SERMON III.

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

ST. LUKE xi. 2.

"And he said unto them, When ye pray, say thus:

In these words, which are in answer to a request of his disciples, our Saviour introduces that celebrated form of prayer which is generally termed the Lord's Prayer, and which, in every age, has been considered as the most perfect model for the devotion of his people.

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Of the request of his disciples, "Lord teach us to pray?" I believe there are few serious or thoughtful men who have not felt the importance. There is something so solemn in the thought of presenting ourselves before the living God; the best of us are so unfit to appear in the presence of him who "is too "pure to behold iniquity;" and the wisest of us are so unable to determine what is proper for them to ask, or right in him to bestow, that in no part of religious duty are we so much in need of assistance: and no where is that assistance so important as in the direction of our prayers. It is grateful, accordingly, to observe how much every age and church of Christianity has felt the value of that model which our Saviour here gives us. It enters frequently into

the liturgy of every church. It is the first form of pious words which the infant tongue is taught to repeat; and in every language almost upon earth, the Deity is daily addressed by numbers unknown to each other, in the same simple but sublime terms which, so many centuries ago, were prescribed by his blessed Son.

In the great body of mankind, however, this familiarity, like every other, is apt to have its inconveniences. Of a form so sacred, the spirit may be forgotten; the lips of the Christian may move in approaching to God, while his heart is far from him,and the words which infancy has acquired may never afterwards be examined by maturer thought, or understood in the fulness of their sense.

I trust, therefore, that it may be neither useless nor unacceptable to the young around me, if I attempt, at present, to enter into some examination of this ever-memorable prayer of our Lord;-to point out to them the views it affords of the nature and government of the great Being to whom all prayer is addressed; and from thence to illustrate those feelings and dispositions of mind which ought ever to accompany us in that solemn act of devotion, when we are permitted not only to approach the Throne of God, but to address him in the

which have been prescribed by his Son,

very words

1. Let me entreat you, then, my young brethren, to observe, in the first place, the majesty and solemnity with which it opens. It is short, and it is enjoined us as our daily prayer; and yet the first

words of it involve the greatest and most exalted views of Divine Providence, which human language has hitherto expressed. While we pronounce them (if we pronounce them with thought and understanding,) we feel as it were the whole universe annihilated around us,—we see nothing but God,-we see nature prostrated at his footstool with ourselves,and we think only of "Him in whom every thing lives, and moves, and has its being," and who alone inhabiteth both space and eternity.

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It is not, my brethren, for light reasons that we are thus instructed to pray. There is a carelessness which habit is apt to produce even in the best of us, when we address our supplications to Heaven; and there are few who can make a sudden transition from the affairs of the world to that solemn and exalted tone of mind which prayer so justly demands. It is on this account, probably, that the opening of this prayer is made so solemn and majestick; and to Jemind us whom we are addressing, that all the mightiest evidences of his providence are brought forward to our imagination. It is to remind us, that, when we kneel before God, we are engaged in the highest and holiest service of our nature; that in his presence all lower desires and emotions should cease; and that the only sentiments which then become us, are veneration for his unbounded greatness, and thankfulness that He permits the children of the dust to draw near unto him.

2. If such are the feelings which become us when we address our prayers unto God, let me entreat

you to observe, in the second place, what is the light in which he deigns to invite us to approach him.-Is it as the Sovereign of nature, by whom we are summoned to pay our homage before his throne? Is it even as the Master of his people, whom he calls, like the Jews of old, to listen to the commandments he enjoined ;-" while the mountain burned with fire, "and all the people fell with their faces on the "ground?" No, my brethren! it is as the Father of existence, that he here invites his children to come unto him. It is as the great Parent of being, that he calls the souls which he has made, to come and unveil their hopes and their fears before him, and "to put their trust under the shadow of his wings."

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It is impossible not to see for what end this beautiful opening of our daily prayer is intended. The distance between man and his Creator is so immense, and there is something so awful in approaching voluntarily into his presence, that nothing but the most exalted views, or the most sinless purity, can seem to embolden natural man, to hold regular communion with "Him that inhabiteth eternity." Opinions of this fearful kind, however, would have a tendency to destroy or to corrupt all the principles of religion in the human mind. They would tend either to excuse

us,

in our own opinion, from the service of God, and thus gradually lead us "to live altogether without "Him in the world ;" or they would dispose us to approach him with the indistinct terrour of slaves,—to mingle the gloom of superstition with our religious service, and to worship him, "not in spirit and in

"truth," but with the dark and ceremonial rites of a constrained homage.

The model which is here given us of Christian prayer is very different. It banishes at once from our imaginations, all the fears so natural to mortality. It is our Father to whom it teaches us to speak ;-it is that name, so dear and venerable, which it brings forward with all its associations to our minds,-the name which all men have known, and in which all have been taught to trust, and which cannot be pronounced without awakening in every heart the feelings of confidence, and hope, and love. It is the Father, and not the Lord of Nature, who is here revealed to our view;-that Father "who careth for 66 us, who knoweth whereof we are made," and who "remembereth that we are but dust;"-that Father "who seeth in secret;" to whom all hearts are open, and all desires known; and before whom all distinctions are vain, but that " of doing justly, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with him." I pause not at present on the many reflections which this subject is fitted to excite. I entreat you only to consider within yourselves, how magnificent is the privilege which this word, Father, has conferred upon our fallen nature ;-what exaltation of thought and spirit it is fitted to raise, and what immeasurable happiness it has given in every age of the Gospel, to those who "were weary and heavy laden,” with the doubts, the sorrows, or the miseries of the world. 3. While it is thus that "a new and living way" is opened to every individual of mankind to approach the