significance in the mouth of the true Christian, the regenerate man. It is he only who can call God, in the full sense of the word, Father; it is he only who can pray, in the right understanding of the terms, for the coming of God's kingdom; it is he only who can say, "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." This we shall have to keep constantly in view through the whole exposition; and it is from this position that we shall first be enabled to estimate the intrinsic excellence of the prayer.

Now if the prayer really possesses depth, we shall also find in it a progress of ideas; it will contain no tautology—such as many persons have thought they discovered in the first three petitions; for, as Calov justly remarks, this is the prayer in which of all others, we should least expect to meet with tautologies, being itself proposed in opposition to vain repetitions. And if there is a progress of ideas, this too will discover itself in an external arrangement, as it actually does even to the superficial observer, in the où which occurs thrice with the three first petitions, and in the nuts which occurs four times in connection with the three or four last petitions. Of course, it is necessary to guard against subjecting the discourses of our Lord and the apostles, to the logical method of the schools. In the language of God to man which comes to us from the kingdom of grace, as in that which speaks to us from the natural world, there prevails a higher order than the formal one of logic. At the precise point where our logical square will no longer apply, the boundaries of a higher kingdom begin. The discourses of men of God need not be clipped into French gar- ! dens with the logical sheers of a Lampe or a Baumgarten, to acquire symmetry and connection; they are English parks, in which copse and meadow variously intermingle, and yet through the apparent confusion goes forth the law of beauty and of a higher order. It is, however, falling into the other extreme to suppose that every attempt at pointing out a strict logical method is to be rejected. There are cases, in which the formal logical scheme is the body of the essential logic of the mind, as is found to be particularly true in regard to the tripartite division. It was not by a merely accidental classification that the philosophy of the ancients fell into the divisions of Dialectic, Physics, and Ethics, nor that Christian Theology, is embraced under the heads of Theology properly so called, Anthropology, and Soterology (or the doctrine of a Saviour). So then we find also that there is a logical arrangement in the Lord's prayer,

1

and one which is necessarily grounded in the nature of prayer and of christian faith. The prayer contains seven petitions (the sacred number) which fall into two parts. The former of these expresses the relation of God to us, the latter, ours to God. The first three petitions unfold progressively one thought: first, God must be acknowledged as that which he is; second, then he rules over men; third, thereby the earth will in the end become transformed into heaven. In like manner, the last four petitions exhibit a progression running parallel with the former. The prayer commences with what is of inferiour importance, and asks first for the supply of earthly wants, then of spiritual; more particularly, first, for the pardon of past sin; secondly, for preservation from future sin; thirdly, for final deliverance from all evil and impurity.2 Next follows the epilogue-belonging, it must be confessed, to a later age, yet remarkably well adapted to its place, and presenting under three heads the ground of Christian assurance. This process of ideas is thrown into a method still more rigorously precise in the following scheme of Dr. Weber, contained in the above mentioned Program of 1828.

εὐχαί.

1. ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄν- 1. τὸν ἄρτον ἡμων τ. 1. ὅτι σοῦ ἐστ

Πρόλογος.

1. πάτερ.

αμά σου.

ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡ

τιν ἡ βασιλ

The first eux and the first airnua Dr. Weber refers to Theology, the second sun with the second airnua, to Christology, the third suzy with the third airnua, to Pneumatology or the doctrine of good and evil spirits. It would be more correct to say,

1 The Reformed Church supposes six, the Lutheran seven, respecting which see remarks on the 7th petition, v. 13.

2 Bengel: tres reliquae rogationes spectant vitae spiritualis in mundo initium, progressum, exitum, rogantesque confitentur non solum de sua indigentia, sed etiam de reatu, periculo et angustiis. Quum haec amota sunt Deus est illis omnia in omnibus, per rogationes tres primas. Vid. August. and Calvin.

that the distribution of these petitions is grounded upon the economy of Father, Son and Spirit, which economy appears here as it so frequently does elsewhere, to constitute the deeper basis of the logical scheme of the number three. The acknowledgement of the being of God, as a holy being, is referred particularly to the Father as the don; his kingdom among men is through the mediation of the Son; it attains to its completion in the Spirit, in which the Father and the Son operate in the church, so that the will of God is done on earth as in heaven. In like manner the sustaining of the bodily existence belongs to the work of creation and providence (opus creationis et conservationis) consequently in a more particular sense to the Father; the pardon of the guilt of sin, to the economy of the Son; the preservation from the power of temptation and the final subjective deliverance from evil to the economy of the Spirit. After what has now been said, and still better after a careful examination of the several petitions, we shall be prepared to estimate at their just value the following remarkable declarations of Joh. Chr. Fr. Schultz, and of Moeller.2 The former theologian asserts that the want of all coherence, and of all natural union of the several petitions with one another, which would scarcely be pardonable in a person praying under the influence of the most unbridled imagination, far less in one possessed of the composed and reflecting mind which Jesus undoubtedly required, makes it impossible to admit this (i. e. that the prayer forms a connected whole).3 And Moeller: "In short, so soon as we begin to contemplate the Lord's prayer as a connected whole, we see in it so much that is wanting, that it is difficult to conceive why Jesus had not furnished one more full and complete. (!!)

A single question remains to be settled. Are the first three petitions actually petitions? It might be said that they relate

In his Anmerk. zu Mich. Uebers.

2 1. c. p. 47.

3 Schultz supposes, for example, the prayer should be understood as follows: 1) If you would offer an ascription of praise to the Father of universal nature, say; thou Father of us and of all creatures, exalted above all! Let thy praise be our constant employment: 2) or if you would pray for the speedy approach of the beginning of my religion, say thus, etc. 3) or if you would pray God for the greatest happiness of mankind, for a willing compliance with his precepts, thus,

etc.

to the things of God, and we cannot, in any proper sense, be said to pray for the things of God, but only to have a longing desire for the fulfilment of what is contained in these three expressions. Hence Dr. Weber-following the example of Grotius-calls them pia vota. But this turns out in reality to be the same thing; since every desire of the Christian becomes with him a prayer. Besides, it would be taking a very superficial view of the subject to say that we pray here for the things of God, and not for our own. On the contrary, whatever tends to the glory of God among men, contributes also to the glorifying of man in God, consequently is also an object of our prayer. To many expositors, however, the first petition at least has seemed to be only a votum, or as they call it, a doxology, equivalent to evλoyntos ó cós. Thus Pricaeus, Olearius, Wetstein, Michaelis. The nature of the doxology, as it is found among the Jews and among the Mohammedans, consists in this, that whenever they pronounce the name of God, with more than ordinary emotion of the mind, they add "blessed hallowed may he be." But if the ayaonto here were not a petition, but only such an appendage to the mention of God, we should expect to find the relative, or the participle as in Rom. 1: 25, or Rom. 9:5. As it stands at present, we shall be under the necessity of considering it as a petition, and the more so, as this suits the whole connexion of thought, while a doxology in so brief a prayer would seem out of place.

V. 9. The Address. It will be necessary here to keep in mind the remark which was made on the 205th page. Although he name of father as applied to God among the heathen and the Jews, is the more unfrequent title, and the more common one deoлórns and Basileus, yet it is by no means entirely wanting. Among the Persians, Mithras bore the name of father, s. Julian, Caesares, p. 336. ed. Spanh. Jupiter is compounded of Diovis-Deus and pater. The πατὴρ θεῶν τε ανδρῶν τε οἱ Homer is well known, as well as the Hellenic Triad Zɛv te nateg nai Anvain nai "Anollov, as e. g. Od. IV. v. 341. From the celebrated passage in Plato's Timaeus, where he speaks of the deity as the πατὴρ καὶ ποιητὴς τοῦ κοσμοῦ, the title carne into very familiar use among the New Platonicians, who were careful also to make the distinction that the deity was especially the father of the pious. Plutarch Vita Alex. c. 27. What sense the heathen attached to the predicate лazno appears from the words of Diod. Sic. bibl. V. c. 72: naripa de (αντòν проσ

αγορευθῆναι) διὰ τὴν φροντίδα κ. τὴν εὐνοίαν τὴν εἰς ἅπαντας, ἔτι δὲ καὶ τὸ δοκεῖν ὥσπερ ἀρχηγὸν εἶναι τοῦ γένους των ανθρώ πων : "he is called father on account of his care and good will towards all, and moreover because he appears to be as it were the great head and director of the race of men." So also Plutarch de superstit. c. 6. places the Tvoavvizov in opposition to πατρικόν, and says that the superstitious man (δεισιδαίμων) recognizes only the former attribute in the deity. The heathen were acquainted, it is true, only with the original natural derivation of man from God, but even this truth certainly involved the idea of a filial relationship of man to God, and of a paternal love of God to man, Matt. 5: 45. Acts 14: 17. 17: 28; so that it was not a mere delusion, therefore, in the heathen, when he marked and acknowledged in the all-pervading Deity the power not barely of a ruler but also of a father. This name conveyed a still greater truth in the mouth of the Israelite, who enjoyed in so distinguished a manner the revelations of the goodness of his God, that he could exclaim as in Ps. 147: 19, 20. The name father is found in the Old Testament, Deut. 32: 5. Job. 34: 36, Is. 63: 16. Jer. 3: 4, 19. Mal. 1: 6. also Wisd. 14: 3. Sir. 23: 1. That in the mind of the Hebrew the idea of defence and protection was particularly associated with this appellation, may be inferred from such passages as Ps. 68: 5. Is. 9: 6. The name acquires its deepest meaning when used by the Christian, as one born of God. In this sense to become children of God is a "power" ovoia, which is derived originally from him, who is in the absolute sense Son of God, John 1: 12. comp. comment. p. 106, 309. This was the view taken by most of the ancient commentators,1 and even the philological Camerarius gives particular prominence to this idea. Then again as in the paternal relation among men, the father's care in supporting, and educating the son, springs out of the fact that the son derives his being from that of the father, so also in the paternal relation of God to man. God is called in scripture the author of every paternal relation, father in the highest sense. Ephes. 3: 15. Matt. 23: 9. Whatever therefore belongs to the idea of father in the human parent we shall again find in the re

1 Cyprian: homo novus, renatus, et Deo suo per ejus gratiam restitutus pater dicit, quia filius esse jam coepit.—Quod nomen nemo nostrum in oratione auderet attingere nisi ipse nobis sic permisisset orare. Orig. : εἰκὼν οὖν εἰκόνος οἱ ἅγιοι τυγχάνοντες, τῆς εἰκόνος οὔσης υἱοῦ, ἀπομάττονται υἱότητα.

VOL. V. No. 17.

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