Great Adversary. His lusts and appetities may war against the soul, when Satan is not present to inflame them; the world, in the gayety of its scenes, in the ambition of its pursuits, in the intoxication of its pleasures, may tempt and ensnare the heart, and draw it away from God.

Against such evils, we cannot watch too faithfully; we cannot pray too earnestly and constantly. Sin is the Dagon of the soul; it is the canker which is ever eating; it is this which paralyzes our spiritual strength, and destroys all our spiritual beauty; it is this which has introduced "death and all our woe into the world."

Sin, like a venomous disease,

Infects our vital blood;

The only balm is sovereign grace,
And the physician, God.

Happy is it, if of this we are so sensible, as timely to secure the interposition of the great and almighty Physician in our behalf, to work grace within us, as a preventive against sin; or, if we have sinned, to deliver us from the evil consequences of it, through the atoning blood of Jesus.

And this brings us to a brief consideration of another great blessing involved in this petition, viz: deliverance from the consequences of sin.

These are summed up in the word suffering. All men, even the pious, suffer in the present world, more or less, in consequence of sin. Against all suffering we may pray, in subordination to the will of God; or rather against any particular suffering: for, in order to be exempted from all suffering, it is probable that we "must needs go out of the world." "Man is born unto trouble," says Job, "as the sparks fly upward." "In the world," said our Savior to his disciples, "ye shall have tribulation."

And, in truth, none, of all the sons of men, have been exempt from maladies, both of body and mind. And, while

it is desirable to be delivered from that pain of body, and that agony of mind, which overwhelm and unfit the soul from improving under such calamitious visitations of trouble; and, while we may strongly and earnestly pray for deliverance from them, it is not well, perhaps, to wish or to pray for deliverance from all trouble, nor from all suffering. Says Job: "Behold! happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." "Blessed is the man," says the Psalmist, "whom thou chastenest, O Lord.”—And, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I kept thy word." "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous," says an apostle; "nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."

This is the experience of thousands. Afflictions are not desirable in themselves. But they are often, by the grace of God, far more beneficial than prosperity. Uninterrupted prosperity has seldom, if ever, brought men to glory: severe and long-protracted sufferings have done it in a multitude of instances. Let us, then, pray to be delivered from the evil of misimproving afflictions, rather than to be delivered from the trials themselves. Let us remember, for our comfort, the words of Inspiration: "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth;" or, what the divine poet has made a God of truth say:

Let not my children slight the stroke

I, for chastisement, send;

Nor faint beneath my kind rebuke,
For I am still their friend.

But there is one evil, against which we should pray by night and by day-the suffering for sin in the future world. But even that we may not pray against, excepting as we pray that we may become holy. Holiness is a condition of

eternal life. God has established an eternal connection between sin and misery-between a life of wickedness here, and a life of suffering hereafter. No prayer for a disseverance of these can ever be answered: no one has a right so to mock God, as to pray for it. Nor is it desirable. Any different principle of procedure, on God's part, would confound virtue and vice; would shock the moral sense of the holy universe; would shake the moral government of God to its very foundation.

Hence, then, he that would be delivered from final and eternal suffering, must forsake sin. Against this, as an evil in itself, and an everlasting evil in its consequences, we should pray-pray as solemnly, as fervently, as unceasingly as the evils are great and enduring, which we would avoid, and the opposite blessings are vast and incomprehensible, which we would secure.

MATTHEW.

LORD'S PRAYER.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.Matt. vi. 13.

THE authenticity of this doxology, or conclusion of the Lord's Prayer, has been doubted by some eminent divines, for the reason that it is wanting in some ancient manuscripts. But, as Dr. Doddridge, and other excellent writers have observed, "it admirably suits and enforces every preceding petition." Besides, it is in exact accordance with other portions of the sacred canon, about which there is no doubt. And, moreover, it is not certain that it was not uttered by the Savior: and, if so, it is a legitimate part of this excellent model of prayer. It well agrees with the blessing with which David blessed the Lord, before the congregation of

Israel: "Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty, for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine: thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.”

We have styled this a doxology. And, surely, an ascription of praise may well be added to every prayer we offer; or rather constitute a part of it. Well may we rejoice that God reigns, and that "the kingdom, and the greatness of the kingdom, under the whole heaven," is His. Well may we praise and thank him for those infinite and glorious attributes which constitute his character; for those blessings which daily flow forth from the inexhaustible treasures of his providence; for that grace which he has manifested, and will continue to manifest towards the guilty children of men.

Ascriptions of praise abound in the Scriptures. We are not surprised that they do abound. They are the natural out-pouring of the pious and grateful heart. In more than one instance, we find the Psalmist beginning with expressions the most sorrowful, and ending with praises the most joyful: "How long," says he, "wilt thou forget me, O Lord? For ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?" But, before he closes the psalm, his harp is taken from the willows, and we hear him singing joyfully: "My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me." Perhaps no one ever knew better how to praise than did the Psalmist. And who, of all the saints of the earlier dispensation, so abounded in this joyful exercise? Nor was it enough for him to praise God himself: he calls upon all intelligent beings to join in, with "sweet accord;" and even the brute creation, and various objects of nature, must help swell the chorus to the skies. The one hundred and forty-eighth psalm is a beautiful specimen of his skill in summoning the whole creation to unite in an anthem of praise to Jehovah. Every

creature-angels-men-sun, moon, and stars-fire and hail-snow and vapor-mountains and hills-beasts and creeping things-all must so unite, and then:

Birds, ye must make His praise your theme;

Nature demands a song from you:

While the dumb fish that cut the stream,

Leap up, and mean his praises too.

Did our limits permit, we might cite numerous examples of praise, drawn from the writings of the apostles, which would show how well both dispensations—the old and the new-agree, in inculcating and producing that love and gratitude in the heart, which must find expression in open praise to God. Indeed, in all periods of the world, there have been some, and, in some periods, many, who have delighted to exalt and praise God on the throne; and their songs, in not a few instances, have partaken much of the glowing zeal and rapture of those who sing, before the throne above.

Great as our joy is, still greater should it be in view of the glories of the Infinite Jehovah! He dwells in light which is inaccessible. He pours forth the beams of his glory to the ends of the universe; and, though those displays have been from eternity, so bright and wide-spread, they will continue on for ever. Those fountains will never cease; those tides of glory will never ebb. God's kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; and the subjects of that kingdom will continue to swell their anthems of praise when earthly temples-where they have sung sweetly, joyfully, rapturously— shall have crumbled to ruin. And who will not say for himself

I'll praise Him while he lends me breath;
And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler powers:
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.