and continual Benefactor, grant that we and all reasonable creatures may entertain just and worthy notions of thy nature and attributes, may fear thy power, admire thy wisdom, adore thy goodness, rely upon thy truth; may reverence thy holy name, may bless and praise thee, may worship and obey thee. "Grant that all the nations of the earth may come to the knowledge and belief of thy holy religion: that it may everywhere produce the blessed fruits of piety, righteousness, charity, and sobriety; that by a constant endeavour to obey thy holy laws, we may approach, as near as the infirmity of our nature will allow, to the more perfect obedience of the angels that are in heaven; and thus qualify ourselves for entering into thy kingdom of glory hereafter. "Feed us, we beseech thee, with food convenient for us. We ask not for riches and honours; give us only what is necessary for our comfortable subsistence in the several stations which thy providence has allotted to us; and, above all, give us contented minds. "We are all, O Lord, the very best of us, miserable sinners. Be not extreme, we beseech thee, to mark what we have done amiss, but pity our infirmities, and pardon our offences. Yet let us not dare to implore forgiveness from thee, unless we also from our hearts forgive our offending brethren. "We are surrounded, on every side, with temptations to sin; and such is the corruption and frailty of our nature, that without thy powerful suc cour we cannot always stand upright. Take us then, O gracious God, under thy almighty protection; and amidst all the danger and difficulties of our Christian warfare, be thou our refuge and support. Suffer us not to be tempted above what we are able to bear; but send thy Holy Spirit to strengthen our weak endeavours, and enable us to escape or to subdue all the enemies of our salvation. "Preserve us also, if it be thy blessed will, not only from spiritual, but from temporal evil. Keep us ever by thy watchful providence, both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that thou being in all cases our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal as finally to lose not the things eternal. "Hear us, O Lord our Governor, from heaven thy dwelling-place; and when thou hearest, have regard to our petitions. These are offered up to thee in the fullest confidence that thy goodness will dispose, and thy power enable thee to grant whatsoever thy wisdom sees to be convenient for us, and conducive to our final happiness."" HYMN. Our heavenly Father, hear Thy kingdom come, thy will On earth be done in love; As saints and seraphim fulfil Thy perfect law above. Our daily bread supply While by thy word we live ; Thine then for ever be Glory and power divine; § XX. CHAP. VI. 16-18. Of Fasting. 16 ¶ Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have When the mind is greatly oppressed or occupied with any subject, especially one of a painful nature, our appetite for food is diminished, or altogether lost. Hence a voluntary abstinence from food becomes a natural expression or token of sorrow; and it has been sanctioned as a religious exercise, denoting grief, contrition, or shame on account of sin. The expression of our Saviour, in this place, when ye fast, clearly implies, that believers are permitted to express their sorrow for sin before God by fasting, whenever their feelings, or sense of duty, may prompt them to this exercise. "Religious fasting," says Burkitt, "is a devoting of the whole man, soul and body, to a solemn and extraordinary attendance upon God, in a particular time, set apart for that purpose, in order to the deprecating of his displeasure, and for the supplicating of his favour, accompanied with an abstinence from food and their reward. sensual delights, and from all secular 17 But thou, when thou fast-affairs and worldly business." est, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; 18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. 9 Is. lviii. 5.- Ruth iii. 3. Dan. x. 3. READER. Our blessed Lord here gives some needful instruction respecting the use of fasting, or abstinence, as a religious exercise. When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance.-Our Saviour directs his discourse against one particular abuse of this religious exercise; namely, a spirit of ostentatious and affected piety. And he instructs us that our fasting must be sincere, and unto the Lord, in order to its being in any measure successful and useful. Let us receive this heavenly lesson with all humility and spiritual obedience. Whenever we fast, or exercise any acts of religious abstinence or humiliation, "let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father who is in heaven; to express our sorrow and shame for our manifold transgressions of his holy law; to wait for an increase of purifying grace, drawing our affections to things above; to add seriousness and earnestness to our prayers," in which we deprecate "the wrath of God," and sue for the fulfilment of "the great and precious promises which he hath made to us in Christ Jesus." "Let us beware of mocking God, and of turning our fast as well as our prayers into an abomination unto the Lord, by the mixing of any temporal view-particularly by seeking the praise of men." Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face." Do as thou art accustomed to do at other times." That thou appear not unto men to fast; "let this be no part of thy intention: if men know it without any design of thine, it matters not; thou art neither the better nor the worse;" but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. "Not that we are to imagine that the performing the bare outward act will receive any blessing from God. And if we desire the reward of which our Saviour speaks, let us beware of fancying that we merit anything of God by our fasting. We cannot be too often warned of this, inasmuch as a desire to establish our own righteousness, to procure salvation of debt, and not of grace, is so deeply rooted in all our hearts." In our acts of religious humiliation, let us remember that we are waiting for God's unmerited mercy, to be freely bestowed on us for Christ's sake, and not for anything we can do. The case of the hypocrites, to whom our Lord refers, affords a proof of the lamentable fact, that many men who are able to overcome the allurements of sensual pleasure are yet held captive under the no less fatal influence of spiritual pride. In the history of the early apostasy of the Christian church, we find that acts of bodily austerity and mortification were very soon erected into grounds of false dependence; and the mistakes of some of the ancient doctors on this point became greatly instrumental in destroying the simplicity of the Christian faith. We must keep close to Scripture in all things affecting either our faith or practice. If we give heed to human speculations or fables, we shall certainly be misled. The errors of the Christian "Fathers" concerning almsdeeds, and fasting, exactly resemble those of the Jewish Rabbies" on the same subject. 66 May we not only apprehend the meaning, but imbibe the spirit, of our Saviour's injunction! "Let every season, either of public or private fasting, be a season of exercising all those holy affections which are implied in a broken and contrite heart. Let it be a season of devout mourning, of godly sorrow for sin; such a sorrow as that of the Corinthians, concerning which the Apostle saith, that "it worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of." (See 2 Cor. vii. 10, 11). "Let our sorrowing after a godly sort work in us the same inward and outward repentance; the same entire change of heart, renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness; and the same change of life, till we are holy, as he is holy, in all manner of conversation. Let it work in us the same carefulness to be found in him, without spot and blameless; the same clearing of ourselves, by our lives rather than our words, by abstaining from all appearance of evil; the same indignation, vehement abhorrence of every sin; the same fear of our own deceitful hearts; the same desire to be in all things conformed to the holy and acceptable will of God; the same zeal for whatever may be a means of advancing his glory, and of our growth in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; and the same revenge against Satan and all his works, against all filthiness both of flesh and spirit." HYMN. O Lord! turn not thy face away Thy mercy-gates are open wide To all who mourn their sin; Oh, shut them not against us, Lord, But let us enter in. Thou know'st, O Lord, what things be past, And all the things that be; Thou know'st also what is to come, Nothing is hid from Thee. We come, Lord, to thy throne of grace Where mercy does abound, Desiring mercy for our sin, To heal our sin's deep wound. O Lord, we need not to repeat For Thou dost know, before we ask, 19 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 'But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22 "The light of the body is the eye if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! Prov. xxiii. 4. 1 Tim. vi. 17. Heb. xiii. 5. Jam. v. 1, &c.- Ecclus. xxix. 11. ch. xix. 21. Luke xii. 33, 34; & xviii. 22. 1 Tim. vi. 19. 1 Pet. i. 4.—« Luke xi. 34, 36. READER. Here we are mercifully warned against trusting in uncertain riches, and encouraged to aspire after a better, and an enduring inheritance. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.-For yourselves; there is something very emphatic in that expression in this place. It reminds us that our Lord is here speaking of that which affects our own personal, everlasting interests. What we do, or what we neglect to do, in matters of religion, we do or neglect, most entirely, for ourselves; for our own benefit, or to our own destruction. And well may those words of our Saviour be present to our minds, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" For yourselves!—Yes; when men are living intent on heaping up riches, they think that they are labouring for themselves. But how often does it happen that they labour, not for their own profit or pleasure, but for the temporal benefit of others; although they little contemplate or intend such a result! "Surely every man"-every one that is, who proceeds upon these worldly principles-" walketh in a vain show surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them" (Ps. xxxix. 6). And it is with reference to this vain, earthly-minded, unprofitable labour, that the wise man speaks in the second chapter of Ecclesiastes, "What hath man, of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrow, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity" (Eccles. ii. 22, 23). our Treasures. By this term Lord denotes that which men regard as their chief good,-their great, ultimate, satisfying portion. A treasure, in the full sense of the expression, is something peculiarly precious; that which we prize above all other things, which we are especially anxious to gain or to keep; and it is usually understood of something which exists in sufficient abundance, a large or ample store of that which is good and valuable; and which is regarded as a fixed or permanent possession, something which is reserved as a supply for a future time of need. Now, if we make anything upon earth our treasure, in the complete and highest sense of the expression, we are miserably deceiving ourselves. Is there anything here which we ought to prize and value as our highest good? Any possession or pleasure so large and ample that it can satisfy all our desires and wants? Anything which will last for ever, or endure as long as ourselves? Certainly not. And therefore all things here below are utterly unfit to form our treasure! If we regard them in this light, we shall suffer disappointment, and something For "they that will be rich, fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition" (1 Tim. vi. 9). more. |