there the description. Oh, that we may now thirst with a thirst for pardon, a thirst for reconciliation, a thirst for holiness. Then, when we come to die, we shall thirst for the joys of immortality-for the pleasures which are at God's right hand: we shall thirst, even as Christ did, that the Scripture may

be fulfilled: and the Scripture shall be fulfilled: for, bowing the head and giving up the ghost, we shall be in his presence with whom is "the fountain of life;" and every promise that has cheered us here, shall be turned into performance to delight us for ever.

There were two occasions on which our blessed Savior delivered that form of prayer which is known by his name. The first was in the sermon on the Mount, about the time of Pentecost; the second was in answer to the request made him in the text, about the Feast of Tabernacles, many months afterwards. You are not to confound the two occasions, as though the Evangelists St. Matthew and St. Luke had but given different accounts of one and the same delivery. The occasions were wholly dissimilar, separated by a considerable interval of time: on the one, Christ gave the prayer of himself, with nothing to lead to it but his own wish to instruct; whereas, on the other, he was distinctly asked by one of his disciples, who probably did but speak in

the name of the rest.

We cannot suppose that these disciples had forgotten the Lord's Prayer. Whether or not all now present had been present at the Sermon on the Mount, we may justly conclude that they were all well acquainted with the comprehensive form which Christ had delivered for the use of the Church. Why, then, did they ask for another

form of prayer? and what are we to learn from Christ's meeting the wish by simply repeating that before given? These are not mere curious questions; you will presently see that they involve points of great interest and importance. Without advancing any conjectures, let us look at the Lord's Prayer as given in the Sermon on the Mount, and as here again given in answer to the request of the disciples: the comparison may furnish some clue which will guide us in our search.

Now we have spoken of the prayer delivered on the two occasions, as though it had been altogether the same: this however is not strictly the case; there are certain variations in the versions which should not be overlooked. Some of these, indeed, are very slight, requiring only to be mentioned, not examined; such as that, in the one, the word "debts" is used, in the other, "sins;" St. Luke us day by day;" St. Matthew, "Give us this day, our daily bread." Such differences are evidently but differences in the mode of expression.

says,

Give

There is, however, one remarkable variation. On the second occasion of

ought to be no debate as to the suitableness of this prayer for all places and seasons, after you have remarked the peculiarities of its double delivery. Do you doubt whether it be a form well adapted to the public assembly? then observe that its petitions were first uttered by our Lord, with such a doxology appended as was never then used but at the solemn gatherings in the temple of God. When you have hereby convinced yourselves of its suitableness for public worship, will you hesitate as to its fitness for more private occasions? for the devotional meetings of the family, or for your own secret communion with God? Then you resemble the disciples, who, having heard the Sermon on the Mount, yet imagined a need for a different form of prayer in their religious retirements. But surely it should teach you, that, at one time as well as at another, the Lord's prayer should find its way from the heart to the lip, to know that our blessed Savior-omitting only the doxology, and thus consecrating to the use of the closet what he had before consecrated to the use of the church-gave precisely the same form, in answer to the request of these disciples, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.'

But hitherto we have made no way in commenting on the text, except that we may have explained the request of the disciples-a request which has, at first, a strange look, as though Christ had not already delivered a form of prayer, or as though what he had delivered were already forgotten. We remove this strange look, by observing our Lord's answer, and inferring from it that what the disciples now solicited was a form of private prayer: what they had previously received passed with them as designed for public occasions; and the second delivery of the same form, but with certain alterations, both shows us the want of the disciples, and teaches us how such want might best be supplied.

We will now, however, endeavor to bring before you certain other and very interesting truths, which are involved, more or less prominently, in the statements of the text. And, first, as to the employment of Christ when the disciples approach and prefer their request.

There is nothing to show distinctly whether our blessed Redeemer had been engaged in private prayer, or had been praying with his followers. But we learn, from many statements of the Evangelists, that he was in the habit of retiring for purposes of private devotion: "He withdrew into the wilderness and prayed;" he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer;" he was "alone praying." And perhaps it agrees best with the expressions in our text, that we should suppose our Lord to have been engaged in solitary prayer: "As he was praying in a certain place." The disciples had probably been absent from him, as when they left him sitting on Jacob's well, whilst they went into the city to buy meat. On their return they behold him at prayer: they draw reverently back; they would not intrude on him at so sacred a moment. But the thought occurs to them—" Oh, what a time for obtaining a new lesson in prayer; let us seize on it-let us ask him to instruct us whilst, like Moses coming down from the mount, his face yet shines with celestial communings." They watch the opportunity-you see how it is stated: "When he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him." They appear to have stood at a distance, that they might not interrupt the solemn exercise; but, so soon as they saw the exercise concluded, they pressed eagerly forward to share in its benefit.

But whether or not this were then the relative position of Christ and his disciples-whether he was alone praying, or whether they were praying with him-we know, as we have already said, that our Lord was wont to engage in solitary prayer; and there is no attitude, in which this Divine person is presented to us, wherein he is more wonderful, more deserving to be considered with all that is deepest, and most reverent, in attention. You expect to find Christ working miraclesfor you know him to be God in human form; and you feel that he must give such credentials of his mission as shall suffice, if not to remove all unbelief, yet to leave it inexcusable. You even expect to find him enduring anguishfor you know him to have assumed human nature, that he might be capable of suffering; and you thoroughly as

sent to the fundamental truth, that "without shedding of blood is no remission." But you could hardly have expected to have found him spending whole nights in prayer. What has that pure, that spotless Being, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," to do with importunate supplication, as though he were in danger of offending his heavenly Father, or had to wring from a reluctant hand supplies of that grace, of which himself is, after all, the everlasting fountain?

There is a mysteriousness about Christ praying, which should almost warn us back, as it seems to have warned the disciples. For we are not to suppose that our Redeemer's prayers were all similar to that which is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and in which there is the calmness of an Intercessor who knows that he shall prevail, or who feels that he but asks what himself has right to bestow. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of him in language which obliges us to regard him as having wrestled in prayer, wrestled even as one of us may wrestle, with much strain and anguish of mind. The Apostle there says of Christ: "Who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared." There may be here a special reference to our Lord's agony in the garden, when, as you remember, he besought earnestly of the Father, that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from him. But we have no right to confine the Apostle's statement to this particular scene: we may rather conclude, that, when our blessed Savior spent whole nights in prayer, his supplications were mingled with tears, and that it was with the deep emotions of one, who had blessings to procure through importunity, that he addressed himself to his Father in heaven.

You may wonder at this-you may ask how this could be; and we can only answer, that, though the Redeemer was both God and man-two natures having been indissolubly joined in his one Divine person-yet, as man, he seems to have had the same battles to

fight, the same assistance to depend upon, as though he had not also been God, but, like one of ourselves, had had the devil for his enemy, and only the Holy Ghost for his comforter. There is frequently a mistake upon this, and one which practically takes away from Christ's example all its power and persuasiveness. Why was Christ able to resist the devil? Why was Christ able to keep himself "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners?" Because, many are ready to reply, he was God as well as man. But surely this must be an erroneous reply. It supposes that when he was exposed to temptation, the Divine nature in his person came to the assistance of the human, upheld it, and made it triumphant. And how then could Christ be an example to us, who, being merely men, cannot fly from one nature in ourselves to another, from the weaker to the stronger, when attacked by certain enemies, or exposed to certain dangers?

The scriptural representation is just the opposite to this. It sets before us Christ as having been as truly a man, as truly left as a man to a man's duties, a man's trials, a man's helps, as though, at the same time, all the fulness of Godhead had not dwelt in him bodily. It was not to the divine nature in his own person that he could have recourse when hard pressed by temptation: he had to lean, like one of ourselves, on the aids of the Holy Spirit, aids sought by prayer, and appropriated by faith. The divine nature in his person appears to have had nothing to do with holding up the human, but only with the conferring infinite worth on its sufferings and actions: it did not give the patience to endure, though it gave the preciousness to the endurance; it did not give the strength to obey, but the untold merit to the obedience.

And, upon this representation, we can somewhat enter, though still but remotely, into the prayers of our blessed Redeemer. He was a man, with a man's infirmities, though not with a man's sinful propensities; living, as a man, the life of faith; fighting, as a man, the battle with principalities and powers; and he had before him a task of immeasurable intenseness, which he could not contemplate, as a man, with