layeth hold on the bank, and pulls as if he would draw it to the boat, when he doth but draw the boat to it. Two ways prayer procureth the blessing without making any change in God. First, by our performing the condition on which God promiseth his mercy. Secondly, by disposing our souls to receive it. He that doth not penitently confess his sin, is unmeet for pardon; and he that desireth not Christ and mercy, is unmeet to be partaker of them and he that is utterly unthankful for what he hath received, is unmeet for more.

Q. 3. Who made the Lord's Prayer?

A. The Lord Jesus Christ himself, as he made the gospel; some of the matter being necessary yet before his incarnation. Q. 4. To whom and on what occasion did he make it?

A. To his disciples, (to whom also he first delivered his commands) upon their request that he would teach them to pray. Q. 5. To what use did Christ make it them?

A. First, to be a directory for the matter and method of their love, desires, hope, and voluntary choice and endeavours; and, secondly, to be used in the same words when their case required it.

As man hath three essential faculties, the intellect, will, and vital, executive power; so religion hath three essential parts, viz., to direct our understandings to believe, our will to desire, and our lives in practice.

Q. 6. What is the matter of the Lord's Prayer in general? A. It containeth, first, what we must desire as our end: And, secondly, what we must desire as the means; premising the necessary preface, and concluding with a suitable conclusion.

Q. 7. What is the method of the Lord's Prayer?

A. I. The preface speaks, 1. To God, as God. 2. As our reconciled Father in Christ, described in his attributes, by the words "which art in Heaven," which signify the perfection of his power, knowledge, and goodness; and the word "Father" signifieth that he is supreme Owner, Ruler, and Benefactor.

2. The word "our" implieth our common relation to him, as his creatures, his redeemed and sanctified ones, his own, his subjects, and his beneficiaries, or children.

II. The petitions are of two sorts (as the commandments have two tables): the first proceed according to the order of intention, beginning at the highest notion of the ultimate end, and descending to the lowest. The second part is according to

the order of execution and assecution, beginning at the lowest means, and ascending to the highest.

III. The conclusion enumerateth the parts of the ultimate end by way of praise, beginning at the lowest, and ascending to the highest. The method throughout is more perfect than any of the philosophers' writings.

Q. 8. Why do we not read that the apostles after used this prayer?

A. It is enough to read that Christ prescribed it them, and that they were obedient to him. We read not of all that the apostles did.

2. This is a comprehensive summary of all prayer, and therefore must needs be brief in the several parts: but the apostles had occasion sometimes for one branch, and sometimes for another, on which they particularly enlarged, and seldom put up the whole matter of prayer all at once.

3. They formed their desires according to the method of this prayer, though they expressed those desires as various occasions did require.

Q. 9. Is every Christian bound to say the words of the Lord's prayer?

A. The same answer may serve as to the last. Every Christian is bound to make it the rule of his desires and hopes, both for matter and order; but not to express them all in every prayer. But the words themselves are apt, and must have their due reverence, and are very fit to sum up our scattered, less ordered requests.

Q. 10. But few persons can understand what such generals comprehend?

A. 1. Generals are useful to those that cannot distinctly comprehend all the particulars in them. As the general knowledge, that we shall be happy in holy and heavenly joy with Christ, may comfort them that know not all in heaven that makes up that happiness, so a general desire may be effectual to our receiving many particulars. 2. And it is not so general as "God be merciful to me a sinner," an accepted prayer of the publican, by Christ's own testimony. There are six particular heads there plainly expressed.

CHAP. XXIV.

"Our Father which art in Heaven," expounded.

Q. 1. WHO is it that we pray to, whom we call " our Father?"

A. God himself.

Q. 2. May we not pray to creatures?

A. Yes, for that which it belongeth to those creatures to give us upon our request, supposing they hear us: but not for that which is God's, and not their own to give ; nor yet in a manner unsuitable to the creature's capacity or place. A child may petition his father, and a subject his prince, and all men one another.

Q. 3. May we not pray to the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as well as to the Father?

A. As the word "Father" signifieth God as God, it comprehendeth the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and as it signifieth the first Person in the Trinity, it excludeth not, but implieth, the second and the third.

Q. 4. What doth the word "Father" signify?

A. That as a Father, by generation, is the owner, the ruler, and the loving benefactor to his child, so is God, eminently and transcendently, to us.

Q. 5. To whom is God a Father, and on what fundamental account?

A. He is a Father to all men by creation; to all lapsed mankind, by the price of a sufficient redemption: but only to the regenerate by regeneration and adoption, and that effective redemption which actually delivereth men from guilt, wrath, sin, and hell, and justifieth and sanctifieth them, and makes them heirs of glory.

Q. 6. What is included, then, in our child-like relation to this Father?

A. That we are his own, to be absolutely at his disposal, his subjects, to be absolutely ruled by him, and his beloved to depend on his bounty, and to love him above all, and be happy in his love.

Q. 7. What is meant by the words " which art in heaven?"

A. They signify, I. God's real substantiality: he is existent. II. God's incomprehensible perfection in power, knowledge, and goodness, and so his absolute sufficiency and fitness to hear and help us. 1. The vastness, sublimity, and glory of the heavens tell us, that he who reigneth there over all the world, must needs be omnipotent, and want no power to do his will, and help us in our need.

2. The glory and sublimity tell us, that he that is there above the sun, which shineth upon all the earth, doth behold all creatures, and see all the ways of the sons of men, and therefore knoweth all our sins, wants, and dangers, and heareth all our prayers.

3. Heaven is that most perfect region whence all good floweth down to earth; our life is thence, our light is thence; all our good and foretaste of felicity and joy is thence and therefore the Lord of heaven must needs be the best; the fountain of all good, and the most amiable end of all just desire and love. Yet heaven is above our sight and comprehension; and so much more is God.

III. And the word "art" signifieth God's eternity in heavenly glory: it is not "who wast," or "who wilt be." Eternity indivisible.

Q. 8. Is not God every where? Is he more in heaven than any where else?

A. All places and all things are in God; he is absent from none; nor is his essence divisible or commensurate by place, or limited, or more here than there; but to us God is known by his works and appearances, and therefore said to be most where he worketh most: and so we say, that God dwelleth in him who dwelleth in love that he walketh in his church; that we are his habitation by the Spirit; that Christ and the Holy Spirit dwell in believers, because they operate extraordinarily in them; and so God is said to be in heaven, because he there manifesteth his glory to the felicity of all the blessed, and hath made heaven that throne of his Majesty, from whence all light, and life, and goodness, all mercy, and all justice, are communicated to, and exercised on, men. And so we that cannot see God himself, must look up to the throne of the Heavenly Glory in our prayers, hopes, and joys: even as a man's soul is undivided in all his body, and yet it worketh not alike in all its parts, but is in the head, that it useth reason, sight, &c., and doth most notably appear to others in the face, and is almost visible in the

eye and therefore when you talk to a man, you look him in the face; and as you talk not to his flesh, but to his sensitive and intellectual soul, so you look to that part where it most apparently showeth its sense and intellection.

Q. 9. Is there no other reason for the naming of heaven here?

A. Yes it teacheth us whither to direct our own desires, and whence to expect all good, and where our own hope and felicity is. It is in heaven that God is to be seen and enjoyed in glory, and in perfect love and joy: though God be on earth, he will not be our felicity here on earth: every prayer, therefore, should be the soul's aspiring and ascending towards heaven, and the believing exercise of a heavenly mind and desire. For a man of true prayer to be unwilling to come to heaven, and to love earth better, is a contradiction.

Q. 10. But do we not pray that on earth he may use us as a Father?

A. Yes that he will give us all mercies on earth, conducing to heavenly felicity.

Q. 11. What else is implied in the words, "our Father?"

A. Our redemption and reconciliation by Christ, and, to the regenerate, our regeneration by the Holy Ghost, and so our adoption; by all which, of the enemies and the heirs of hell, we are made the sons of God, and heirs of heaven. It is by Christ and his Spirit that we are the children of God.

Q. 12. Why say we "our Father," and not "my Father?" A. 1. To signify that all Christians must pray as members of one body, and look for all their good, comfort, and blessedness, in union with the whole, and not as in a separate state. Nor must we come to God with selfish, narrow minds, as thinking only of our own case and good, nor put up any prayer or praise to God but as members of the universal church in one choir, all seen and heard at once by God, though they see not, and hear not one another and therefore that we must abhor the pregnant, comprehensive sin of selfishness; by which wicked men care only for themselves, and are affected with little but their personal concerns, as if they were all the world to themselves, insensible of the world's or the church's state, and how it goeth with all others. 2. And therefore that all Christians must love their brethren and neighbours, as themselves, and must abhor the sin of schism, much more of malignant enmity, envy, and persecution, and must be so far from disowning the prayers of