Page:The rock of wisdom.djvu/37

 rain from heaven and fruitful seasons are granted; it is he who gives us our corn and wine and oil, and though the poor man works hard for his daily bread, it is no less the gift of God; to him we also owe the appetite that makes our food pleasant and the power of digestion that makes it nourishing. Moderation in our desires is here expressed, we are not taught to ask for riches and honors, they are often the destructive snares of those who possess them, but we may lawfully ask for food and raiment, for our heavenly father knoweth that we have need of these things, and having these things we ought to be contented; we are not to ask for weekly bread or monthly bread, but for daily bread, for we must not boast of to-morrow nor depend on future years, but live in daily dependance on God without anxious care for a future time; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and sufficient for the day is the good thereof, so that we are to exercise ourselves in daily prayer, and receive every meal and every morsel as the gift of a good God which will make it sweet.

The christian will also ask for bread for his soul as well as body; Christ is to the believers soul what food is to the body, he is the bread of life, and if we are born of God we shall daily desire to feed upon him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving. "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors;" this petition is joined to the last by the word, and, which may teach us that without the forgiving of sin the comforts of this life can do us no real good, Math. 8 c. 38 v. for what does a man profit if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul; here we set the value of a soul, it cannot be estimated; millions of worlds would come short in redeeming of it, and yet the blood of one man, Christ Jesus, is calculated to redeem the whole world if they would only comply with it; what an easy task for man! every man is a sinner, there is not a creature who wants daily bread that does not also want daily pardon, and yet how few are sensible of it; sin is here compared to a debt, there is a debt of duty that we owe to God and in case of failure we contract a new debt to the justice of God; the debt we owe to .God exposes us to misery, and be it remembered that we are not able to pay a single farthing of this debt, if ever we are delivered from going to the prison of hell, Ps. 9 c. 17 v. it must be