entirely it is his doing, that for very want we die not.

Not for more than daily bread, not for more than a sufficiency of that food which is convenient for us, hath the Lord commanded us to pray; and even of that food, simple as it is, we are not, as Christians, journeying towards a better country, permitted to be unduly covetous or careful. The mere necessaries and decencies of life are all that we must ask, and them only for the passing hour. We are not to ask positively even for the sustenance of the morrow; because we know not what that morrow may require, or whether we may live till the morrow to want that food. And, even though our souls should not be required of us this night, still we ought not to look with anxiety beyond the present day, because that would be to take a sinful thought for the future, and to distrust the care of that merciful Providence, of whom it were most ungrateful to suppose, that he would do less for us, than for the lilies of the field or the lonely sparrow. The young ravens do call upon the Lord, and he feedeth them, and the lions, who Jack and suffer hunger, like ourselves, are, in Scripture, spoken of as " seeking their meat from God." Jesus therefore hath taught his disciples to do the same, because it would ill become a reasonable, yet dependent creature, who

has been endued with a tongue to utter, and an understanding to perceive both his wants and their remedy, to be more silent or less wise than the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. But forasmuch as there is a manifest uncertainty in human life, and a needless anxiety for the future might injure our powers of providing for our present necessities, man has been mercifully, as well as justly, taught, to confine his prayers within the limits of a single day, and to say only “Give us, this day,^ our daily bread.”

Were we ourselves, my brethren, to have framed a prayer for the general use of mankind, the sensual and interested desires of the heart would have led us to think of the glory, and the gaiety, and the wealth, and the power, and the luxury of this world. All things deceitful, all things vain, would have glittered before our eyes. All things which bear the semblance of beauty and desirableness to the outward man, would have been earnestly and anxiously sought for, whilst all things truly valuable and beneficial in a spiritual sense would have been forgotten or unuttered. Our words would have teemed with error, and in almost every sentence, we should have been praying for something foolish or hurtful, for some

Luke xi. 3, we read, "day by day," which amounts to the same thing.

disease to our bodies or some misery to our souls. I speak the words of soberness and truth, although I seem to speak strongly. For what could cor rupted man be expected to pray for, if left to himself, were it not for the things of this world? And they that do pray for such things; they that pray for luxuries, do they not, as it were, pray for those diseases and dangers of which luxuries are the parent and the nurse? And they that pray for wealth and glory, and splendor and power, do they not, as it were, almost pray for those sins, to which these foolish and hurtful vanities afford so many serious temptations? It is impossible, say the Scriptures of truth, for rich and great men, without the special assistance of Heaven, so to administer their riches and their greatness, as to become worthy to enter into the kingdom of God. Our Saviour, therefore, with that intimate knowledge of the wickedness and deceitfulness of the human heart, which marked his precepts and declarations upon every occasion, hath taught us to pray neither for wealth nor for want, because both extremes are attended with so many dangers. to our eternal welfare; and neither for prosperity nor adversity, because the snares of death and destruction are so thickly sown among the paths of both. His prayer is the prayer of Agur simplified. Give me neither riches nor poverty, feed me with food, and clothe me with raiment con

venient for me, lest I be full and forget or deny my God, or lest I be poor, and steal, and blaspheme, instead of hallowing his holy name. Such were the objects of desire to that wise and humble man; and so, but more simply, speaks the Saviour of the world-" Give us this day our daily bread." So bless the labours of our heads and of our hands, and so crown our care and industry with a reasonable success, that we may thereby be enabled to obtain, from day to day, the things that are necessary for the support of our life, and becoming our stations and calling in the world.:

There are but two remarks more which the consideration of this petition suggests to our minds. It is impossible not to observe, in the first place, that, limited and submissive, and moderate as a request for daily and necessary food is in itself, it is the only portion of the Lord's prayer which at all refers to the supply of the temporal and bodily wants of man. The rest is altogether employed in making provision for the concerns of the soul and of eternity; and perhaps there is no other method by which we could have been more clearly and forcibly impressed with the sentiments of our Saviour, upon the comparative value and importance of the present and the future world. The life that now is, is touched upon by him but slightly and but once.. The

world that is to come, pervades the whole of his prayer. In the second place, we are taught by the very terms of the request, the duty and the necessity of daily devotion. For when we are commanded to ask for the food and raiment which are convenient for us, only for a single day, we are most assuredly bound to ask for them every day. The prayer for daily bread must be a daily prayer.

Sufficient unto the day is all that we desire, and yet it is more than we deserve, because of the manifold and great transgressions of which we have been so repeatedly guilty. It is evident, then, that, however regular and constant may be our prayers for daily bread, we cannot reasonably expect that they will be answered by him we pray to, unless we have done all in our power to remove the demerit of sin, and place ourselves in such a posture before the throne of grace, as may render us meet to receive the mercies of Heaven. It were not more in vain for any child to look for kindness at the hands of a father, with whom he was at enmity, than for any Christian to depend for support upon a God before whom he was not justified. Or even should our daily prayer prove effectual in obtaining our daily bread, still it would profit us but little to receive and to eat that bread, did we not feel assured in