continuing upon the Jews to this day) was not obtained at God's hands.

So therefore prayer is our first entry, for when it is said, Ask and it shall be given, it is also said, Knock and it shall be opened, showing that by prayer our entrance is. And not the entry only, but the whole house: My house is the house of prayer. Of all the conduits and conveyances of God's graces to us, none hath been so little subject to cavillations, as this of prayer. The sacraments have fallen into the hands of flatterers and robbers. Some have attributed too much to them, some detracted. Some have painted them, some have withdrawn their natural complexion. It hath been disputed, whether they be, how many they be, what they be, and what they do. The preaching of the word hath been made a servant of ambitions, and a shop of many men's new-fangled wares. Almost every means between God and man, suffers some adulteratings and disguises: but prayer least and it hath most ways and addresses. It may be mental, for we may think prayers. It may be vocal, for we may speak prayers. It may be actual, for we do prayers. For deeds have voice; the vices of Sodom did cry, and the alms of Tobias. And if it were proper for St. John, in the first of the Revelation to turn back to see a voice, it is more likely God will look down, to hear a work. So then to do the office of your vocation sincerely, is to pray. How much the favourites of princes, and great personages labour, that they may be thought to have been in private conference with the prince. And though they be forced to wait upon his purposes, and talk of what he will, how fain they would be thought to have solicited their own, or their dependents' business. With the Prince of princes, this every man may do truly; and the sooner, the more beggar he is for no man is heard here, but in forma pauperis.

Here we may talk long, welcomely, of our own affairs, and be sure to speed. You cannot whisper so low alone in your chamber, but he hears you, nor sing so loud in the congregation, but he distinguishes you. He grudges not to be chidden and disputed with, by Job. The arrows of the Almighty are in me, and the renom thereof hath drunk up my spirit. Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass, &c. Not to be

directed and counselled by Jonas: who was angry and said; Did not I say, when I was in my country, thou wouldest deal thus? And when the Lord said, Dost thou well to be angry? He replied, I do well to be angry to the death. Nor almost to be threatened and neglected by Moses: Do this, or blot my name out of thy book. It is an honour to be able to say to servants, Do this but to say to God, Domine fac hoc, and prevail, is more; and yet more easy. God is replenishingly everywhere: but most contractedly, and workingly in the temple. Since then every rectified man, is the temple of the Holy Ghost, when he prays; it is the Holy Ghost itself that prays; and what can be denied, where the asker gves? He plays with us, as children, shows us pleasing things, that we might cry for them, and have them. Before we call, he answers, and when we speak, he hears: so Isaiah LXV. 24. Physicians observe some symptoms so violent, that they must neglect the disease for a time, and labour to cure the accident; as burning fevers, in dysenteries. So in the sinful consumption of the soul, a stupidity and indisposition to prayer, must first be cured. For, Ye lust, and have not, because ye ask not, James iv. 2. The adulterous mother of the three great brothers, Gratian, Lombard, and Comestor', being warned by her confessor, to be sorry for her fact, said she could not, because her fault had so much profited the church. At least, said he, be sorry that thou canst not be sorry. So whosoever thou be, that canst not readily pray, at least pray, that thou mayest pray. For, as in bodily, so in spiritual diseases, it is a desperate state, to be speechless.

It were unmannerliness to hold you longer in the entry. One turn in the inner court, of this special prayer. in general, and so enter the palace. This is not a prayer for his own ease, as that in his agony seems. It hath none of those infirmities, which curious schismatics find in that. No suspicion of ignorance, as there, (if it be possible). No tergiversation nor abandoning the noble work which he had begun, as there, (Let this cup pass). It is not an exemplar, or form, for us to imitate precisely, (otherwise

1 Concerning these ecclesiastical writers, see Mosheim, vol. ii. pp. 256, 288; he, however, mentions nothing of their relationship: on the other hand, he says that Gratian was by birth a Tuscan, whereas Peter Lombard is said to have been born at Novara.-ED.

than in the doctrine) as that prayer, which we call the Lord's Prayer, not because he said it, for he could never say, forgive us our trespasses, but because he commanded us to say it. For though by Matthew, which saith, After this manner pray, we seem not bound to the words, yet Luke saith, When you pray, say, Our Father which art, &c. But this is a prayer of God, to God. Not as the Talmudist's Jews feign God to pray to himself, Sit voluntas mea, ut misericordia mea superet iram meam; but as when foreign merchandise is misported, the prince may permit, or inhibit his subjects to buy it, or not to buy it. Our blessed Saviour arriving in this world freighted with salvation, a thing which this world never had power to have without him, except in that short time, between man's creation and fall, he by this prayer begs, that even to these despisers of it, it may be 'communicable, and that their ignorance of the value of it, may not deprive them of it. Teaching that by example here, which he gave in precept before, Pray for them which persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, doing so now, he might well say, Father, forgive them, which is the first room in this glorious palace. And in this contemplation, my unworthy soul, thou art presently in the presence. No passing of guards, nor ushers. No examination of thy degree or habit. The prince is not asleep, nor private, nor weary of giving, nor refers to others. He puts thee not to prevail by angels nor archangels. But lest anything might hinder thee, from coming into his presence, his presence comes into thee. And lest majesty should dazzle thee, thou art to speak but to thy Father. Of which word, Abba, the root is, to will; from which root, the fruit also must be willingness, and propenseness to grant. God is the Father of Christ, by that mystical and eternal inexpressible generation, which never began nor ended. Of which incomprehensible mystery, Moses and the ancient prophets spake so little, and so indirectly, that till the dawning of the day of Christ, after Esdras' time, those places seem not to be intended of the Trinity. Nay, a good while after Christ, they were but tenderly applied to that And at this day, the most of the writers in the reformed churches, considering that we need not such far fetched, and such

sense.

VOL. V.

2 Matt. v. 41.

C

forced helps, and withal, weighing how well the Jews of these times are provided with other expositions of those places, are very sparing in using them, but content themselves modestly herein, with the testimonies of the New Testament. Truly, this mystery is rather the object of faith than reason; and it is enough that we believe Christ to have even been the Son of God, by such generation, and ourselves his sons by adoption. So that God is Father to all; but yet so, that though Christ say3, My Father is greater than all, he adds, I and my Father are all one, to show his eternal interest. He seems to put a difference, I go to my Father, and your Father, my God, and your God. The Roman stories have, that when Claudius saw it conduce to his ends, to get the tribuneship, of which he was incapable, because a patrician, he suffered himself to be adopted. But against this adoption, two exceptions were found; one, that he was adopted by a man of lower rank, a plebeian; which was unnatural; and by a younger man than himself, which took away the presentation of a father. But our adoption is regular. For first, we are made the sons of the Most High, and of the Ancient of Days, there was no one word, by which he could so nobly have maintained his dignity, kept his station, justified his cause, and withal expressed his humility and charity, as this, Father. They crucified him, for saying himself to be the Son of God. And in the midst of torment, he both professes the same still, and lets them see, that they have no other way of forgiveness, but that he is the Son of that Father. For no man cometh to the Father but by the Son.

And at this voice (Father) O most blessed Saviour, thy Father, which is so fully thine, that for thy sake, he is ours too, which is so wholly thine, that he is thyself, which is all mercy, yet will not spare thee, all justice, yet will not destroy us. And that glorious army of angels, which hitherto by their own integrity maintained their first and pure condition, and by this work of thine, now near the consummatum est, attend a confirmation, and infallibility of ever remaining so; and that faithful company of departed saints, to whom thy merit must open a more inward and familiar room in thy Father's kingdom, stand all attentive, to hear 3 John x. 29, 30.

4 John xx. 17.

what thou wilt ask of this Father. And what shall they hear? What dost thou ask? Forgive them, forgive them? Must murderers be forgiven? Must the offended ask it? And must a Father grant it? And must he be solicited, and remembered by the name of Father to do it? Was not thy passion enough, but thou must have compassion? And is thy mercy so violent, that thou wilt have a fellow-feeling of their imminent afflictions, before they have any feeling? The angels might expect a present employment for their destruction: the saints might be out of fear, that they should be assumed or mingled in their fellowship. But thou wilt have them pardoned. And yet dost not out of thine own fulness pardon them, as thou didst the thief upon the cross, because he did already confess thee; but thou tellest them, that they may be forgiven, but at thy request, and if they acknowledge their advocate to be the Son of God. Father, forgive them. I that cannot revenge thy quarrel, cannot forgive them. I that could not be saved, but by their offence, cannot forgive them. And must a Father, Almighty, and well pleased in thee, forgive them? Thou art more charitable towards them, than by thy direction we may be to ourselves. We must pray for ourselves limitedly, forgive us, as we forgive. But thou wilt have their forgiveness illimited and unconditioned. Thou seemest not so much as to presume a repentance; which is so essential, and necessary in all transgressions, as where by man's fault the actions of God are diverted from his appointed ends, God himself is content to repent the doing of them. As he repented first the making of man, and then the making of a king. But God will have them within the arms of his general pardon. And we are all delivered from our debts; for God hath given his word, his co-essential word, for us all. And though, (as in other prodigal debts, the interest exceed the principal) our actual sins exceed original, yet God by giving his word for us, hath acquitted all.

But the affections of our Saviour are not inordinate, nor irregular. He hath a for, for his prayer: Forgive them, for, &c. And where he hath not this for, as in his prayer in his agony, he quickly interrupts the violence of his request, with a but, Father, let this cup pass; but not my will: in that form of

prayer

which