Page:Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.djvu/25

 "perfect as your Father in the heavens is perfect," is seen to possess a distinct and appropriate meaning.

It is on account of this signification of the term Father, as designating especially the Divine Goodness or Love, that the Prayer commences with the expression, "Our Father;" in order to convey the idea that all prayer is directed to the Lord, as a Being of love, and that from his love all requests are granted and all blessings flow. We have indeed a general view of the same truth, when we think of the phrase merely in its literal sense,—the term "father" conveying to our minds the idea of one who loves us as his children, and wishes to bless us. But a knowledge of the spiritual sense of the term makes the idea more full and distinct.

The reason, probably, why the expression "in the heavens" is added, is because it is to the Lord as the Author of the good that exists in heaven, and as being himself, indeed, that good, that our prayer is in particular directed,—because that is the good that we ourselves solicit and wish to receive. The Divine Goodness, as it is in the Lord himself, we can have no conception of, and no hope to attain, for it is Infinite; we cannot, as it were, even see such Goodness in our thought, so as to address it. But the Lord's goodness as it exists in heaven, we can conceive of, and may rightly pray for; and him, as being the author of that goodness, and as being that Goodness, we properly pray to, for of him in that view we can have a distinct idea.

In conclusion. When, then, we kneel down to