end, and with this intent. "In the volume of the book it was written of him, that he should fulfil Thy will. He was content to do it; yea, Thy law was within his heart."* That in life and in death He should set us an example, that we should follow in His steps, seems to have been an object of the incarnation second only to the atonement. Man has seen man without the spot of sin; man has seen man ascend into the heaven of heavens; the same God and man never to be divided is at once our Redeemer, our Advocate, and our Judge. For His sake, and through His intercession we utter our solemn prayer,

THY WILL BE DONE.-Grant that we may never impiously strive to bend Thy will to ours, the straight to the crooked.† Grant that in all things we may cheerfully submit if it be Thy good pleasure to afflict us. Grant us such a measure of Thy grace that we may never murmur or cavil at Thy judgments. Grant that humbly, tremblingly, yet hopefully we may seek to learn what is Thy will on earth, and having learned may strive to do it.

• Psalm xl, 10.

+ St. Augustin Enarr. in Ps. xxxi, 11.

Grant us Thy Holy Spirit preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will. Above all, grant that having thus sought after Thy will here, and made our delight therein, we may have our endless happiness hereafter in still fulfilling it with all Thy saints in heaven, through Him who lived and died for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.

SERMON

MATT. vi, 11.

V.

66 GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD."

E have already observed,* that the second part of the Lord's Prayer consists of a series of petitions which arise out of the nature of man's relations to God; for that as it is human imperfection, which forms the great impediment to the coming of His kingdom, so we must pray for the helps and remedies which are necessary to bring the human heart not merely into subjection, but into harmony with the Divine will. Accordingly as the whole prayer commences with the address to God, which recognizes Him as OUR FATHER, So this latter portion opens with a clause in which we ac* Vide supra p. 15.

knowledge our dependance upon Him for our bodily and spiritual sustenance.

Without intending to enter at any great length into the much vexed question of the true meaning of the word, which we translate "daily," it will yet be desirable to allude to some of the proposed interpretations, because it is by a comparison of them with each other, and with the context that we shall arrive at a true apprehension of its force. And unless we do so, we are always liable to employ the words in a purport very far inferior to that which they really possess. The difficulty arises from the fact that the original word occurs no where except in the Lord's Prayer, as given by St. Matthew and St. Luke.

It may be conceded at once that the word does not mean "daily" in reference to any particular measure of time. Indeed the only derivation which can connect it with time at all, is one which makes it relate not to the present, but to the coming day. According to this view we should pray, “give us to-day subsistence sufficient for the morrow, and thereby relieve us from anxiety about the future." Yet not only is this obviously in contradiction to

the special injunction of our Lord, by which care for the morrow is forbidden,* but also it confines us to the sense of mere bodily food; a view which I conceive to be utterly untenable.

Strictly speaking, the Greek word is derived from one denoting substance; essence, or being, and accordingly it may either mean "that which is sufficient for existence," that which is enough and no more; or it may be intended to define more accurately what we are to understand by the word bread, namely nourishment for the true nature of man, spiritual as well as corporeal.

It is in the latter and most general sense that 1 propose to view it. There have not been wanting those both in ancient and modern times, who have regarded it exclusively in the one light or the other. But in the first place the whole context shews that "daily bread" cannot here denote only bodily food, since it stands among petitions which relate all of them to our spiritual state, and to a kingdom which does not rule over the body only. And secondly, if this be not a prayer for spiritual sustenance, then there is no such petition, no entreaty

* Matt. vi, 34.