The Lord's Prayer, a model both for our devotion and our practice. It teaches the duty of promoting schemes to advance the glory of God.

It is not customary for kings to draw up petitions for their subjects to present to themselves; much less do earthly monarchs consider the act of petitioning worthy of reward, nor do they number the petitions so much among the services done them, as among the burthens imposed on them. Whereas it is a singular benefit to our fallen race that the King of kings both dictates our petitions, and has promised to recompense us for making them.

In the Lord's prayer may be found the seminal principle of all the petitions of a Christian, both for spiritual and temporal things; and however in the lness of his heart he will necessarily depart from his model in his choice of expressions; into whatever laminæ he may expand gold of which it is composed, yet he will still find the gene ral principle of his own more enlarged application to God substantially contained in this brief but finished campandium

pure

Is it not a striking proof of the divine condescension, that knowing our propensity to err, our blessed Lord should himself have dictated our petitions, partly perhaps as a corrective of existing superstitions, but certainly to leave behind him a regulator by which all future ages should set their devotions? and we might perhaps establish it as a safe rule for prayer in general, that any petition which cannot, in some shape, be ac commodated to the spirit of some part of the Lord's prayer, may not be right to be adopted. Here temporal things are kept in their due subordination; they are asked for in great moderation, as an acknowledgment of our dependence on the Giver. The request for the divine intercession we must of course offer for ourselves, as the Intercessor had not yet assumed his mediatorial office.

There is in this prayer a concatenation of the several clauses, what in human composition the critics call concealed method. The petitions rise out of each other. Every part also is, as it were, fenced round, the whole meeting in a circle; for the desire that God's name may be hallowed, his will be done, and his kingdom come, is referred to, and confirmed by the ascription at the close. If the kingdom, the power, and the glory, are his, then his ability to do and to give are declared to be infinite.

But, as we have already observed, if we do not make our

prayer the ground of our practice, if we do not pray as we believe, and act as we pray, we must not wonder if our petitions are not heard, and consequently not answered.

In the tremendous scene in the Apocalyptic vision, where the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books; were judged according not to their prayers, but "their works." Surely then Christianity is a practical religion, and in order to use aright the prayer our Lord has given us, we must model our life by it as well as our petitions.

If we pray that the name of God may be allowed, yet neglect to hallow it ourselves, by family as well as personal dovotion, and a conscientious attendance on all the ordinances of public worship, we defeat the end of our praying, by falling short of its obligation.

The practicaiscrepancies between our prayers and our practice not end here. How frequently are we solemnly o oring of God that "his kingdom may come," while we are doing nothing to promote his kingdom of grace here, and consequently his kingdom of glory hereafter.

If we pray that God would" give his Son the heathen for his inheritance," and yet make it a matter of indifference whether a vast proportion of the globe should live heathens or die Christians; if we pray that the knowledge of the Lord may cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea," yet act as if we were indifferent whether Christianity ended as well as began at home; if we pray that "the sound may go out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world," and yet are satisfied to keep the sound within our own hearing, and the words within our own island, is not this a prayer which goeth out of feigned lips?

When we pray that "his will may be done," we know that his will is, that "all should be saved, that not one should perish." When, therefore, we assist in sending the gospel to the dark and distant corners of the earth, then, and not till then, may we constantly desire of God in our prayers, that "his saving health may be known to all ations."

For we must vindicate the veracity of our prayer by our exertions, and extend its efficiency by our influence: if we contribute not to the accomplishment of the object for which we pray, what is this but mocking Omniscience, not by un meaning, but unmeant petitions? If we do nothing we are inconsistent; but if we do worse than nothing, if we oppose, and by our opposition hinder the good which we do not think

proper to support, may we not possibly bring on ourselves the appalling charge of being "found fighting against God!"

It is indeed an easier and a cheaper way, to quiet the conscience by that common anodyne, "that the heathen are very well as they are, that the morals of the Hindoos are not inferior to those of Christians." With what sort of Christians these assertors of the rival innocence of idolaters associate, we will not pretend to determine."

But, allowing that we do not always send abroad the very best samples of Christianity, the very best representatives of its practical effects, allowing also that too many who remain at home, and who profess and call themselves Christians, are guilty of crimes which disgrace human nature, yet Christianity renounces them. Christian governments inflict on them capital punishments. While among these poor idolaters all these social duties are trampled on, all the suggestions of natural conscience are stifled, rites the most obscene, sacrifices the most bloody are offered; and these crimes are not only committed, but sanctioned, but enjoined; they do not violate religion, they make a part of it. Surely then, politically connected with them as we are, and yet contentedly to leave them in their degraded state of morals, without any attempt for their improvement, do we not by this neglect virtually pronounce and awfully anticipate their dreadful sentence, "let him that is unjust be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still?"

Again, it is an easier and a cheaper way throw the weight off our own shoulders by the coolemark, that "these things belong not to us, human efforts are superfluous; God must bring them about by a miracle." God, it is true, introduced Christianity by miracles, but he established it by means. Miracles, indeed, are his prerogative, but man is his instrument. Had he not sent his gospel and his ministers, it is probable that the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bythinia, and all proconsular Asia, had never heard of Christianity to this day, which is, indeed, still the case of too many parts of that region.

But is it not equally the effect of divine grace, I had almost said, is it not equally a miracle, when, in the hottest season of most unrelenting warfare, in the most calamitous period of unusual scarcity, when Britain had the whole civilized world in arms against her, so that she could emphatically say, "there is none that fighteth for us but only thou, O God;" when it might seem business enough for any but Christians to take care of themselves, even then Britain

raised the banner of the cross, not in the most unprofitable crusade for the most fruitless object, but that she might carry the knowledge of Him who suffered on it to the ends of the habitable globe? Not to redeem his sepulchre from infidels, but to communicate to them the tidings of his resurrection, and of redemption through his blood. Is it not the effect of grace, and still more nearly approaching to a miracle, when, in a period immediately subsequent, while their fields were yet red with slaughter, and their rivers ran blood, their cities plundered, and their kingdoms desolated, God disposed the hearts of hostile sovereigns, ruling over opposing nations and the tenacious professors of different religions, yet, as if actuated by one universal feeling, simultaneously to rise up in one common cause for the accomplishment of this mighty objectwhen the first use they made of the termination of war was to disseminate the gospel of peace; the first tribute they paid to the glory of God was to publish abroad that grand instrument of good will to men! Let us not then indulge groundless imaginations, as if miracles were wrought to justify indolence! as if a man were to be excused the trouble of being the active agent of divino Proridomo

The miracles wrought at Ephesus seem rather to have been intended as a confirmation of the truth of St. Paul's doctrine, than as the actual instrument of conversion. Many rejected the gospel who saw the miracles. The miracles wrought did not supersede the necessity of the apostle's "speaking boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God." They did not supersede the necessity, at another time, of his continuing to preach among them, for the space of two years, the two great doctrines of his mission, "repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." Nor did they prevent his thinking it his bounden duty to send to the Ephesians his exquisite epistle, for the furtherance of their faith in the gospel. Here we behold the union of the Bible and the missionary-of the gospel sent and the gospel preached.

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Many," says the sagacious bishop Butler," think there is but one evil, and that evil is superstition; and we know that the epithets of superstitious and enthusiastic have been unsparingly lavished on the most sober and well digested plans for the dispersion of the Scriptures abroad. We know that very trifling errors, errors inseparable from all great undertakings, every petty indiscretion, the inevitable consequence of employing a number of inferior agents, have been carefully collected, minutely set down in the note book of observation,

and triumphantly produced as unanswerable objections to the whole plan." "But," says the profound prelate above named, in his very able defence of missions, preached before the venerable Society for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts,* many well-disposed persons want much to be admonished what a dangerous thing it is to discountenance what is good because it is not better, by raising objections to some underparts of it."

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The truth is, they are neither enthusiasts nor superstitious, who believe that well-concerted and prudently conducted societies for the promotion of this great object, acting with a deep sense of human imperfection, and in dependence upon the favor of God, will, in due time, with his blessing, without which nothing is strong, nothing is holy, accomplish the great end of bringing all the kingdoms of the world to become the kingdoms of the Redeemer. But he is the superstitious, he is the enthusiast, who indulges unfounded expectations, who looks for the fulfilment of declarations which have never been made, who depends upon miracles which have never been announced, who looks for consequences without their predisposing causes, who believes that the unassisted heathen, sunk in intellectual and spiritual darkness, shall call on Him of whom they have not heard, or that they shall hear without a preacher, or that the preacher will be found without being

sent.

We might just as reasonably expect to see the beautiful imagery of oriental metaphor, as displayed in the highly figurative language of the prophets, actually realized. We might as reasonably expect that the rose of Sharon shall literally blossom in the wilderness of Arabia, or the cedars of Lebanon spring up in the sandy valleys of Africa; that the thirsty desert should produce spontaneous springs of water; that the tame and savage animals should live together in friendly compact; that the material hills shall really sink and the valleys rise of themselves; we might, I say, as rationally hope to see these lively illustrations of the fulfilment of the divine promises literally verified, as to expect Christianity to make its own unassisted way into the distant and desolate corners of the earth. God has committed Christianity into the hands of Christians for universal diffusion.

Let it be observed, that it appears to be no real departure from the subject with which this chapter opened, that reference is not more frequently made in its progress to prayer.

* Preached at their anniversary meeting, February 16th, 1738-9.