beholds a mere sheet of indistinguishable light, the telescope reveals thousands and tens of thousands and millions of stars-each star a sun-withdrawn to such utterly inconceivable distances from us as to appear crowded, though in reality separated by the most enormous vacuities of space between; and if we then grasp the astounding thought that even all this is probably but a mere infinitesimal portion of the universe, for that as space is by its very nature infinite, so there is every reason to believe that the creation which occupies space is likewise infinite, so that were we transported to the extremest verge of the most distant star which the most powerful telescope has ever yet discovered-to a distance from this earth of which numbers give not the faintest idea-we should in all probability there again behold beyond us still a scene equally vast, equally illimitable with that which here is vaulted over us :-if we thus "consider the heavens the work of His hands," how can we help exclaiming, under the most crushing sense of our own utter insignificance, "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him?"

And these feelings, as they are natural, so they may at times be most useful, to give us as it were a measure of God's greatness, and to make us sensible of the ineffable absurdity of man's pride. What! we proud! when this earth and all that it contains is but a mere speck, a mere grain of dust, in the universe! we proud! when nothing less than omniscience is required in our

Creator barely not to overlook us! But pride is not the distinguishing characteristic of those whom the Saviour teaches how to pray: and therefore his greatness is not the distinguishing attribute on which he would fix our contemplations in addressing God. From the introduction to the sermon on the Mount, in which this prayer first occurs, we learn that the whole of that discourse was primarily and properly addressed to his disciples, though doubtless it was also listened to by the mixed multitudes whom the fame of the Saviour's teaching and miracles had gathered round him. And this observation furnishes a clue to the whole character of that discourse: exhibiting it, not as a proclamation of the Gospel-kingdom to those who had never before heard of it, but as an explanation of its principles and laws designed for the benefit of those who had already vowed allegiance to it. Accordingly, the very words with which our Lord introduces his prayer, more especially when taken in connexion with the previous passage, prove him to be prescribing this form particularly to his disciples. "After this manner, therefore, pray ye," not like the hypocrites (ver. 5), amongst God's covenant people, who know God so little as to imagine that his eye is not keen enough to penetrate the true motives of their ostentatious piety: not like the heathen (ver. 7), who with a more excusable ignorance fancy they shall be heard for their much speaking: such persons cannot address God acceptably, since they either know Him not at all, or shrink not from blaspheming Him. But

ye, whose singleness of eye hath discerned in the obscure and humble Nazarene God's messenger, and whose singleness of purpose hath induced you to leave your worldly all to follow me, ye, whose sincerity of searching after truth hath evinced itself in the unreservedness of your submission to it when once found, after this manner pray ye, when ye would approach that great Being whose awful majesty delights in condescending to the meek and lowly address him not by any of the titles of his infinite greatness; weary him not by a vain enumeration of those attributes which transcend all mortal thought to conceive, all mortal utterance to express: but call him by that name which at once expresses the deepest reverence, and the deepest tenderness, "Our Father."

And, O my brethren! what ineffable comfort is there not in the thought that the awful, the incomprehensible Being whose we are, and in whose hand are all our ways, is not merely our Creator, but our Father! that we are not merely allowed, but expressly directed not only to consider but to call him so; nay, that we are taught by the Redeemer to call him only so; to sink as it were his divinity in his paternity; to forget that he is the Almighty, and remember only that he is the All-merciful; or, if not to forget "his eternal power and Godhead," yet to remember it only as lending efficacy to all those ideas of love which the name of "Father" comprehends: only as investing with omnipotence all the watchful care, all the anxious forethought, all the spontaneously welling up and inextinguishable affection denoted by the parental

name! What was the first thought that occurred to the Prodigal in his utmost misery? It was the recollection of his Father's house. What was the first thought that animated his fainting spirit, and invigorated him for the toilsome journey back to that home he had once been so eager to abandon? It was the recollection of his Father's love: "I will arise and go to my Father 1." Though I have sinned against heaven and before him, and am not worthy to be called his son, yet I know his inexhaustible affection; I know he will not spurn the returning penitent from his door. And greater than even his expectations was the reality of his Father's love. For when he was yet a great way off, his Father knew him, in spite of all the change that rags and famine and the weary journey must have made in his appearance, and ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him! And when we recollect that this exquisite picture of eagerly accepted penitence was drawn for the express purpose of encouraging us in every possible extremity to consider the Holy One whom our sins have outraged as still the Father, waiting with outstretched arms to embrace us if we will but return-Oh! cold indeed must be our hearts if they do not glow with gratitude to that Saviour who has thus condescended to illustrate the prayer which he prescribes, and to shew how much he means when he teaches us, when we pray to say, "Our Father!"

But these considerations by no means exhaust the meaning of the title by which we are taught to address 1 Luke xv. 18.

our God. We might, for any thing that has been hitherto advanced, consider it a mere title, prescribed indeed for the purpose of intimating God's love, and of encouraging our hearts to rise to him with corresponding feelings of affection, but yet denoting not a real, but only an ideal paternity: friendship, but not actual relationship. This view would, however, fall far short of the whole blessed truth involved in the address "Our Father." Indeed, the single circumstance that He who taught his disciples thus to pray is "the truth itself," as he emphatically tells us', should of itself lead us to conclude, that in addressing God as our Father, we are using no mere complimentary title of encouragement. Accordingly, St John in the first chapter of his Gospel, at the twelfth verse, expressly declares that "as many as received the Incarnate Word, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his Name;" and then proceeds in the thirteenth verse to describe as follows the nature of this Sonship: "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God:" i. e. by a spiritual, as contradistinguished from a carnal, but by no means from a real, generation. And lest we should suppose this language to be merely figurative, the same evangelist has taken care in his third chapter to record the memorable conversation with Nicodemus, wherein our Lord declares, "Except a man be born again," or, "be born from above," "of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter

1 John xiv. 6.

2 ἄνωθεν.