Page:Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.djvu/79

 another, the Lord will provide for you and yours, if you look to him in daily prayer, and then do the best you can. "No good thing," as he has declared in his Word, "will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." "Commit thy way unto the Lord: trust also to him, and he shall bring it to pass." "Cast thy burthen upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee." These are texts applicable to every trouble in life.

I have dwelt thus fully upon the natural sense of this petition, because in the present selfish and disordered state of society, there are many individuals, even among the good and pious, who are at times concerned about the means of providing for the natural wants of themselves and their families; persons, who pray with earnestness, and wish they could pray with trust, "Give us this day our daily bread." I wish to assure them on Scriptural and also on rational grounds, that they may pray with perfect confidence that their prayer will be answered; and that they need not and must not be anxious; but, doing the duty of the present moment, leave the future to the Lord.

But we must now consider briefly the spiritual sense of this petition.

By the words, "Give us this day our daily [or our needful] bread," is meant, in the spiritual sense, a looking to the Lord, and an acknowledgment of our dependence upon him for our spiritual food,—for that which nourishes the heart and mind and the whole spiritual life. It is a prayer that the Lord will every moment keep and guide our thoughts and feelings;