Christ's Sermon MATTHEW. V. on the Mount. ever cost to feeling the act may involve. Of course, condemn swearing of every kind and on every occait is not the eye simply of which our Lord speaks-assion - as the Society of Friends and some other if execution were to be done upon the bodily organ ultra-moralists allege is not for a moment to be -though there have been fanatical ascetics who have thought. For even Jehovah is said once and again both advocated and practised this, showing a very low to have sworn by Himself; and our Lord certainly apprehension of spiritual things- but the offending answered upon oath to a question put to Him by the ey, or the eye considered as the occasion of sin; and high priest; and the apostle several times, and in the eorsequently, only the sinful exercise of the organ most solemn language, takes God to witness that he which is meant. For as one might put out his eyes spoke and wrote the truth; and it is inconceivable without in the least quenching the lust to which that our Lord should here have quoted the precept they ministered, so. "if thine eye be single, thy about not forswearing ourselves but performing to whole body shall be full of light," and, when directed the Lord our oaths, only to give a precept of His own by a holy mind. becomes an "instrument of right- directly in the teeth of it. Evidently, it is 'swearing Bousness unto God." At the same time, just as by in common intercourse and on frivolous occasions' cutting off a hand, or plucking out an eye, the power that is here meant. Frivolous oaths were indeed of acting and of seeing would be destroyed, our Lord severely condemned in the teaching of the times. certainly means that we are to strike at the root of But so narrow was the circle of them that a man such unholy dispositions, as well as cut off the occa- might swear, says LIGHTFOOT, a hundred thousand ons which tend to stimulate them. for it is profitable times and yet not be guilty of vain swearing. Hardly for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not anything was regarded as an oath if only the name that thy whole body should be cast into hell. He who of God were not in it; just as among ourselves, as despises the warning to "cast from him," with in- TRENCH well remarks, a certain lingering reverence dignant promptitude, an offending member, will find for the name of God leads to cutting off portions of his whole body "cast," with a retributive prompti- His name, or uttering sounds nearly resembling it, tude of indignation, "into hell." Sharp language or substituting the name of some heathen deity, in this, from the lips of Love incarnate! 30. And if profane exclamations or asseverations. Against all thy right hand-the organ of action, to which the eye this our Lord now speaks decisively; teaching His excites, offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for audience that every oath carries an appeal to God, it is profitable, &c. See on v. 29. The repetition, in whether named or not. neither by heaven; for it is identical terms, of such stern truths and awful lessons God's throne: 35. Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool seems characteristic of our Lord's manner of teach- (quoting Isaiah, 66. 1): neither by Jerusalem; for it is ing. Cf. Mark, 2. 43-48. 31. It hath been said. This the city of the great King (quoting Psalm 48, 2). 36. shortened form was perhaps intentional, to mark a Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou transition from the commandments of the Decalogue canst not make one hair white or black. In the other to a civil enactment on the subject of Divorce, quoted oaths specified, God's name was profaned quite as from Deuteronomy, 24. 1. The law of Divorce-ac- really as if His name had been uttered, because it ording to its strictness or laxity-has so intimate a was instantly suggested by the mention of His bearing upon purity in the married life, that nothing "throne," His "footstool," His "city." But in could be more natural than to pass from the seventh swearing by our own head and the like, the objection commandment to the loose views on that subject lies in their being beyond our control,' and therefore then current. Whosoever shall put away his wife, let profanely assumed to have a stability which they have him give her a writing of divorcement -a legal check not. 37. But let your communication-'your word,',in upon reckless and tyrannical separation. The one ordinary intercourse, be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay:-'Let a legtimate ground of divorce allowed by the enact- simple Yes and No suffice, in affirming the truth or meat just quoted was "some uncleanness"-in other the untruth of anything.' (See James, 5. 12, and words, conjugal infidelity. But while one school of 2 Corinthians, 1. 17, 18.) for whatsoever is more than interpreters (that of Shammai) explained this quite these cometh of evil-not of the evil One;' though an correctly, as prohibiting divorce in every case save equally correct rendering of the words, and one which that of adultery, another school (that of Hillel) some expositors prefer. It is true that all evil in our stretched the expression so far as to include every-world is originally of the devil, that it forms a kingthing in the wife offensive or disagreeable to the husbani-a view of the law too well fitted to minister to caprice and depraved inclination not to find exWave favour. And, indeed, to this day the Jews allow divorces on the most frivolous pretexts. It was to meet this that our Lord uttered what follows: 32. Bat I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery-.., drives her into it, in case she marries again; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced-for anything short of conjugal infidelity, etteth adultery for if the commandment is broken by the one party, it must be by the other also. But see on ch. 19. 4-9. Whether the innocent party, after a just divorce, may lawfully marry again, is not treated of here. The Church of Rome says, No; but the Greek and Protestant Churches allow it. same rubject illustrated from the Third Commandheat (v. 33-371. 33. Again, ye have heard that it hath beta said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself. These are not the precise words of Exodus, 297; but they express all that it was currently understood to condemn, viz., false swearing (Leviticus, 19. 12 &c.). This is plain from what follows. But I say uate you, Swear not at all. That this was meant to dom at the head of which he sits, and that, in every manifestation of it he has an active part. But any reference to this here seems unnatural, and the allusion to this passage in the Epistle of James (5. 12) seems to show that, this is not the sense of it"Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ve fall into condemnation." The untruthfulness of our corrupt nature shows itself not only in the tendency to deviate from the strict truth, but in the disposition to suspect others of doing the same; and as this is not diminished, but rather aggravated, by the habit of confirming what we say by an oath, we thus run the risk of having all reverence for God's holy name, and even for strict truth, destroyed in our hearts, and so "fall into condemnation." The prac tice of going beyond Yes and No, in affirmations and denials-as if our word for it were not enough, and we expected others to question it-springs from that vicious root of untruthfulness which is only aggravated by the very effort to clear ourselves of the suspicion of it. And just as swearing to the truth of what we say begets the disposition it is designed to remove, so the love and reign of truth in the breasts of Christ's disciples reveals itself so plainly even to those who themselves cannot be trusted, that their Christ's Sermon MATTHEW, VI. on the Mount. simple Yes and No come soon to be more relied on | tion. Usually, the former denotes complacency in the character' of the person loved; but here it de- Same Subject-Retaliation (n. 38-42). We have here Same Subject-Love to Enemies (v. 43-48). 43. Ye have heard that it hath been said (Leviticus, 19. 18), Thou shalt love thy neighbour. To this the corrupt teachers | added, and hate thine enemy-as if the one were a legitimate inference from the other, instead of being a detestable gloss, as BENGEL indignantly calls it. LIGHTFOOT quotes some of the cursed maxims inculcated by those traditionists regarding the proper treatment of all Gentiles. No wonder that the Romans charged the Jews with hatred of the human race. 44. But I say unto you, Love your enemies. The word here used denotes moral love, as distinguished from the other word, which expresses personal affec mon' or 'extraordinary? .., wherein do ye excel? do not even the publicans so? The true reading here ap pears to be. Do not even the heathens the same? Cf. ch. 18. 17, where the excommunicated person is said to be "as an heathen man and a publican," 48. Be ye therefore-rather, 'Ye shall therefore be,' or 'Ye are therefore to be,' as My disciples and in My kingdom - perfect, or 'complete.' Manifestly, our Lord here speaks, not of degrees of excellence, but of the kind of excellence which was to distinguish His disciples and characterize His kingdom. When there fore He adds, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect, He refers to that full-orbed glorious completeness which is in the great Divine Model, "their Father which is in heaven." CHAPTER VI. SERMON ON THE MOUNT - continued. Ver. 1-18. FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM-ITS UNOSTENTATIOUSNESS, General Caution against Ostentation in Religious Duties (v. 1. 1. Take heed that ye do not your alms. But the true reading seems clearly to be 'your righteousness.' The external authority for both readings is pretty nearly equal; but internal evidence is decidedly in favour of righteousness.' The subject of the second verse being 'almsgiving,' that word-so like the other in Greek-might easily be substituted for it by the copyist: whereas the opposite would not be so likely. But it is still more in favour of "righteousness," thas Christ's Sermon MATTHEW, VI. if we so read the first verse, it then becomes a general heading for this whole Section of the Discourse, incaleating unostentatiousness in all deeds of rightecusness-Almsgiving. Prayer, and Fasting being, in that case, but selected examples of this righteousnest: whereas, if we read "Do not your alms," &c.. this first verse will have no reference but to that one point By "righteousness," in this case, we are to understand that same righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, whose leading features-in opposition to traditional perversions of it-it is the great object of this Discourse to open up: that righteousness of ich the Lord says, "Except your righteousness stal exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharxes, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (ch. &. 20). To "do" this righteousness, was an old and well understood expression. Thus, Elessed is he that doeth righteousness at all times" Psalm 166. 3'. It refers to the actings of righteousDess in the life-the outgoings of the gracious nature -of which our Lord afterwards said to His disciples, "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye be my disciples" (John, 16. 8). before men, to be seen of them-'with the view' or 'intention of being beheld of them.' See the same expression in eh. á 28. True, He had required them to let their hant so shine before men that they might see their good works, and glorify their Father which is in Leaven (ch. & 16. But this is quite consistent with tot making a display of our righteousness for selfdrification. In fact, the doing of the former necessarily implies our not doing the latter. otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. When al duty is done to God-as primarily enjoining and inally judging of it-He will take care that it be duly recognised: but when done purely for ostentation, God cannot own it, nor is His judgment of it even thought of God accepts only what is done to Himse.f. So much for the general principle. Now follow three illustrations of it. on the Mount. place of retirement' - and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Of course it is not the simple publicity of prayer which is here condemned. It may be offered in any circumstances, however open, if not prompted by the spirit of ostentation, but dictated by the great ends of prayer itself. It is the retiring character of true prayer which is here taught. Supplementary Directions, and Model-Prayer (r. 7-15), 7. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions. Babble not' would be a better rendering, both for the form of the word-which in both languages is intended to imitate the sound-and for the sense, which expresses not so much the repetition of the same words as a senseless multiplication of them; as appears from what follows. as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. This method of heathen devotion is still observed by Hindu and Mohammedan devotees. With the Jews, says LIGHTFOOT, it was a maxim, that Every one who multiplies prayer is heard.' In the Church of Rome, not only is it carried to a shameless extent, but, as THOLUCK justly observes, the very Prayer which our Lord gave as an antidote to vain repetitions is the most abused to this superstitious end; the number of times it is repeated counting for so much more merit. Is not this just that characteristic feature of heathen devotion which our Lord here condemns? But praying much, and using at times the same words, is not here condemned, and has the example of our Lord Himself in its favour. 8. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him-and so needs not to be informed of our wants, any more than to be roused to attend to them by our incessant speaking. What a view of God is here given, in sharp contrast with the gods of the heathen! But let it be carefully noted that it is not as the general Father of Mankind that our Lord says, "Your Father" knoweth what ye need before ye ask it; for it is not men, as such, that He is addressing in this Discourse, but His own disciples-the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, hungry and thirsty souls, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, who allow themselves to have all manner of evil said against them for the Son of Man's sake-in short, the new-born children of God, who, making their Father's interests their own, are here assured that their Father, in return, makes their interests His, and needs neither to be told nor to be reminded of their wants. Yet He will have His chil Alunong (r. 2-4. 2. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee. The expression is to be taken figuratively for blazoning it. Hiace our expression to 'trumpet.' as the hypocrites da. This word-of such frequent occurrence in Scripture, signifying primarily one who acts a part'-denotes one who either pretends to be what he is not as here, or dissembles what he really is (as in Luke, 12 1. 2. in the synagogues and in the streets-the places of religious and of secular resort-that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you. In such annst expressions, it is the Lawgiver and Judge Him-dren pray to Him, and links all His promised supif that we hear speaking to us. They have their reward All they wanted was human applause, and they have it-and with it, all they will ever get. 3. But when thou coest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. So far from making a display of it, dwell not on it even in thine own thoughts, lest it minister to spiritual pride.' 4 That thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly. The word "Himself appears to be an unauthorized addition to the IL which the sense no doubt suggested. See 1 Timothy, 6. 25; Romans, 2. 16; 1 Corinthians, 4. 5. Fraser . 5. 6. 5. And when thou prayest, thou shalt -or, according to the preferable reading, when ye pray ye shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to prav standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets (see on v. 2), that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you. They have, &c. The standing posture in prayer was the ancient practice, alike in the Jewish and in the early Christian Church, as is well known to the learned. But of course this conspicuous posture opened the way for the ostentatious. &. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet-a plies to their petitions for them; thus encouraging us to draw near and keep near to Him, to talk and walk with Him, to open our every case to Him, and assure ourselves that thus asking we shall receivethus seeking we shall find-thus knocking it shall be opened to us. 9. After this manner-more simply, Thus, therefore pray ye. The "ye" is emphatic here. in contrast with the heathen prayers. That this matchless prayer was given not only as a model, but as a form, might be concluded from its very nature. Did it consist only of hints or directions for prayer, it could only be used as a directory; but seeing it is an actual prayer-designed, indeed, to show how much real prayer could be compressed into the fewest words, but still, as a prayer, only the more incomparable for that-it is strange that there should be a doubt whether we ought to pray that very prayer. Surely the words with which it is introduced, in the second utterance and varied form of it which we have in Luke, 11. 2, ought to set this at rest: "When ye pray, say, Our Father." Nevertheless, since the second form of it varies considerably from the first. and since no example of its actual use, or express Christ's Sermon MATTHEW, VL quotation of its phraseology, occurs in the sequel of the New Testament, we are to guard against a superstitious use of it. How early this began to appear in the Church-services, and to what an extent it was afterwards carried, is known to every one versed in Church History. Nor has the spirit which bred this abuse quite departed from some branches of the Protestant Church, though the opposite and equally condemnable extreme is to be found in other branches of it. Model-Prayer (v 9-13). According to the Latin fathers and the Lutheran Church, the petitions of the Lord's Prayer are seven in number; according to the Greek fathers, the Reformed Church, and the Westminster divines, they are only six; the two last being regarded-we think, less correctly-as one. The first three petitions have to do exclusively with GoD: "Thy name be hallowed"-"Thy kingdom come""Thy will be done." And they occur in a descending scale-from Himself down to the manifestation of Himself in His kingdom; and from His kingdom to the entire subjection of its subjects, or the complete doing of His will. The remaining four petitions have to do with OURSELVES: "Give us our bread""Forgive us our debts"-"Lead us not into temptation"-"Deliver us from evil." But these latter petitions occur in an ascending scale- from the bodily wants of every day up to our final deliverance from all evil. Invocation: Our Father which art in heaven. In the former clause we express His nearness to us; in the latter, His distance from us. (See Ecclesiastes, 5. 2; Isaiah, 66. 1.) Holy, loving familiarity suggests the one: awful reverence the other. In calling Him "Father" we express a relationship we have all known and felt surrounding us even from our infancy; but in calling Him our Father "who art in heaven," we contrast Him with the fathers we all have here below, and so raise our souls to that "heaven" where He dwells, and that Majesty and Glory which are there as in their proper home. These first words of the Lord's Prayer-this Invocation with which it opens-what a brightness and warmth does it throw over the whole prayer, and into what a serene region does it introduce the praying believer, the child of God, as he thus approaches Him! It is true that the paternal relationship of God to His people is by no means strange to the Old Testament. (See Deuteronomy, 32. 6; Psalm 103, 13; Isaiah, 63. 16; Jeremiah, 3. 4, 19; Malachi, 1. 6: 2. 10.) But these are only glimpses -the back parts" (Exodus, 33. 23), if we may so say, in comparison with the "open face" of our Father revealed in Jesus. (See on 2 Corinthians, 3. 18.) Nor is it too much to say, that the view which our Lord gives, throughout this His very first lengthened discourse, of "our Father in heaven," beggars all that was ever taught, even in God's own Word, or conceived before by His saints, on this subject. on the Mount. existed ever since there were men who "walked with God" (Genesis, 5. 24), and "waited for His salvation" (Genesis, 49. 18); who were "continually with Him, holden by His right hand" (Psalm 73. 23), and who, even in the valley of the shadow of death, fearedi no evil, when He was with them (Psalm 23, 4). When Messiah Himself appeared, it was, as a visible kingdom, "at hand." His death laid the deep foundations of it-His ascension on high, "leading captivity captive and receiving gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them,' and the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, by which those gifts for men descended upon the rebellious, and the Lord God was beheld, in the persons of thousands upon thousands, "dwelling" among men -was a glorious "coming" of this kingdom. But it is still to come, and this petition, "Thy kingdom come," must not cease to ascend so long as one subject of it remains to be brought in. But does not this prayer stretch further forward-to "the glory to be revealed," or that stage of the kingdom called the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?" (2 Peter, 1. 11.) Not directly, perhaps since the petition that follows this-"Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven"-would then bring us back to this present state of imperfection. Still, the mind refuses to be so bounded by stages and degrees, and in the act of praying "Thy kingdom come," it irresistibly stretches the wings of its faith. and longing, and joyous expectation out to the final and glorious consummation of the kingdom of God. Third Petition: Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven-or, as the same words are rendered in Luke, as in heaven, so upon earth'-as cheerfully, as constantly, as perfectly. But some will ask, Will this ever be? We answer, If the "new heavens and new earth" are to be just our present material system purified by fire and transfigured, of course it will. But we incline to think that the aspiration which we are taught in this beautiful petition to breathe forth has no direct reference to any such organic fulfilment, and is only the spontaneous and resistless longing of the renewed soul-put into words-to see the whole inhabited earth in entire conformity to the will of God. It asks not if ever it shall be- or if ever it can be-in order to pray this prayer. It must have its holy yearnings breathed forth, and this is just the bold yet simple expression of them. Nor is the Old Testament without prayers which come very near to this (Psalm 7. 9; 67.; 72. 19; &c.). Fourth Petition: 11. Give us this day our daily bread. The compound word here rendered "daily" occurs nowhere else, either in classical or sacred Greek, and so must be interpreted by the analogy of its component parts. But on this critics are divided. To those who would understand it to mean, "Give us this day the bread of to-morrow"-as if the sense thus slid into that of Luke, "Give us day by day" (as BENGEL, MEYER, &c.)-it may be answered that the sense thus brought out is scarcely intelligible, if not something less; that the expression "bread of tomorrow" is not at all the same as bread "from day to day," and that, so understood, it would seem to contradict v. 34. The great majority of the best critics [taking the word to be compounded of ousia, 'substance,' or 'being'] understand by it the 'staff of life, 'the bread of subsistence;' and so the sense will be, 'Give us this day the bread which this day's necesking-sities require.' In this case, the rendering of our authorized version (after the Vulgate, LUTHER, and some of the best modern critics)-"our daily bread" is, in sense, accurate enough. (See Proverbs, 30, 8.1 Among commentators, there was early shown an inclination to understand this as a prayer for the heavenly bread, or spiritual nourishment; and in this First Petition: Hallowed be-i.e., Be held in reverence' regarded and treated as holy. thy name. God's name means 'Himself as revealed and manifested.' Everywhere in Scripture God defines and marks off the faith and love and reverence and obedience He will have from men by the disclosures which He makes to them of what He is; both to shut out false conceptions of Him, and to make all their devotion take the shape and hue of His own teaching. Too much attention cannot be paid to this. Second Petition: 10. Thy kingdom come. The dom of God is that moral and spiritual kingdom which the God of grace is setting up in this fallen world, whose subjects consist of as many as have been brought into hearty subjection to His gracious sceptre, and of which His Son Jesus is the glorious Head. In the inward reality of it,, this kingdom Christ's Sermon MATTHEW, VI. on the Mount. they have been followed by many superior expositors. Sixth Petition: 13. And lead us not into temptation. even down to our own times. But as this is quite He who honestly seeks, and has the assurance of, unnatural, so it deprives the Christian of one of the forgiveness for past sin. will strive to avoid commitsweetest of his privileges-to cast his bodily wants, ting it for the future. But conscious that "when we fa this short prayer, by one simple petition, upon would do good evil is present with us," we are taught his Leavenly Father. No doubt the spiritual mind to offer this sixth petition, which comes naturally wil, from the meat that perisheth," naturally rise close upon the preceding, and flows, indeed, instincin thought to "that meat which endureth to ever- tively from it in the hearts of all earnest Christians. Insting life." But let it be enough that the petition There is some difficulty in the form of the petition, as about bodily wants irresistibly suggests a higher peti- it is certain that God does bring His people-as He tion; and let us not rob ourselves-out of a morbid did Abraham, and Christ Himself into circumspirituality-of our one petition in this prayer for stances both fitted and designed to try them, or test that bodily provision which the immediate sequel the strength of their faith. Some meet this by reof this discourse shows that our heavenly Father has garding the petition as simply an humble expression so much at heart. In limiting our petitions, how- of self-distrust and instinctive shrinking from danever, to provision for the day, what a spirit of child-ger; but this seems too weak. Others take it as a Lae dependence does the Lord both demand and prayer against yielding to temptation, and so equivabestet! lent to a prayer for support and deliverance when we are tempted:' but this seems to go beyond the precise thing intended. We incline to take it as a prayer against being drawn or sucked, of our own will, into temptation, to which the word here used seems to lend some countenance-Introduce us not.' This view, while it does not put into our mouths a prayer against being tempted-which is more than the Divine procedure would seem to warrant-does not, on the other hand, change the sense of the petition into one for support under temptation, which the words will hardly bear; but it gives us a subject for prayer, in regard to temptation, most definite, and of all others most needful. It was precisely this which Peter needed to ask, but did not ask, whenof his own accord, and in spite of difficulties - he pressed for entrance into the palace-hall of the high priest, and where, once sucked into the scene and atmosphere of temptation, he fell so foully. And if so, does it not seem pretty clear that this was exactly what our Lord meant His disciples to pray against when He said in the garden-" Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation?" (ch. 26. 41.) Firth Petition: 12. And forgive us our debts. A vitally important view of sin this as an offence against God demanding reparation to His dishoncured claims upon our absolute subjection. As the debtor in the creditor's hand, so is the sinner in the hands of God. This idea of sin had indeed come up before in this Discourse-in the warning to agree with our adversary quickly, in case of sentence being pared upon us, adjudging us to payment of the last farthing, and to imprisonment till then (ch. 5. 25, 26). And it comes up once and again in our Lord's subsequent teaching-as in the parable of the Creditor and his two debtors Luke, 7. 41, &c.), and in the parable of the Unmerciful debtor (ch. 18. 23, &c.). But by embodying it in this brief Model of accept able prayer, and as the first of three petitions more or less bearing upon sin, our Lord teaches us, in the most emphatic manner conceivable, to regard this view of sin as the primary and fundamental one. Answering to this is the "forgiveness" which it directs us to seek not the removal from our own bearts of the stain of sin, nor yet the removal of our Just dread of God's anger, or of unworthy suspicions Seventh Petition: But deliver us from evil. We can of His love, which is all that some tell us we have to see no good reason for regarding this as but the esre about-but the removal from God's own mind second half of the sixth petition. With far better of His displeasure against us on account of sin, or, to ground might the second and third petitions be reretain the figure, the wiping or crossing out from garded as one. The "but" connecting the two petiHa book of remembrance" of all entries against tions is an insufficient reason for regarding them as as on this account, as we forgive our debtors- the one, though enough to show that the one thought are view of sin as before; only now transferred to naturally follows close upon the other. As the exthe region of offences given and received between pression "from evil" may be equally well rendered mas and inan. After what has been said on ch. 6. 7. from the evil one,' a number of superior critics think it will not be thought that our Lord here teaches the devil is intended, especially from its following that our exercise of forgiveness towards our offend- close upon the subject of "temptation." But the ing fellow-men absolutely precedes and is the proper comprehensive character of these brief petitions, and ground of God's forgiveness of us. His whole teach- the place which this one occupies, as that on which na indeed-as of all Scripture-is the reverse of all our desires die away, seems to us against so conBut as no one can reasonably imagine himself tracted a view of it. Nor can there be a reasonable to be the object of Divine forgiveness who is deliber- doubt that the apostle, in some of the last sentences stely and habitually unforgiving towards his fellow- which he penned before he was brought forth to suffer men. so it is a beautiful provision to make our right for his Lord, alludes to this very petition in the to ask and expect daily forgiveness of our daily language of calm assurance-"And the Lord shall abertoomings, and our final absolution and acquittal deliver me from every evil work (cf. the Greek of the at the great day of admission into the kingdom, de- two passages), and will preserve me unto his heavenly prodent upon our consciousness of a forgiving disposi- kingdom" (2 Timothy. 4. 18). This final petition, Len towards our fellows, and our preparedness to then, is only rightly grasped when regarded as a protest be ore the Searcher of hearts that we do prayer for deliverance from all evil of whatever kind actually forgive them. See Mark, 11. 25, 26.) God-not only from sin, but from all its consequencesmees His own image reflected in His forgiving children, but to ask God for what we ourselves refuse to men, is to insult Him. So much stress does our Lord put upon this, that immediately after the close of this Prayer, it is the one point in it which He comes back upon (r. 14, 15, for the purpose of lemnly assuring us that the Divine procedure in this matter of forgiveness will be exactly what our this. fully and finally. Fitly, then, are our prayers ended with this. For what can we desire which this does not carry with it? For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.-If any reliance is to be placed on external evidence, this doxology, we think, can hardly be considered part of the original text. It is wanting in all the most ancient MSS.: it is wanting in the Old Latin version and in the Vulgate: the former mounting up to about the |