A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION OF THE LORD'S PRAYER. MATTHEW VI. 9-13. AFTER THIS MANNER THEREFORE PRAY YE: OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME. THY KINGDOM COME. THY WILL BE DONE IN EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. 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: FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, AND THE POWER, AND THE GLORY, FOR EVER. AMEN. SECTION I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. HAVING often seriously considered with myself of the great use that is made of this most excellent form of prayer, composed by our blessed Lord and Saviour himself; as also of the great benefit and advantage that might accrue unto all those that with understanding make a due use of it in their daily devotions, I thought it might be very necessary for your instruction, and greatly conducible unto your salvation, to lay before you as brief and succinct an B exposition thereof as the large extent and various copiousness of the matter contained therein will permit. The blessed apostle St. Paul, in 1 Cor. xiv. 15, tells us, that he would pray with the spirit, and he would pray with the understanding also. And, indeed, to understand what we pray for, is one great requisite to make our prayers spiritual, and through the prevailing intercession of Jesus Christ, to become acceptable unto God the Father. But to mutter over a road of words only, (as the papists are taught, and as multitudes of many ignorant persons among us do also,) without understanding what they signify, or being duly affected with those wants and necessities which we beg of God the supplies of, is not to offer up a prayer unto the Almighty, but only to use these words as a charm. Now, because there is no form of prayer that ever we have heard or read of that is deservedly so much in use as this of our Lord's is, I shall endeavour, in some discourses thereupon, to unfold to you those voluminous requests which we offer up unto God when we thus pray, as our Saviour teacheth us; wherein, as I doubt not but as I may greatly instruct the ignorance of many, so possibly I may bring very much to the remembrance of those who have attained to great understanding in religion those things which may provoke their zeal and excite their affections: and both these undertakings, through the blessing of God, may be very profitable, to enable them to pray with understanding, and with the spirit also, when they approach the throne of grace to present their petitions unto the great God, as by the intercession, so in the words of his dear Son. In this chapter, which contains in it great part of our Saviour's sermon on the mount, our Lord lays before his hearers several directions concerning two necessary duties in a christian's practice, and they are almsgiving and prayer; the former a duty relating more immediately unto men, the latter a duty in a more especial manner respecting God himself; in both which he not only cautions us against, but strictly forbids all ostentation and vainglory. "Therefore," says he, "when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men,” ver. 2. "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they be seen of men,' may "" ver. 5. Thus must we not do in either of these cases; for as we must not give alms that we may be seen of men, so neither must we pray that we may be heard and observed of men for what can be more absurd and ridiculous, as well as wicked and impious, than to be begging applause from some, when we are giving alms to others? or, whilst we are praying to the great God of heaven and earth, to make frail mortal men, like ourselves, our idols? Which we do whensoever we pray rather that we may be heard and admired by men, than that God should hear us and accept us. In the next words, our Saviour proceeds in laying down some other directions concerning the duty of prayer, and therein he forbids his hearers to use vain repetitions in prayer; "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do," ver. 7. Not that all repetitions in prayer are vain babblings in the sight of God; for our Lord himself prayed thrice, using the same words; so we read, Matt. xxvi. 44. For, doubtless, as copiousness and variety of fluent expressions, in any usually flow from raised affections, so when those affections are heightened and raised to an ecstasy and agony of soul in our wrestlings with God in prayer, repetitions are then the most proper and most elegant way of expressing them; doubling and redoubling the same petitions again and again, not allowing God (if I may so speak with holy reverence) so much time, nor ourselves so much leisure, as to form in our minds, much more with our lips to offer up any new requests, till by a holy violence in wrestling with God we have extorted out of his hands those mercies and blessings our hearts are set upon the suing to him for. Vain repetitions, therefore, are such as are made use of by any, without new and lively stirrings and motions of the heart and affections at the same time; and that which makes a prayer vain, makes a repetition in prayer to be vain also. Now that is a vain prayer, and we shall certainly find it so, when the requests we offer up to God therein are heartless and lifeless. For we must know, God hath commanded us to pray, not that he might be excited and moved by hearing the voice of our cries in prayer to give unto us those mercies and blessings which he himself was not resolved beforehand to bestow upon us, but that we ourselves might be fitted and prepared to receive from him what he is always ready and willing to confer upon us. requires prayer from us, not that he might be affected therewith; for, as the apostle St. James tells us, "With him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," James i. 17, but that we ourselves He |