Spirit, we reverently ask of God things lawful either for ourselves or others through faith in Christ.

The Lord's Prayer was intended rather as a model of supplication than as a form to be repeated verbatim by the Apostles or by Christian churches of the present day. Hence the superfluousness of set forms of worship; seeing that with Christ for our master and the Holy Spirit for our assistant in prayer, we can have no need of any human aid in either respect.

Prayer may be offered alone or in company. Christ appears seldom to have prayed in conjunction with his disciples, or even in their presence, but either wholly alone or at some distance from them. It is moreover evident that the precepts (Matt. vi.) have reference to private prayer alone. When however he inculcated on his disciples the duty of prayer in general, he gave no specific direction whether they should pray alone or with others. It is certain that they were in the frequent practice of praying in assemblies, and that either individually, each framing within himself his own particular petition relative to some subject on which they had agreed in common (Matt. xviii. 19), or by the mouth of one chosen from their number, who spoke in the name of the rest; both which modes of prayer appear to have been used indiscriminately by the primitive Christians.

No particular posture is enjoined for prayer. The deportment in it should be suited to the manners of the time. Thus in St. Paul's time men prayed and prophesied [i.e. preached] with the head uncovered. Now, on the contrary, since the covering of the head has become a token of authority, and the uncovering of it of submission, it is the custom with most churches, especially those of Europe, in compliance not so much with the letter as with the spirit of the law (which is always to be preferred), to worship God uncovered, as being the mark of reverence prescribed by modern custom; but to prophesy covered, in token of the authority with which the speaker is invested, and likewise to listen to his instructions covered, as the deportments most emblematic,

according to modern ideas, of our freedom and maturity as sons of God."

We are even commanded to call down curses on the enemies of God and the Church; as also on false brethren, and on such as are guilty of any grievous offence against God, or even against ourselves. The same may be lawfully done in private prayer, after the example of the holiest of men.

Here again we may observe the unfortunate results of placing the Old and New Testaments on a line, for nearly all his authorities are taken from the former. Surely if, as he maintains, the whole of the Law was abrogated as comparatively imperfect, we should be cautious how we make the conduct of those who lived under it our example. But Milton held all parts-the book of Esther* or the Chronicles, as much as that of Isaiah-to be the immediate dictation of the Holy Spirit, and from this principle he reasoned consequentially. He afterwards, however, qualifies somewhat what he had said of imprecations, by classing among errors those "whereby we invoke God or the devils to destroy any particular person or thing, an intemperance to which even the pious are occasionally liable. . . . Undeserved curses however are of no force, and therefore not to be dreaded."

Prayer is assisted by fasting and vows. Fasting is either private or public, the latter being enjoined by the Church or by the civil power for public reasons. "A religious fast is that whereby a man abstains not so much from eating and drinking, as from sin, that he may be able to devote himself more closely to prayer for the obtaining some good or deprecating some evil.”

* We meet the following passage in his Doctrine of Divorce (ii. 15) : "The same Spirit relates to us the course which the Medes and Persians took by occasion of Vashti."

On the subject of oaths, his decisions are very rational and judicious. He asserts their lawfulness, and that they are to be kept, even contrary to our interest; but in the vexed question of whether an oath extorted by a robber should be observed or not, he decides in the negative, on the strongest grounds. The prohibition (Matt. v. 33) "does not apply to serious subjects, but to our daily conversation, in which nothing can occur of such importance as to be worthy the attestation of God."

Relying, as usual, chiefly on the Old Testament, he sanctions the casting of lots as a means of learning the will of God; but it is not to be used in jest, or with a superstitious or fraudulent purpose.

On the subject of the Sabbath, he reverts to what he had already stated respecting the abrogation of the entire Law, the Decalogue included. He shows that the Sabbath was peculiar to the Israelites, and gives various reasons for its institution. He then argues from Rom. xiv. 5, that no particular day of worship had been appointed in its place, and replies to the arguments of those who deduced the obligation to observe a particular day, from the Fourth Commandment, and some other places of Scripture.

Hence [he says] we arrive at the following conclusions:--first, that under the Gospel no one day is appointed for divine worship in preference to another, except such as the Church may set apart of its own authority for the voluntary assembling of its members, wherein, relinquishing all worldly affairs, we may dedicate ourselves wholly to religious services, as far as is consistent with the duties of charity; and secondly, that this may conveniently take place once every seven days, and particularly on the first day of the week, provided always that it be observed in compliance with the authority of the Church, and not in obedience to the edicts

of the magistrate; and likewise that a snare be not laid for the conscience by the allegation of a divine commandment, borrowed from the Decalogue; an error against which Paul diligently cautions us, Col. ii. 16: "Let no man therefore judge you," etc. For if we, under the Gospel, are to regulate the time of our public worship by the prescriptions of the Decalogue, it will surely be far safer to observe the seventh day, according to the express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human conjecture, to adopt the first. I perceive, also, that several of the best divines, as Bucer, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Musculus, Ursinus, Gomarus, and others, concur in the opinions above expressed.*

To this it may be added, that such also is the opinion of Paley and many other distinguished men in the Church of England. All however seem to be agreed that, both in a social and in a religious view, the devoting of one day in seven to a cessation from worldly toil is a most excellent institution, and one which should never be let go out of use on any account whatever.

*He might have included Luther, who said, "As for the Sabbath, or Sunday, there is no necessity for its observance; and if we do so, the reason ought to be, not because Moses commanded it, but because human nature likewise teaches us to give ourselves, from time to time, a day's rest, in order that man and beast may recruit their strength, and that we may go and hear the word of God preached.”

ON INSPIRATION.

MILTON, as we may see from various passages of his Christian Doctrine and other writings, held that the Holy Spirit aided sincere inquirers after the truth, however unfurnished with human aids to understand the Scriptures, which, in his view, were not to be understood without this aid:

"Those written records pure, Though not but by the Spirit understood."

Par. Lost, xii. 513.

But he went still further, and he seems to have believed that the aid of the Spirit was also given to those who sought, especially by writings, to promote the glory of God. Thus, in his Reason of Church Government, he says of himself, "And if any man incline to think I undertake a task too difficult for my years, I trust, through the supreme enlightening assistance, far otherwise." Again, "For public preaching indeed is the gift of the Spirit, working as best seems to his secret will." When, in the same piece, he hints at his design of writing a great poem, he says, that the requisite powers were to be obtained only "by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases."