This is evidently the proper tone with which an intelligent being ought to approach the Source of all goodness; it is by such ideas alone, that our minds can be prepared for receiving any advantage from the exercises of devotion; and it is not, accordingly, till we have thus bowed down our hearts in perfect submission to the Divine will, and to all the appointments which he may see fit for us in time, that we are authorised to ask any good for ourselves, to beg even the continuance of our daily food,-to implore the forgiveness of our manifold transgressions,-or to entreat the aid of the Divine strength in all our seasons of future trial.

There were obviously, however, two principles upon which any prayer delivered by the Son of God, and appointed by him to be adopted by all his followers, should be constructed. In the first place, as coming from so high an authority, we expect that the views of the Divine nature and government, which it contains, shall be of such a kind as may correspond with our highest ideas of his wisdom and excellence; that it shall breathe the very spirit of that heavenly kingdom from which he who gave it descended, and shall have a mani

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fest tendency to produce, in all who adopt its supplications, the same disposition to do the will of God which actuated his best-beloved Son when he appeared in our nature. This, accordingly, is the character of the petitions we have already considered; but it was also to be expected, in the second place, that this Prayer should have a character corresponding, not only to the dignity of him. who gave it, but to the wants of those to whom it was given; that it should embody petitions which express the most important, and universal, and constantly-experienced necessities of our nature; and that, by the comprehensiveness of its views, it should leave no wish unexpressed, which any humble and well-disposed heart, in its daily supplications, may have occasion to offer.

Such, accordingly, is the character of the second order of petitions which this Prayer contains,—for you will observe, that the wants of mankind, however infinitely varied in their individual particularities, may all be reduced to the three following orders; they either relate, in the first place, to those temporal goods with which we are conversant, and which we all feel to have a most important effect

upon both our virtue and our happiness; or they relate to those vices and omissions, by which, during our past lives, we have degraded our characters and darkened our hopes; or they respect, in the last place, the failures that may be incident to us during the time that is to come, and the need we have, during all our future days, of the continuance of that grace which alone can enable us to escape from sin, or to make progress in goodness. The petitions, accordingly, which we have now to consider, are in these words: "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." And these petitions, you perceive, have the two following most important characteristics; namely, that, in the first place, they express no want which we may not mention with perfect propriety, after we have first brought our minds into that submissive state which the preceding part of the Prayer is fitted to produce; and, secondly, that they embrace, when taken together, all the wants that are really incident to our nature, or that any individual, who has a becoming regard to his own progress in what is

good, can feel disposed to express in the presence of his Creator.

I. In the first of the petitions which have now been quoted, and which is in these words, "Give us this day our daily bread," we profess our belief, that we are dependent upon the Almighty, not only for our existence, but for all the temporal advantages that minister to our comfort.

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it was obviously of the highest importance that this feeling should be maintained in our minds, by being incorporated with our daily prayer. For there is scarcely any thing more indicative of the low state, as to religious feeling, into which the great multitude of mankind have fallen, than the fact, that we are all apt to forget our dependence upon God for our daily blessings. We seem to think, that whatever we enjoy has been the acquisition of our own labour, or at least the result of our own good fortune, and though we see many around us, who are our equals in all that piety, and faith, and devout submission to the will of God, which really constitute human worth, who are at the same time struggling with difficulties from

which we are exempted, and borne down by afflictions which we have never known, we are yet all apt, in our habitual manner of thinking, to imagine that it was our own worth that procured for us all the good things that have befallen us in life. This first of the more particular petitions, therefore, which this Prayer contains, was evidently intended to counteract this feeling, by reminding us that it is to the good providence of God alone that we can look for the continuance of any of our blessings. It is also remarkable, as to this petition, that it is limited to the means of supporting our daily existence. We are not permitted to ask any thing beyond the food that may maintain life; and by this limitation, it was evidently the purpose of our Lord to suggest to us, not only that the desire of any farther earthly blessings is unfit to be expressed before the Hearer of prayer, but that, as moral and immortal beings, we have wants of a far more momentous nature than any that relate merely to our corporeal frame. There is, therefore, I remark still farther, a very beautiful agreement between the spirit of this petition and all the other declarations of our Lord upon the same general topic; for, in