nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that 'love Him.' It affords a clue to the anomalies and contradictions of life (as we sometimes call them), to the sparing of the wicked, the waiting for the penitent, the training of the just, and the mingling of the tares and wheat; ah, it is full enough to explain all things! He loves That is enough. I cannot tell why, I cannot see what there is in me to love, but I know it is so, for Christ hath taught us this. hath witnessed it in His own person, by His life and by His death and by His perpetual advocacy; and it is so, for He is Our Father.' me. There follows, as we sum up this most blessed of truths (and we have lingered on it the longer because thus are we prepared for what is contained in the petitions of this prayer, we come fresh from the thought and contemplation of the Fatherhood of God to what is inseparably linked to it): I. That He is our Father, and the Father of all nations: Is. Ixiv.; St. Matt. vi. 26; Jer. vii. 7; Ps. ciii, civ. II. That we have the privileges of sons: So is our adoption, regeneration, sanctification, and life in God assumed. We are thus distinguished from other creatures as being made in His image (Acts xvii. 26), and as having sent into our hearts the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Christ hath taught us to approach God as we should never have ventured to do. It was never given to the Israelites, but the prophets speak of it by anticipation (Is. Îxiii. 16). 'We should therefore recollect and feel that when we call God a Father, we ought to act like sons of God; and if we have a comfort in regarding Him as our Father, let us cause that He may be comforted in us. Let 'us walk as the temples of God, that it may 'be known that God dwelleth in us. Let our conduct not fall away from the Spirit; but let us who have begun to be spiritual and 'heavenly, have only spiritual and heavenly thoughts and actions: for the Lord God Himself hath said, "Them that honour Me "I will honour, and he that despiseth Me 'shall be despised." The blessed apostle has 'likewise in his epistle set forth, "Ye are "not your own, with a great price ye are 'bought, glorify and possess God in your 6.46 'body.' (St. Cyprian.) III. That we are encouraged hence to repentance and prayer. We may note that all the parables of the Lord in which the name of the Father occurs are of the tenderest, as embracing this thought. IV. That the thought of children should be ours always of living, being, children of God. So follows conversion- Except ye be converted and become as little children.' 'Ye 'must receive the kingdom of God as little 'children.' One of the many wonders of this marvellous love of God wherein we confess His Fatherhood is, that the leprosy of sin should be cleansed, the issue of blood staunched, the paralysis of shame depart, the death in trespasses awake to life, casting aside the grave-clothes, and springing to Christ; but added to that wonder is the marvel that health should follow, that life should begin afresh, that the soul should be restored, and the waste places built up, and once more find peace with God. 'What does this prove as to the loving'kindness and long-suffering which must ever 'be operating in the mind of God towards a life which He has awakened out of no'thingness, and which He has so constituted in relation to Himself as to rest ceaselessly on His continuous upholding power! What 'pledges does such an instance of human care give us to the continuous protection, the ceaseless and instant aid, of One Who is 'more than father, more than mother, more even than creator or preserver, who is Him'self our very life.' (Carter.) V. Then follows Trust: Will He give him a 'stone?' Love: deepening and increasing. 'I will 'love Thee, O Lord, my strength.' 'The 'Lord is my shepherd.' Hope: Bearing us onward. (Now the God 'of Hope,' &c.) Rom. xv. 13. Joy: Opening out new sources of happiness. Who shall say what this is not, or may not be to the man who folds to his heart the blessed truth his Master hath taught him, and who day by day as he kneels down before God, reminds himself of all he may hope for, believe in, love and enjoy in the word Father;' who shall say what this might not be to many a cold and dry soul that lives on and on like a stone, and refuses to open itself to a love that is longing to make Himself known to it; who shall say what they may not be to the man in whom family affection has fallen short of that end, and only finds rest in the dear ones God has given to him; to the man of wealth whose life is but for the world; to the man of letters whose hope and ambition go not beyond the grave? Life passes, friends die, families break up and separate, the old love grows cold, the old associations are lost, but One remains, and remains true to the last; One only is true to us, One only can supply our needs, One only can train us up to perfection, One only can satisfy to the full the utmost longing of the soul, and that One our Father. We know not who will be with us to the end of our course, we know not when and how we shall close this fitful life of ours, but one thing we do know, that He will be there. 'Nevertheless I will be with thee.' The great I, and so in the words of the divine Psalmist, 'My flesh and my heart faileth, but "God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.' Ps. lxxiii. 26. Which art in Heaven. Christ has revealed to us the Father, first in His nature attracting the soul to Him: He would make us know Him even as He knows Him. He reveals Him as He reveals all truth, gradually and yet at the same time abruptly. He tenderly trains the soul, and at the same time often startles the soul: He has revealed the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood in Christ. He now leads us on to the reality of that Person when He says, 'Which art.' He hath opened the gates of everlasting life, admitted us into the inner circle, and described Him, whom truly to know is eternal life, not that we should simply gaze, and in gazing love, and ere long, when the dream has passed, shrink from the holiness of the Most Holy, 'before whom the very heavens are not pure, and who accuses His angels of folly.' No; He leads us by the hand that is scarred with the suffering which has purchased this entry into the Divine Presence, and He, by the very next words, tells us of a vigorous life which must follow on the thought of God. He would have us know Him as acting as well as being, as the source of all power of work as well as the centre of all love. He reveals Him in His Divine Person, as Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being, as indeed a Spirit whose worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth, but very real, by God dwelling indeed in the light that no man can approach unto, and ceaselessly active for His creatures. Rejoicing in His own life and stirring up the power of action in us. 'He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is 'the rewarder of them that diligently seek 'Him.' The danger in life is of abstraction: an abstract Being is to too many minds, the thought of God. They do not know God to be what He is a Spirit indeed, but personally theirs. They but seldom or ever speak to Him or to the Holy Ghost. The thought of God is not to them a reality. There may be awe connected with it, but there is no attempt |