things thou shalt give to me I will offer tithes to thee." [1] Solomon prayed fora competency in these words: " Give me neither beggary nor riches; give me only the necessaries of life." [2] Nay, the Saviour himself commands us to pray for those things which, it will not be denied, are temporal blessings: "Pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the Sabbath." [3] St. James, also, says, " Is any one of you sad? Let him pray. Is he cheerful in mind? Let him sing;" [4] and the Apostle thus addresses himself to the Romans; " I beseech you, therefore, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the charity of the Holy Ghost, that you help me in your prayers for me to God, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers that are in Judea." [5] Since, then, God permits us to ask these temporal favours, and as this form of prayer was delivered by our Lord Jesus Christ, that it constitutes one of the seven petitions can no longer be matter of doubt.
We, also, ask our daily bread, that is to say, necessary sustenance, and, under the name of bread, whatever is necessary for food and raiment. In this sense Elizeus makes use of the word, when admonishing the king to give bread to the Assyrian soldiers, who received a considerable quantity of flesh meat; [6] and of Christ our Lord it is written, that " he entered into the house of a certain prince of the Pharisees on the Sabbath-day, to eat bread;" [7] that is to say, to eat and drink. To comprehend fully the meaning of the petition, it is also to be observed, that by the word bread, we are not to understand a profusion of exquisite meats, and of rich clothing, but what is in its quality simple, and in its object necessary, according to these words of the Apostle: " Having food and raiment, let us therewith be content;" [8] and of Solomon, as already quoted; " Give me only the necessaries of life." [9] Of this frugality in diet and clothing, we are admonished in the next word of the prayer: when we say " our," we pray for the means of satisfying the necessary wants of nature, not of upholding extravagance, or pampering voluptuousness.
We do not, however, by using the word "our," imply that of ourselves, and independently of God, we can acquire these means: " All expect of thee," says David, " that thou give them food in season: what thou givest to them they shall gather up: when thou openest thy hand, they shall all be filled with good." [10] And again, " The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord; and thou givest them meat in due season." [11] Why, then, do we call that for which we pray " our bread?" The reason is, because it is necessary for our sustenance, and is given to us by God, the universal Father, whose providence feeds all living creatures; and, also, because we are to obtain it, lawfully, not by fraud, or injustice, or theft. Whatever we obtain by fraudulent means is not our property; it is the property of another; and it very
