the trials sent for our improvement may not be too great (1 Cor. x. 13), that we may be approved not condemned by them1. We pray that in all the dangers ghostly and bodily, to which we may be exposed, we may not be without God's gracious help, that He “who knows us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright, will grant to us such strength and protection, as may support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temptations3."

4. The Duty implied. But if we would make this petition a reality instead of a mockery, we must attend to the Duty which it implies, of maintaining a habit of humility, watchfulness, and prayer. An absence of humility betrays us into self-confidence, and self-confidence, as in the instance of St Peter (Mtt. xxvi. 33—35), brings about many a fall. An absence of watchfulness exposes us to the wiles and snares of the Wicked One, and renders us ready victims to his assaults. An absence of prayer sends us to trial unprepared, and to battle without armour. Watch and pray, said the Saviour to the three Apostles in the Garden of Geth

not utterly fail (èkλeíπŋ, Lu. xxii. 32), that he might not be completely overcome.

"Da ut per tentationes probemur, non reprobemur." Peter Abelard.

2 The idea of such a petition for help in ghostly danger expressed in the Catechism is well brought out by St Augustine: "Pugna, pugna; quia qui te regeneraverit, Judex est; proposuit luctum, parat coronam. Sed quia sine dubio vinceris, si Illum adjutorem non habueris, si te deseruerit; ideo proponis in Oratione, Ne nos inferas in tentationem." De Serm. Dom. LVII. 9. "Petimus ne deserti Ejus adjutorio alicui tentationi vel consentiamus decepti, vel cedamus afflicti." Ep. 130 ad Probam.

3 See the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, and compare 2 Pet. ii. 9.

M. C.

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semane, lest ye enter into temptation1. And, lastly, if we would do as we would be done by, while avoiding all needless danger ourselves, we must be very careful that we do not lead others into temptation2, and cause them to fall, when we ourselves have prayed that we may be enabled to stand.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FOURTH PETITION FOR OUR OWN NEEDS.

THE LORD'S PRAYER.

But deliver us from evil.

I.

Connection.

THE EXPLANATION.

And...I pray unto God... that He will keep us from all sin and wickedness, and from our ghostly Enemy, and from everlasting death.

The last petition of the Lord's Prayer differs from the preceding one. Temptation, as we have seen, is not in itself necessarily evil, unless it prevails, and we are overcome by it; for it may prove the means of bringing out, and through the conflict, of strengthening what is good in men, to their everlasting gain. But there is evil around us in the world, and from it we pray that God would deliver and rescue3 us. 1 Mtt. xxvi. 41; Lk. xxii. 40. "Christ knew that hour in the Garden was a precious opportunity for laying in spiritual strength. He struggled and fought then: therefore there was no struggling afterwards-no trembling in the Judgment-hall-no shrinking on the Cross, but only dignified and calm victory; for He had fought the Temptation on his knees beforehand, and conquered all in the Garden. The battle of the Judgment-hall, the battle of the Cross, were already fought and over, in the Watch and in the Agony." Robertson's Sermons, II. 330.

3 See Secker's Lectures on the Catechism, II. 210.

2 'Ρῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ. Ρύεσθαι=(1) to draw to oneself; (2) to draw out of danger, to rescue (comp. Hom. Od. XII. 107; Eurip. Orest. 1563); (3) to shade, screen, protect,

2. Evil. The evil around us is of many kinds. (i) There is moral evil, sin, and wickedness, in the world1 (1 Jn. v. 19), and in ourselves, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false-witness, blasphemies3 (Mtt. xv.19). (ii) There is the original Author, and the constant Promoter of evil, the Evil One", our "ghostly Enemy," whom we

6

used especially of (a) guardian deities, (Hom. Il. XV. 257, 290), of (b) princes and chiefs, (Hom. Il. IX. 396). Hence in the New Testament we find it applied to the rescue of Lot from Sodom (2 Pet. ii. 7); to the delivery of St Paul from great trouble (2 Cor. i. 10), from persecutions and afflictions (2 Tim. iii. 11), and from imminent peril (2 Tim. iv. 17, 18); to the delivery of mankind by Christ from the power of darkness (Col. i. 13), from the wrath to come (1 Thess. i. 10); to deliverance from the hand of enemies (Lk. i. 74), from wicked men (2 Thess. iii. 2), from temptations (2 Pet. ii. 9). The title o puóuevos the Deliverer is specially applied to Christ, Rom. xi. 26.

1 See above, pp. 11, 12.

2 Hence St Augustine observes that the Petition is for deliverance from ourselves: "Libera me ab homine malo, a me ipso." Serm. XLIV. 3.

3 Comp. Ps. xix. 12; Jer. xvii. 9; Gal, v. 19—21.

4 See above, p. II.

5 Hence some would translate the petition, deliver us from the Evil One. The title o rovnpós, the Evil or Wicked One, is applied to the Tempter by our Lord in Mtt. xiii. 19, then cometh the Wicked One; in Mtt. xiii. 39, the children of the Wicked One; in Jn. xvii. 15, I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the Evil One; by St Paul, Eph. vi. 6, the fiery darts of the Wicked One; by St John, ye have overcome the Wicked One (1 Jn. ii. 13, 14); Cain was of the Wicked One (1 Jn. iii. 12); the Wicked One toucheth them not (1 Jn. v. 18).

6 From the Anglo-Saxon gástlic-spiritual. Compare Latimer's Sermons, p. 66, "For as the body wasteth and consumeth away for lack of bodily meat, so doth the soul pine away for default of ghostly meat." Compare also Shakespeare, Rom. and Jul. 11. 2.

Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell. Bible Word-Book, 225.

have promised to renounce, but who is powerful and ever seeking to get an advantage of us (2 Cor. ii. 11; I Pet. v. 8). (iii) There are the wages, or consequences of evil, and of yielding to the seductions of the Evil One, everlasting death (Rom. vi. 23).

3. Deliver us from evil. Thus set in the midst of many and great dangers, and having no power of ourselves to help ourselves1, we pray to God, who is a most strong Tower to all them that put their trust in Him, to stretch forth His right hand, and save and defend us from the power of evil in the world and in ourselves (Rom. vii. 24), from the crafts and assaults of the Devil, and from the evil that follows these, eternal death. We pray that God will not withdraw His grace from us, or leave us to ourselves, to our own counsels and lusts, but will "raise up His power, and come among us, and with great might succour us," that we may be enabled to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow Him the only God, and to obey His blessed will.

4. Victory. In effect, therefore, the Petition is not merely for deliverance from evil, but to have power and strength to have victory and to triumph against the enemies we promised at our Baptism to renounce; to have grace to endure (Rev. ii. 3), to persevere unto

1 See the Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent.

2 See the Prayer in the Litany, and the Prayer in the Burial Service.

3 See the Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent.

4 See the Collect for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

5 See the Baptismal Service.

6 Υπομενεῖν. Υπομονή, patience, as we have rendered it, is not so much patientia as perseverantia, "a beautiful word, expressing the brave and persistent endurance of the Christian; βασιλὶς τῶν ἀρετῶν, as Chrysostom does not fear to call it." Trench, Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia,

the end, and to overcome, remembering what glorious promises are held out to him that overcometh1 in this life-long battle (Rev. ii. 7).

CHAPTER X.

THE DOXOLOGY.

CLOSE OF THE LORD'S
PRAYER.

For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

CLOSE OF THE EXPLANATION IN THE CATECHISM. And this I trust He will do of His mercy and goodness, through our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore I say, Amen, so be it.

1. The Doxology, as has been already remarked2, does not occur in St Luke's Gospel, it is absent from some MSS. of St Matthew, and is not given or explained in the Catechism, which closes its explanation of what we desire of God in the Lord's Prayer, with the expression of a confident hope that He will of His mercy and goodness, through our Lord Jesus Christ, do for us what we ask of Him. As, however,

1 Comp. Rev. ii. 11, 17, 26; iii. 5, 12, 21; xii. 11; xxi. 7. The use of vikav, as expressive of moral victory over sin and temptation, while it occurs in Rom. xii. 21, is of frequent occurrence in St John, and "constitutes an interesting point of contact between the language of the Apocalypse and of his Gospel and his Epistles:" comp. Jn. xvi. 33; 1 Ep. ii. 13, 14; v. 4, 5. Trench, Epistles, pp. 90, 91. 2 See above, p. 107.

3 It does not occur in Wiclif's version of Mtt. vi. 13.

4 It is wanting also in Cranmer's, but is given and explained in Noell's Catechism, where it is called "Dominicæ precationis appendix quædam." It was not added to the Lord's Prayer in the Prayer Book till the year A. D. 1661, when it was directed to be used at the beginning of Morning and Evening Service and in the Post-Communion Service. See Procter On the Book of Common Prayer, p. 212.