind that I can begin to call God 'my Father.' He has made. His Pro- vidence sustains us all. More than this ; He has revealed Himself in Christ as the Saviour of all. He ' so loved the world,' as to give His Son to save it. Because * whosoever believeth ' may cry, ' Father,' I so cry. Because Christ is the ' propitiation for the sins of the whole world,' I approach with confidence the throne of grace, I put in my claim simply as a human beino- and a sinner. Because God is ' Our Feather,' I claim Him as ' My Father.' And now, knowing Him as ' My Father,' I recog- nize with new emphasis my relationship to others with whom I shared the qualification, and now share the blessing. * If faith utters the word Father, love, without which faith cannot be, immediately associates it with our, that all its prayer may go into the quiet fellowship of supplication, and all its petitioning be 58 THE lord's prayer. intercession also.'^ We are thus taught human brother- hood, while appeahng to the Divine fatherhood. ' When thou prayest alone, shut thy door, says our Saviour here, shut out as much as thou canst the sight and notice of others, but shut not out the interest and good of others.' ^ In the very act of asking help from God for ourselves, we are reminded by the Author of the prayer, of the sympathy and succour we owe to one another. ' We are forbidden to ask blessings exclusively for ourselves. We cannot pray acceptably if we pray selfishly. We cannot truly call God * Father ' unless we cherish the spirit that would call every man * brother.' Besides special intercession for special persons and on special occasions, we are thus taught in every offering of this prayer, and In the very title of God which we are encouraged to prefix to all our petitions, to think of others. ' Christ says : Bear others upon your heart all through — pray for yourself and them In one — say, " Our Father," and prayer is intercession at once. Take your friend with you, take your pastor, take your Church, take your people, — yea, take your enemy too, and your slanderer — In recollec- tion and In Intention, and kneel with them, as one. In your own prayer and In your own confession. So, at the very spring and fountainhead of your life, you will have cast In the salubrious tree which shall make every Marah of your converse sweetness.'^ If thus we are reminded of the duty of praying for others, we are reminded of a corresponding privilege also ; we share In the prayers of our brethren. What ^ Stier. ^ Leighton. ^ Vaughan. UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD IN DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 59 a blessed community of goods ! This is indeed the ' Communion of saints.' All true prayers from filial hearts to * Our Father ' bring ourselves into the tide of their benedictions, and help to bear us onward to God. ' The most private prayer of the godly Is a public good. Every believer has a share in all the prayers of all the rest ; for he is a partner in every ship of that kind that sets to sea, and hath a portion of all their gainful voyages.' ^ How delightful is the realizing of this fellowship when the whole household — parents, children, ser- vants — gathered round the family altar, seek daily blessings from their Divine Head, and the voices of young and old blend as they invoke the common ' Father.' How impressive is it, when a ship's com- pany — officers, seamen, passengers — one family, alike dependent on the care of Him w^ho rides upon the storm, send up from the wide waste of waters this invocation — ' Our Father ' ! And what more impres- sive part of any service in any congregation, however imposing or however simple the ceremonial, than the blending of the accents of rich and poor, minister and people, in this first word ! This recognition of brotherhood should be extended beyond any one assembly, and should include all who invoke the one Father. The special interest we feel in ' Our Church,' or * Otir Congregation,' should not close our eyes from seeing, nor our hearts from embracing, those who, in other organizations, and with other forms, call upon ' Our Father.' Excluslveness in religion was long ago reproved by St. Paul : * While * Leighton. 6o THE lord's prayer. one salth, I am of Paul ; and another, I am of Apollos ; are ye not carnal ? Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, all are yours.' i Cor. iii. 4, 23. How often ' Our Creed hath devoured our Pater Noster, and Faith hath shut Charity out of doors ! ' ^ By whatever denominational term distinguished, all congregations of believers belong to each ; and each should regard as brethren 'all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.' i Cor, i. 2. Varieties of outward form, and of the expression of important truth, there must ever be ; but while holding our own convictions with loyalty to conscience, we should ever cultivate the spirit of brotherhood with all who invoke this Fatherhood. To narrow this brotherhood by artificial limits of human authority, of sectional jealousy, or personal antipathy ; to cut ourselves off from the sympathy and fellowship of any who, in the name of Christ and by the Holy Ghost, call God ' Father', is the schism against which St. Paul warns us, and which this prayer condemns. How different from the mind of Christ, who said, ' Whosoever doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.' ' There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism ; One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.' Eph. iv. 4-6. This brotherhood in 'Our Father' extends to the various conditions of social life. Rich and poor, ' Farindon. UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD IN DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 6 1 master and servant, prince and peasant, queen and cottager, unite in one and the same confession of a common Fatherhood. How this should abate pride, in the lofty, and envy in the low! How this should prompt us to ' bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ ' ! An ancient father eloquently says : ' This shows how far the equality reaches between the king and the poor man, if in things the greatest we all of us are fellows. No one hath aught more than another : neither the rich more than the poor : master than servant: ruler than subject : philo- sopher than barbarian : scholar than unlearned. For to all He hath given one nobility, having vouchsafed to be called Father of all alike.' ^ This is the only real equality, the true Christian Socialism ; not a bringing down of any, but a levelling up of all ; when all alike are lifted into the relationship of the sons of God. The writer can never forget the exclamation of a negro woman, amidst a congregation of recently emancipated slaves at Richmond, Virginia, to whom he had been preaching from the words, ' Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he Is exalted ' — ' When I feel de lub of God in my heart, I know I belong to de royal family of heaven.' This word ' Our ' embraces nations. * Have we not all one Father ? Hath not one God created us ? Why do we deal treacherously, every man against his brother ?' Mai. ii. lo. The limitation of the Divine Fatherhood by the Jews to the exclusion of the Gentiles, and the haughty disdain of the Greeks towards barbarians, were grandly rebuked by St. Paul ^ Chrysostom. 62 THE lord's prayer. on Mars Hill, when he told the Athenians that ' God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.' Acts xvii. 26. All nations ! coloured and white : Caffres and Zulus, Boers and Basutos, Hindoos and Chinamen, Indians and Negroes ; all are children of the one Father, and all are included in the command to each member of the one brotherhood : * All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' Matt. vii. 12. How would the recognition of this brotherhood influence the foreign policy of so-called Christian nations ! There is but one law for us as individuals and as members of communities. We do not cease to be under the law of Christ when our responsibility is shared in a committee, or a corporation, or a senate, or an executive government. Whatever we counsel to be done, should be under the influence of the fact, that it is done towards those who may equally with ourselves appeal to the one Father. As all the inhabitants of the globe, however different their longitude, are lighted by the same sun in the course of every twenty-four hours ; so, all men who use this prayer, though as regards nationality, station, culture, at the antipodes of each other, fix their eyes upon the same throne of grace, and invoke the same God as Our Father. What a bond to our otherwise dissevered humanity is this word 'Our'! It ignores conventional ex- clusiveness ; overleaps sectarian barriers ; disregards social distinctions ; knows nothing of crowns and coronets, titles and decorations; disdains the boun- THE MAJESTY OF THE FATHER. 63 daries of mountains and rivers ; sets at naught varieties of hue and language ; and sees only, springing from the one Fatherhood of God, the one Brother- hood of man. Thus the gospel, by drawing all men to the Father, draws all men to one another. VI. — The Majesty of the Father. — ' In Heaven.' * The Heidelberg Catechism replies to the question, Why is this added ? ''In order that there may not be anything earthly in our conception of the heavenly majesty of God." To make the pure, the silent, the changeless, the immeasurable ether, exalted as it is above all the pollution and troubles, the mutability and limitations of this earth, the dwelling-place of the Divine Being, belongs to those spontaneous symbols which have a foundation in the consciousness of all mankind.' ^ The visible universe is frequently laid under tribute by the sacred writers to furnish symbols of the invisible. The word ' heaven ' is therefore not to be explained in a merely literal sense, as if referring to some definite locality in the region above the earth to which Deity is confined as a dwelling-place. He who is a Spirit, everlasting and infinite, cannot be localized : He inhabiteth eternity. ' God is within all things, but is shut up in nothing ; outside all things, but excluded from nothing; beneath all things, but not depressed under anything ; above all things, but not lifted up out of the reach of anything.' ^ ' Do not ^ Tholuck. - Augustine. r 64 THE lord's prayer. I fill heaven and earth ? ' * Behold, the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain Thee.' i Kings vlil. 27. 'Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there : if I make my bed in Hades, behold. Thou art there.' Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8. This does not forbid us to conceive of some region where God is specially manifested. Christ has ascended from the earth, and His glorified body is beheld and worshipped by angels and saints. * The Lord was received up into heaven.' ' Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things.' ' Christ is entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.' Mark xvi. 19; Acts iii. 21 ; Heb. ix. 24. In heaven always, as once on earth, by Him the Father is revealed. ' He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.' The inhabitants of heaven 'see His face.' Consistent with the truth of His illimitableness, is the idea of some place of special manifestation of His presence. ' Hear Thou from heaven. Thy dwelling- place.' ' Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and of Thy glory.' 2 Chron. vi. 30; Isa. Ixiii. 15. But we sorely miss the purpose of these words if we dwell on ideas of mere space. As by the term denoting relation, so by this denoting locality, we are taught that God is not a vague abstrac- tion, or unknowable force, but an actual Personality, existing somewhere, distinct from ourselves. We look in thought beyond this earth, to the immeasurable regions above us. We soar beyond the clouds and THE MAJESTY OF THE FATHER. 65 the blue sky ; beyond the sun, the planets, and the stars ; and we believe that everywhere in that immensity is God our Father. His works we see, but He is not His works. We are His creatures, but we are not God. Between Him and ourselves there are personal and distinct relations. We are His creatures, He is our Creator; we His children. He our Father; we on earth, He in heaven. As Agnosticism would ignore God altogether, and Pantheism would confound Him with His works, Paganism would bring Him down from the bound- less heaven, and limit Him to this visible universe as the God of the sun, or the moon, or the ocean, or the dry land. This word teaches that while we address Him on earth. He is still in heaven. We need not despair of finding Him because throned above : we need not wish to bring Him to earth and detain Him here, in order at all times to approach Him. In the person of His Son He satisfied the yearnings of the race that God should visit man : but in the resurrec- tion and ascension we see Him no longer of the earth ; nor do we worship the Incarnate One any longer in the cave of the Nativity, nor on the cross of Calvary, but ' on the right hand of the Majesty on high.' Heb. i. 3. Thus we are taught to look out of and above ourselves for the help we need, even to the sublimest heights of Divine glory ; with- out despairing of succour on account of what seems to us the vast distance between heaven and earth, for though He is in heaven. He is our Father, and we, though on the earth, can hold filial intercourse with Him. E 66 THE lord's prayer. 1. The term is suggestive oi Dignity. The measureless expanse helps us to the concep- tion of infinity. The beauty of the blue ether; the radiant glory of the sun, the mild majesty of the moon, the varying splendours of the countless stars, — all impress the mind with sentiments of admiration and awe, in harmony with the attributes of Deity. His word by the prophet, * Heaven is my throne,' was confirmed by His Son, ' Swear not by heaven, for it is God's throne.' * Is not God in the height of heaven ? ' ' Thou hast set Thy glory above the heavens.' ' Canst thou by searching find out God ? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do ? ' * Our God is in the heavens,' and He is our Father. Isa. Ixvi. i ; Matt. v. 34; Job xxii. 12 ; Ps. viii. i ; Job xi. 7, 8. 2. Power. The resistless winds, the rolling clouds, the lightning's flash and thunder's peal, the revolution of such mighty masses as the heavenly bodies, on their axes and in their orbits, by forces so stupendous and which nothing can impede, suggest ideas of Omnipotence. * The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth His handy- work.' * He meted out heaven with the span.' 'By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens.' He bindeth the sweet influence of Pleiades, and looseth the bands of Orion ; He bringeth forth Mazzaroth in his season, and guideth Arcturus with his sons. Ps. xix. I ; Isa. xl. 12 ; Job xxvi. 13, xxxviii. 31, 32. Our Father is at the centre of the universe, on the seat of supreme dominion. He is above all circum- stances, and can control them ; He is stronger than THE MAJESTY OF THE FATHER. 6/ all the forces of nature, and can make them serve His fatherly will ; He is mightier than the enemies of His children ; His love as Father moves the arm of Omnipotence. Earthly parents often have the desire, but lack the ability to help their children. But our Father is in heaven, and therefore ' mighty to save ' ! 3. Knowledge. Standing on the surface of the earth, on a plain or in a valley, we see only a little way. But as we climb a tower or a mountain we extend our view. Still wider is our range of vision, if in a balloon we float through our lower heavens. So the idea of knowledge is suggested by the word 'heaven.' 'The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand.' Ps. xiv. 2. We are reminded that our Father, who is in heaven, sees and knows all things. He looks through the eternity past and the eternity future. He knows the end from the besfinnino-. From Him no secrets are hid. He knows the secret purposes, the passing thoughts, of all men. He knows all we are, all we do, all we need ; and we are therefore sure our Father can never be unmindful of one of His children, nor fail to listen to their cry, nor err in any of His dealings with them ; ' for God seeth under the whole heaven.' Job xxviii. 24. 4. Purity. The perfect clearness of the atmosphere above the region of the clouds is a fit emblem of the spotless purity of the character of God. ' He covereth Him- 68 THE lord's prayer. self with light as with a garment ; ' * dwelling in light which no man can approach unto.' ' God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all' Ps. civ. 2 ; I Tim. vi. 16 ; I John i. 5. No thought of evil can taint His nature. None of the moral imperfections which often deprive children of the help they need from earthly parents, can for a moment overshadow Him whom angels adore, saying, ' Holy, holy, holy!' 5. Mystery. The measureless expanse of the heavens, the number and motions of the stars, the phenomena of meteors and comets, the impossibility even now, with all the progress of science, of foretelling and explaining the varied influences which affect our lower atmosphere, producing calm or storm, sun- shine or rain ; these mysteries In the heavens suggest our ignorance in reference to much in the Divine government. Order pervades the physical universe notwithstanding the mystery ; and so we are sure that though 'clouds and darkness are round about' our Father, yet ' righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne.' Ps. xcvii. 2. * The ways of heaven are dark and intricate ; Our understanding traces them in vain. Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search. Nor sees with how much art the windings run, Nor where the regular confusion ends.' 1 6. Constancy. Whatever the mystery of the heavens, order and regularity are unceasingly conspicuous with every advance of astronomical science. There is no hurry- ^ Addison, Cato. THE MAJESTY OF THE FATHER. 69 ing and no delay. No efforts of man can interfere with the working of those forces, so sublime both in might and minuteness. And our Father is stedfast in His loving purposes. Earthly parents may be swayed by current opinions, the influence of others, their own caprice ; they may become impatient, self- indulgent, or weary of forgiving and assisting ; but our Father, because He is in heaven, like the un- changing stars, abideth ever. ' I the Lord change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.' Earthly parents die — but ' when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.' ' Our fathers, where are they ? ' — but ' the Lord liveth ; ' for He is our * Father in heaven.' 7. Nearness. However distant the utmost limit of the heavens, we are at their very threshold. Our littleness always touches the infinite that reaches beyond the stars. We feel its influences, we see its light. And this is the same in every part of the globe. And so we are taught that if God is in the heavens. He is always near to us, and we to Him, and all mankind to Him, and therefore to one another in Him; and so we again are reminded of our Brotherhood in the Fatherhood. Every tiny dewdrop sparkles with the sun's own light. In its smaller sphere it reflects the whole circle of the sky, and brings heaven down to earth : ' And the clear region where 'twas born, Round in itself encloses : And in its little globe's extent. Frames, as it can, its native element.' ^ ^ Andrew Marvell. 70 THE LORDS PRAYER. So each Individual soul may appropriate the blessings of this heavenly relationship, and shine in the light of Its native Home and Father, God. He is reflected In every filial heart. And as the dewdrop equally portrays the heavens, whether radiant from wayside hedge or castle-slope, so, wherever we may be and whatever our earthly station, we may shine in the light of God and rejoice In ' heaven begun below.' Vn. — Practical Lessons. The character of God as * Our Father ' should be responded to by corresponding qualities and conduct In His children. They should therefore cultivate I. Filial Confidence. We should trust Him as cherlshlnor towards us all the love which the word * Father ' can sueeest. We should absolutely rely on the representation He gives of Himself. Throughout the Bible names express qualities : they are descriptions, not mere designations. As 'Jehovah' means the Self-existent; and 'Jesus' means Saviour ; so * Father' is an assurance of what God actually is. He who cannot lie will prove Him- self to be all He thus expresses, more than all we can conceive. May we not therefore 'come with boldness to the throne of grace,' when He who sits there is ' Our Father' } We should believe that as 'Our Father' He must desire to give us all that is good for us, and that being 'In heaven,' He is able to embody in action all PRACTICAL LESSONS. 7 1 the yearnings of His fatherly heart. To those who can in faith say ' Father,' the Apostle says, * All things are yours.' 'What will not the Father give to sons seeking Him, who has already bestowed this — that they are His sons!'^ Never should we doubt the love that prompts, the power that executes, or the wisdom that directs. It is related of three little children, that durinor a thunderstorm they were asked each to choose a favourite text. One selected * The Lord of glory thundereth,' and being asked her reason, said, ' I once heard a great noise when I thought I was all alone in the house ; and I was so frightened, I screamed, and father's voice called out, Dont be afraid, little Margie, it's only father. And now when it thunders very loud, it always seems as if I heard God say, " Don't be afraid, little Margie, it's only Father;" and I don't feel a bit frightened.'^ With confidence a loving child tells everything to a loving parent. Nothing is kept back. If for a time there is any concealment, the secret is a burden till revealed. Joys and sorrows are alike poured forth to the listening ear of love. Does some un- expected pleasure present itself, the child says, ' I must tell father ! ' Does some danger threaten, is some pain felt or difficulty experienced, the ready instinct is at once to tell father. He will soothe the pain, protect from the peril, explain the difficulty, rejoice in the joy. ' God's children in all their troubles should run to their heavenly Father as that sick child (2 Kings iv. 19) who cried, " My head! my ^ Augustine. ^ Nettie's IiIissio?u 72 THE lord's prayer. head ! " So pour out thy complaints to God — " Father ! my heart ! my heart ! my dead heart — quicken it ! my hard heart — soften it in Christ's blood ! Father, my heart ! my heart ! " ' ^ So let us confide in God. Let our filial trust respond to His paternal love. O for more of the childlike intercourse which He invites ! O for more simplicity in prayer; more habitual, trustful, happy, all - embracing, nothing - withholding outpour of the heart as to ' Our Father' ! Let us not fear that such confidino- intercourse will ever be checked or reproved. If an earthly father loves such signs of filial affection. He who has given us the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ' Abba, Father,' will never be deaf to this appeal. There are times when it is the only word we are able to utter. When we cannot put our desires into speech, when we are unable to define to our own mind what we feel and want, and we can only say ' Father ! ' we utter a word He never fails to hear. There may be more real .prayer in that one word than in a whole liturgy. Let us utter it in the full assurance that He already says, 'My child!' No imperfection in method will nullify its efficacy. A loving earthly father will never refuse the letter that breathes affec- tion, because blotted or mis-spelt. ' What blottings are there in our holy things ! Yet our Father in Heaven accepts us. Saith God, "He is my child ; and he will do better.'"^ A prince might stand on ceremony and reject the petition incorrectly drawn up, but no child of God need fear that the imperfec- ^ Watson. PRACTICAL LESSONS. 73 tions of sincere appeals will ever hinder their entrance to the Father's heart. What words can adequately set forth the blessed- ness of those who can thus, in the spirit of chil- dren, call on God as their Father! However poor, they have a wealth beyond earth's arithmetic to reckon, who can look up from humblest hovel or stony pillow and say. My Father! However sick, theirs is a solace beyond all that medical skill, or tenderest nursing, or boundless stores can furnish. However unknown in the world, theirs is an honour no earthly prince could confer, in the lustre of which all the splendours of royalty pale. The glimpses sometimes gained within the magic region of earthly greatness, make us feel how paltry are the prizes some spend their lives and wear away their hearts to win, compared with the real nobility, the deep abiding peace of the humblest of those who can say, ' Our Father which art in Heaven.' Does my cup flow over with gladness ? I know who fills it : nor less when it is filled with woe. Amid the roaring of the winds and waves I hear Him say, ' My child,' and I respond and say, * My Father ; ' no less than when there is a great calm. His reproofs are blessings. His blows are boons. His withholdings are conferrings. He delays only to augment. He impoverishes to enrich. 2. Reverence. The word 'Father' brings us near Him; the word Tn Heaven' causes us to bow before Him with godly fear, *■ O come let us worship and bow down, let 74 THE LORDS PRAYER. US kneel before the Lord our Maker.' It would be monstrous to abuse His kindness in permitting this confidence of approach, by any forgetfulness of His majesty, by any irreverence of thought or demeanour. If we are encouraged to approach as children, we are at once admonished that we are also His subjects. * Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God : for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth.' Eccles. v. 2. The unfallen angels who need not say, ' Forgive us,' veil their faces with their wings as they stand before Him. Isa. vi. 2, 3. The Elders described in the Revelation 'fall down before Him that sitteth on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever.' Rev. iv. 10. Surely sinners on earth, though privileged to call Him ' Father,' should not be less reverential than glorified spirits. It is only the humble who can truly say ' Father.' They who are learning more and more of the meaning of this word, become increasingly humble thereby. It is only in such hearts that the voice of God is heard ; it is only in such children that the Father dwells. ' For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place ; with him also that is of a humble and contrite spirit.' Isa. Ivii. 15. How wonderful that God should have these two homes — ' Eternity ' and the ' Contrite Spirit'! 'The highest Heaven is the habitation of His glory : the humble heart hath the next honour: to be the habitation of His grace.' And this reverence is not in spite of the confidence, but is caused by it. Instead of saying, ' Notwithstand- PRACTICAL LESSONS. 75 ing our privileges,' we say, 'In co7isequence of them.' It is thus even with our fellow-men. The more intimate we become with some person of eminent wisdom and goodness, the more we find reason to respect as well as love him ; the more by nearness we are able to detect faults, we become the more impressed with the absence of them. In such a case, familiarity, instead of breeding contempt, increases reverence. It was said of Augustus Caesar that they who feared to address him did not know his goodness ; while they who presumed on his familiarity did not know his power. But it is the goodness itself, even more than the power, which often produces reverence. How emphatically true this is in the case of some earthly parents ! They are so compassionate, tender, pitiful ; so sympathetic ; they make such tender allowance for the weakness and ignorance and childishness of their children, that these have no hesitation in coming to them on all occasions, opening their inmost hearts, and rejoicing in the unconstrained interchange of affection : and this very closeness of intimacy and sweetness of love so reveals to them more and more the beauty of the character of those parents, that with the tenderest love there grows an ever-deepening reverence, so that whatever the endearing intimacies, any act of discourtesy, any omission of dutiful respect, would be almost an impossibility. So will it be with the children of God. To love and trust Him as Father helps us the more reverently to worship Him as God. When Our Lord encouraged Thomas to handle Him and see; to place his finger ^ 76 THE lord's prayer. on the print of the nails, and to thrust his hand into the wound in His side, this wonderful condescension on the part of Christ did not produce irreverence on the part of the servant, but called forth the adoring homage — ' My Lord, and my God.' The beloved disciple who was permitted to lean on the Saviour's breast at supper, was more than all the rest imbued with a sense of His Divine majesty, and left an enduringf record of the homao-e He receives in Heaven. St. Paul rejoiced in saying, ' Abba, Father,' but He said, ' I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom the whole family in earth and heaven is named.' 3. Gratitude. ' Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God ! ' Surely we should ' love Him, because He first loved us.' The reason why we should 'love the Lord our God with all our heart,' is this — He is 'Father;' and the reason why we should 'love our neighbours as ourselves,' is this — we may all say the same ' Our Father.' Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift! even Himself. What gratitude should be ours to Him who, having given Himself, will surely give us all things else ! Filial confidence and gratitude will prompt to obedience ; a subject which will be considered more appropriately under the petition, ' Thy will be done.' 4. Resemblance. A child often reminds us of its parents by its PRACTICAL LESSONS. 77 features, manner and tone of voice. So we should be * Followers (imitators) of God as dear children.' Much of a child's obedience is half-unconscious, because spontaneous. He naturally conforms to the wishes of the parent, the usages of the home. And the more we cultivate filial communion with our Heavenly Father, breathe the atmosphere of His Presence, and listen to His voice, the less shall we be alive to external and contrary influences ; the more we shall reflect His image, echo His words, think His thoughts, and, as children, become 'partakers of the Divine Nature.' 2 Pet. i. 4. We are taught that we must strive to be 'perfect, even as our Father who is in Heaven is perfect,' by imitating the broad beneficence of Him who ' maketh His sun to shine on the evil and on the eood.' We are to be peacemakers, and so obtain the fulfilment of the promise : ' They shall be called the children of God.' We should 'walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called.' We should, as children of a king, not degrade ourselves by stooping to anything unbecoming our high birth. Is our Father in Heaven } We should set our affections on things above. Does He dwell in ' the light that no man can approach unto'.'* Let us 'walk as children of light' From His lofty throne does He behold every child of His? Let us 'do always those things which are well-pleasing in His sight.' 5. Assurajice. These filial characteristics constitute the best, the only valid evidence of sharing the filial relationship. 78 THE lord's prayer. Confidence in God as our Father, loving reverence for Him, cheerful obedience to Him, admiring endea- vours to resemble Him, prove that we are His chil- dren. St. John said : ' Let no man deceive you : he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.' i John iii. 7. So we may say, ' He that feels and acts as a child of God, is a child of God, even as He is Father to such children.' It is often an anxious question, Have I the witness of the Spirit testifying to my adoption ? What is meant by * the witness of the Spirit ' ? St. Paul teaches : * The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.' Rom. viii. 16. This cannot be a mere persuasion of our own minds. It is fanaticism for persons to think all is right be- tween their souls and God, while their lives show that all is wrong. There are here two witnesses — the Holy Ghost and our own spirit, and these concur in their testimony. What do they witness ? That we are children of God. But the Spirit so witnessing is ' the Spirit of adoption.' ' For ye received not the Spirit of bondage, again unto fear ; but ye received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.' Rom, viii. 15, 16. Father! dear Father! the repetition of the name expressing tenderness of affection. Do we thus cry to God ? Do we in penitence say, ' I will go to my Father ' ? Do we in submission say, * My Father, Thy will be done ! ' ? Do we pour out our wants and woes to our Father, and is it our desire to do His will because He is our Father? If so, we do cry, 'Abba, Father;' 'dear Father ! ' This is our own spirit thus crying out ; PRACTICAL LESSONS. 79 but it is inspired by the Divine Spirit who is the Spirit of adoption, producing such a temper of mind. If therefore we do actually look up to God as His children, it is a proof that we have received the Spirit of adoption. Our own spirit, expressing sonship in its prayers and praises, responds to Him who is the Spirit of sonship, and who testifies within us that we are the children of God. He testifies not that we shall become so at some future period, but that we are so now. We need not wish to read our names written in the Lamb's book of life ; if ' Abba, Father,' is written on our hearts, that is the seal of the Spirit testifying that ' Now are we the sons of God,' because now, actually, we think of Him, and feel and act in reference to Him as to ' Our Father.' 6. Hope. This assurance of present sonship, arising from the consciousness of possessing the Spirit of sonship, awakens in us those hopes of the future which the sons of God may reasonably cherish. * If children, then heirs ; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ' Rom. viii. 17. Children naturally claim what is their father's. They speak without presumption of his property as their own : ' our garden,' * our carriage,' ' our house ; ' and if God is our Father, there is a sure sense in which all that is His, belongs to every child of His. Every one of them, however poor in this world, is thus possessor of the universe, and may apply to himself the words of the apostle, ' All things are yours.' 8o THE lord's prayer. I ' His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy / With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired. Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye. And smiling say, " My Father made them all ! " ' ' Therefore the heaven where his Father dwells, is his also. Jesus said: 'In my Father's house are many mansions ; I go to prepare a place for you : where I am, there ye shall be also.' John xiv. 2, 3. Let us keep this home in view as we journey towards it. Amid the toils and trials of the way, let us be en- couraged by thinking of the repose, safety, purity and joy of that heaven toward which its God, our Father, is guiding us. Jesus said : ' I go to my Father and your Father.' If He is ours, we also shall go to Him, and we are sure that 'in His presence there is fulness of joy, and at His right hand there are pleasures for evermore.' 7. Prayer fulness. In the new Law Courts recently opened by the Queen in London, there is a grand central hall out of which, all around, are entrances to the chambers where suits of various descriptions are tried. And so, having entered into the meaning of this appeal, ' Our Father who art in Heaven,' we are provided with free access in the presentation of every petition. To fix the mind on God as our Father, and in heaven, is the best remedy for wandering thoughts and depressing doubts. We may well pray that such a Name may be hallowed ; that the kingdom of such a Monarch may come ; that the will of such a Father may be done ; ' Cowper. PRACTICAL LESSONS. 8 1 we may with confidence ask daily bread, and forgive- ness, and succour in temptation, and deliverance from evil, at the hands of a God who has taught us to call Him ' Father.' ' This is the golden thread on which all the precious fruits are strung.' ^ This is the key to every door in the prayer. This is every- where a ladder up which our petitions may climb to the highest heaven. We can always scale the skies with this one word. These are but suggestions. This storehouse of lessons is inexhaustible. The whole prayer is con- densed in the first invocation and bears its name — the ' Our Father.' This is a word easily uttered, but never fully known. * The Pater- Noster is not, as some fancy, the easiest, the most natural of all devout utterances. It may be committed to memory quickly, but it is slowly learnt by heart.' ^ How deep its sig- nificance ! How it enfolds all the promises ! It is the very gospel itself; and means pardon, reconciliation, favour, holiness, blessedness, heaven ! What encouragement is here held out to every sinner! If God, being a Father, shows us in the light of His love how great our sin must be, His being a Father encourages us to repent and seek forgiveness. We have not to think about inducing Him to be kind and willing to receive us. He has not to be turned from being an angry Ruler into a gracious Father. He is this already. As such He is calling us home. Before we return as penitent children, He waits for us as forgiving Father. * Before ' Saphir. ^ Maurice. 82 THE lord's prayer. you call I will answer,' However far we have wan- dered, If only we desire to come back, ' Thus salth the Lord, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears.' Isa. xxxvIII. 5. ' Christ says, When ye pray — when ye first begin to pray — when the thought first comes to you, I am not happy, I am not at peace, I am far from home — say, at once, without waiting for fitness, without raising the question of a satisfactory repent- ance, without investigating your " evidences " whether of Christian faith or godly sorrow — begin by saying, " Father," begin by going straight home.' ^ Return by the one and only way, Christ Jesus. Plead the merits, the command, the promise of Him who, having taught this prayer, died for our sins, and rose, and ascended to ' make Intercession for the transgressors.' Do you find it difficult to return to the Father ? ' If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!' By Him the Spirit of Adoption Is given, and our response, ' Abba, Father,' brings us home. Do we seem to dwell in the black shadow of His displeasure ? It rests only on the region of alienation ; let us leave it, by returning to God, and we are at once in the sunshine. Do we dread the thunderbolt of justice ? let us come nearer to Him who holds it : He will cast it away, and hold out to us the golden sceptre of mercy. No soul of man desiring to live as a child of God need despair while this word 'Father' is inscribed on His throne. No love is so comprehensive, tender, enduring as His. ' Vaughan. PRACTICAL LESSONS. 83 He is in heaven, and 'as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him.' Ps. ciii. ii. ' There is no place where earth's sorrows Are so felt as up in Heaven : There is no place where earth's failings Have such kindly judgment given. Oh, if our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His word ; And our lives should be all sunshine, In the sweetness of our Lord.' ' Faber. CHAPTER III. THE FIRST PETITION. ' HALLOWED BE THY NAME.' I. — The Place of this Petition. AT first sight it seems strange that we commence our suppHcations with a prayer for God, the All- sufficient, instead of for ourselves, the all-dependent. It would be most natural to begin by asking for the supply of some of our most pressing needs. The re- quirement at once suggested to us as living creatures, needing supplies to maintain animal life, is food. The first prayer would thus be, ' Give us bread.' If more enlightened, and conscious that we have not merely an animal but a moral nature, we feel that we are sinners, needing pardon ; and, because such pardon for the soul is a more urgent need than bread for the body, our first petition would be, ' Forgive us our trespasses.' Yet in this model for prayer we are taught to defer all petitions for ourselves till we have prayed to God for Himself — * Hallowed be Thy Name.' This is totally opposed to mere human nature. Man's worship, apart from Revelation, has been uniformly characterized by selfishness. We come to God either to thank Him for benefits we have already THE PLACE OF THE FIRST PETITION. 85 received, or to implore still further benefits : food, raiment, health, safety, comfort. Like Jacob at Bethel, we are disposed to make the worship we render to God correlative with ' food to eat and raiment to put on.' This style of petition, in which self generally precedes and predominates, if it does not altogether absorb our supplications, is not only seen in the votaries of false systems, but in the majority of the prayers of professed Christians. For; though in this Divine model the petition * Hallowed be Thy Name' comes first in order, too often the words are used only as a formal introduction to the real desire of the heart — food, pardon, deliverance. * Our prayers are like the Parthian horsemen, who ride one way but look another ; they seem to go towards God, but indeed reflect upon ourselves. And this may be the reason why many times our prayers are sent forth like the raven out of Noah's ark and never return. But when we make the glory of God the chief end of our devotion, they 0^0 forth like the dove and return to us aofain with an olive branch.' ^ This order in our petitions is the same as that which Jesus prescribed in relation to our exertions. Matt. vi. 33. In both instructions we are taught that the glory of God should have a higher place in our prayers and efforts than our personal wellbeing ; and also that this will not thereby be endangered. We are not required to desire His glory in opposition to our own welfare. This is a subtlety we are not called to consider, a test we are not expected to ' Farindon. 86 THE lord's prayer. apply. The opposition is impossible. God is Love, and His highest glory is the good of His creatures ; so that to desire His glory can never be to surrender our own real welfare. Nor are we taught to be indifferent to what is subordinate. We cannot be so if we try. The attempt would be a warfare against Nature ; and success, if not a mere sham, would be only temporary, because won by repression of God's own work in us. We do not hallow His Name if we ignore the nature He has given us. He does not ignore it Himself. ' Your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things,' and therefore we are divinely taught to pray for bread. Nor is it to be understood that no prayer is acceptable which the heart does not present in this order. Our Father has children of every age. He listens to the infant's cry and the sufferer's moan, as well as to the full-toned voices of those who, by His Spirit, already offer worship not out of harmony with that of cherubim and seraphim before the throne. ' He heareth the ravens that cry : ' will He not listen when His hungry children say, 'Give us bread'.-* He hearkens when the sick and the storm-tost call upon Him in their trouble ; will He not listen when returning prodigals can only pray, ' Forgive us our trespasses ' ? But such prodigals, when at home again, grateful and glad, soon learn to say, ' Father ! hallowed be Thy Name.' This will now be their chief desire. They do not cease to feel their dependence for daily bread, because at home ; they feel it more than ever. They THE PLACE OF THE FIRST PETITION. Sy have not forgotten their need of pardon ; they are more deeply conscious of their unvvorthiness than ever. But above all this is their delight in God, who not only gives both bread and pardon, but, as they now see, has given Himself; so that they rejoice in the Giver more than in His gifts, and seek His glory above their personal good. ' O Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art, of all Thy gifts. Thyself the Crown. Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor, And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.' ^ Although at first sight the order of the petitions may seem unreasonable, yet what more natural, supposing we have truly said, ' Our Father which art in heaven ' ? Let us revert to the fundamental idea, the relation between parent and child. When very young, the child first of all asks food and protection ; but as it grows in enlightened love, and in the fullest sense honours father and mother, what is the very highest desire of such a filial heart ? Not benefits to be obtained from the father, but honour to be rendered to him. Those personal wants are merged in filial lon