05 - Meditation 5
MEDITATION V.
“GIVE us THIS DAY OUR, DAILY BREAD.”
WHAT a new world of real knowledge has Jesus Christ opened to our view! How vain do the wisest theories of men, concerning the world, God, and ourselves appear, in comparison of the facts so grand, so lofty, consoling, and suited to our wants, which the Saviour has brought to light by his Gospel! Compare the words which we have just read, this simple petition, which supposes such intimate and confiding relations between the creature and the Creator, with any of the systems which ever issued from the laboratory of human wisdom! Did the wisest of men ever dream of regarding God in any other light than that of a Being great and powerful indeed, but yet as little occupied with the wants and concerns of men, as with those of a stone which falls, and rolls whithersoever it is thrown 1 Ask these sages about the mystery of the world, the place which you occupy in it, or the relation you bear towards Him to whom you owe your life, and one will tell you that this world, existing from eternity, or owing its formation to mere chance, to a fortuitous combination, is handed over, with all the creatures that inhabit it, to a blind destiny. Another will tell you that the world, indeed, must have had for its author a powerful and intelligent being, but that he only drew it out of nothing, and summoned it into existence, to deliver it over immediately to the operation of eternal, inflexible, and immutable laws, in which he neither will nor can make any alteration. So that the world, with all the beings which it contains, is but a vast machine, in which man, like the other creatures, is a wheel performing its evolutions by compulsion, whether he be happy or miserable, whether he be triumphant in this universal march, or be crushed and trodden under foot. A third, perhaps, will admit the idea of a vague and passive Providence; in his view God indeed reigns, but he reigns in an eternal immutability, inaccessible to the prayers and cries of his creatures; according to him, it would be unworthy the greatness of God to suppose that he took an interest in the fate, the wants, and the miseries of each individual, however insignificant and obscure. Alas! hew many men, even among those who bear the name of Christians, thus worship a God of their own creation, an idol which neither delivers nor consoles, nor has anything in common with the God of the Bible! thou true and living God “ our Father, which art in heaven!” who canst embrace all in thy paternal care, seeing that thou art infinite. who embracest all, because thou art love, in whose eyes an insect is as much accounted of as a world, because before Thee nothing is great, nothing is little, reveal thyself to our souls, inspire our hearts with the confidence of children!
Yes, let us leave these comfortless theories of ignorance or unbelief; let us take refuge in the consoling assurance, founded on the infallible Word of God, that, like a Father, he takes an interest in the meanest of his creatures, and knows their minutest wants, and that we may say with the Psalmist, “The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing!” Let us hasten to the school of Christ Jesus, and when he has enabled us to say to our God, “ Our Father, which art in heaven.” he will teach us to add, “ Give us this day our daily bread /”
Such is the filial relation, full of unreserved confidence, which Jesus establishes between his disciple and his heavenly Father. Such are the words which we would consider this day, imploring the gracious assistance of that Spirit of adoption which alone can pray in us. and teach us to pray from the heart. But is it in place to treat of such a subject in this pulpit? Is it in an assembly where the signs of a rich abundance meet our eyes on every side, that we ought to meditate upon and explain a petition in which we ask of God merely our daily bread 1 Is there no contradiction in this? Can our words on such a topic find an echo and a sympathy in the hearts of persons who possess, in more than abundance, not only their necessary bread, but the most refined enjoyments of the good things of this world? Ah! is it not rather into the hovel of the poor man, that we ought to bring our meditations this day, to endeavor to banish from beneath his humble roof the tormenting disquietudes of life, and wipe from his cheek the tears of want. Our mission, perhaps, might be more agreeable, more easy, and more useful there. But if it be not so among you also, it is because you have never yet understood the Lord’s Prayer, nor entered into the spirit of this petition. It is not the poor man^alone that Jesus invites to offer it to God, but all his disciples, of every rank and condition. Let a man possess all the riches and all the glory of Solomon, yet, woe unto him! if he learn not his dependence upon God in pronouncing these simple words, “GIVE, GIVE iis our daily bread /” It is God that gives; acknowledge in him the giver of all you possess, and bless and adore him! Such is the salutary lesson which Jesus would inculcate upon us in the first word of this petition. Have you thought of this, my brethren 1 or is it still necessary to prove to you that it is indeed God who gives?
Prove it! All! our demonstration were an easy one. We need only say to you, Go forth without the walls of this city, take a few steps amid the works of God, open your eyes upon the ravishing beauties of nature which burst upon your view, sparkling with freshness and -youth; hear the language in which they address you. - Who clothed the fields with that verdure and that fecundity which promises once more to man his daily bread? who thus, in each successive spring, renews the miracle 1 And where would be the bread of the richest of mankind, could we not say with St. Paul, of that God from whom they are bound to ask it, that he never “ leaveth himself without witness, in that he doeth us good, and giveth us rain from heaven, filling our hearts with food and gladness?” Your gold and silver, which, perhaps, make you forget the giver of your daily bread, could they nourish you, if God did not pour forth every year from his rich treasures, the gifts of his bountiful goodness? No; the rich man would then perish in the midst of his gold, as well as the poor man in his abode of misery. What, then, can exempt the rich man from the necessity of saying to God with the same spirit of dependence as the poor man, “ Give us this day our daily bread?” The rich man, did I say? But who made him rich? Will he answer, with ingratitude towards God, that it was his industry, his labor, or his skill in the management of his affairs? But are not these things themselves gifts of the Divine goodness? Your whole existence is a gift; the breath which animates you is a gift, a free gift, which is renewed every moment; if God were to withhold it from you for an instant, you would return, while I am speaking to you, unto the dust from whence you were taken. The strength necessary to make the slightest movement is a gift; every hour you spend in the labors of your calling is a gift. Let us go still further back: to whom do you owe it that you were born in the midst of opulence and prosperity? Why did you not derive your origin from parents plunged in indigence, in physical and moral misery, who would have left you as your heritage, ignorance, vice, and degradation 1 Why have you been from your infancy objects of the tenderest care? Why have you enjoyed that education, which qualifies you for the situation in life which you occupy, or which, perhaps, has enabled you to arrive at it? Or why have you not been deprived of your possessions and your property, like so many others? To all these questions there is but one answer; God, God is the giver, and this is what Jesus Christ wishes above all things to impress upon you in the petition which we Are now considering. O ye, who have never from your hearts pronounced this prayer, ye who live in ingratitude towards God. have you never thought that instead -of listening here at your ease to a meditation, you might, and, but for the goodness of God, you certainly would have had reason, like many others, to cry, from the depths of poverty and wretchedness, “ Give us this day our daily bread,” yea, a miserable bread, bedewed with sweat and tears? Have you never reflected, when some forlorn object, with famished countenance, covered with rags, and with eyes suffused with tears of shame and suffering-, has stretched out his hand to you for relief, has the reflection never occurred to you, “I might have been in that man’s place, and must inevitably have been so, but for the bountiful goodness of my God?” And then have you not raised up your eyes to heaven with a feeling of gratitude, while you called to mind the petition of Jesus Christ, “ Give us this day our daily bread?”
O, ye rich men of the world! in what a different light would your earthly possessions appear to you, if you remembered that they were the gift of God! Did we receive, as coming from the hand of our heavenly Father, each benefit, each portion of the good things which contribute to our happiness here below, each enjoyment, each one of our repasts, each morsel of daily bread that nourishes us, how could we be guilty of the odious sin of ingratitude? Could the man who, on awaking in the morning, would lift up his heart to his heavenly Father, and say, “ Give us this day our daily bread!” could that man sit down to a table laden with the gifts of God, and not lift up that heart again to his God to bless him, and to give him thanks? Did we remember that it is God that gives, did we receive every thing from his hand, would it be in our power to make the deplorable use which we too often do of our Creator’s benefits? Can you conceive of a man, who in the morning had offered this prayer to God from the bottom of his heart, afterwards, in the course of the same day, going forth and employing the gifts of God in satisfying his carnal passions, nourishing his pride, vanity, and ambition, (making a god of his belly.) exalting himself above others, shaming the poor man by the ostentatious display of his luxury and grandeur, and, in fine, offending and braving Him from whom he has received everything?
Rich men of the world, you are, perhaps, not sensible how much more enjoyment you would derive from your earthly riches, if } 7 ou received them thus from the hand of God. and in the spirit of the prayer which we are now considering. You know, however, how precious and dear to our hearts is the possession of the smallest object, when received from one whom we love and revere, and whom it recalls to our remembrance. But think what all the riches, and all the enjoyments of this life would be to you, if you received them, from the hand of a Father, as a mark of his paternal kindness! These riches, which are so often a source of care and anxiety to you these riches, which, perhaps, have cost you many a sleepless night these riches, which the rust corrupted! these riches, which so often harden and materialize the heart, and render it incapable of the noblest and purest enjoyments these riches, the least of these riches, a present from God, the gift of his paternal kindness, would then be as a remembrance of a Father, as a proof of his love, and be a source of holy joy to your heart. And as the Giver is holy, the remembrance of him would sanctify all the abundance and well-being which he bestows upon you. Thus the goods of this life, which man has so often found the fatal secret of converting into a real curse, would become a real blessing! And you who enjoy not the same blessings, you, whom the Lord has not seen fit to intrust with the dangerous gift of fortune,) 7 ou poor of this world, do you also remember that it is God that gives? He who to this hour hath given you your daily bread, as he doth to the birds of the air, which Jesus holds up to you as patterns of confidence, will give it to you even to the end. And let your poverty, yea, even your indigence, far from discouraging- you, or making you doubt the goodness of God, teach you on the contrary, morning after morning, to come and cast yourselves at his feet with renewed confidence, and to sa}, t: Give us this day our daily bread!”
It is true that earthly cares, and the solicitudes of this life may sometimes impose upon the soul a burden which will oppress it, prevent it from rising to God, shut out from it feelings of trust, dry up the sources of prayer, and extort from it that cry of painful anxiety, “ What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?” It is true that a father or mother, whose weeping children importune them for a morsel of that daily bread which they scarcely have it in their power to afford them, must feel a pang of grief, of which others can know nothing: but even under such circumstances, would Jesus teach them to say to God, “Give us this day our daily bread,” in vain? Would this prayer, put into their mouths by him, be a deception? Far be from us this blasphemy! Ah! while that mother was offering up this prayer to God, with tears not unmixed with anxiety, God he who gives, who holds in his hands all hearts and all events, would already be preparing in secret the daily bread with which he was about to furnish her. And now, if he sends not his prophet to multiply the widow’s handful of meal and cruse of oil if he increases not before our eyes, by his creating hands, the few loaves which are to feed the thousands of a famishing multitude, shall other means be wanting to Him who saith, “ The silver is mine, and the gold is mine?” No, no, so long as the promises of God, who cannot lie, remain written in his Word, so long as I hear “ the Prince of Life” saying, “ Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you;” “ I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” I will believe it impossible, absolutely impossible, for a child of God. who says to his heavenly Father, for himself and for his own, “Give us this day our daily bread,” to be disappointed in his expectation. And shall not He, who by the word of his power sustains the universe, be able to support any one of his children that crieth unto him? Shall he not be able to bless the labors of his hands, to crown his industry with prosperity, or to incline a heart to charity? Yea, He who hath saved you from eternal misery, can he not, will he not, deliver you from your temporal distresses? “ He who spared not his Son,” exclaims St. Paul, “how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” What has he more precious to refuse us? He who hath given us eternal life, the “inheritance incorruptible, un-defiled, and that fadeth not away,” shall he not also give to his child the daily bread which is to sustain, for a few days longer, his mortal existence? ye poor of this world, be Christians! learn prayer in the school of Christ, and you shall be able to say with the Psalmist at all times, “ The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” The Saviour next teaches us to pray for our bread. And thus, in a prayer entirely private, and in the only petition which has reference to our temporal wants, it was proper that we should find a word, which would speak to our consciences, a word, which every time we pronounced it before God, would lead us to search into the depths of our hearts, and to examine our conduct; a word, which, amid the sumptuous banquets of the rich, and the homely reprose of the poor, would raise this question of such high moral import, Is the bread which I eat really my bread? Is this bread unmixed with the leaven of iniquity? No doubt it is God that gives us our bread; but he gives it to his children by means in every thing conformable to his eternal justice, and his immutable holiness.
Nothing acquired in any other way, even to the least morsel of it, is the bread of God, the bread of prayers, our bread.
O ye great and rich ones of this world! what would ye feel, if the mysterious and terrible hand which surprised the king of Babyloia in the midst of his banquet, and wrote his condemnation on the wall of his palace, were to come forth from your gilded ceilings, during your feasts, and trace, in succession, before the eyes of your guests, the means by which such a profusion of riches was heaped upon your sumptuous tables?... Ah! would we not then see many, whose loins would be loosed with terror, and their knees smite one against another, because that they had fulfilled against themselves that prophetic imprecation: “Let their table become a snare before them; and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.” In this sense observe, as well as in another, a man may “ eat and drink his own condemnation.” “ Consider, then, your ways;” and if you are so happy as to be able to write uprightness and equity upon your treasures, ask yourselves also if you make of those goods, which the Lord bestows upon you, the use for which they are committed to your trust. And, in fact, to this examination you are called, because, in using this prayer, you associate yourselves with the poor man whom we have endeavored to console, and you say with him, in the words of Jesus Christ, not give me, but give us, not my bread, but our bread. And thus does the Saviour condemn, with one word, that narrow and heartless selfishness, which shuts us up in our own personal interests, allows us to think only of ourselves, and renders us callous and insensible to the interests and enjoyments, the privations and sufferings of our brethren. That selfishness which has never come out of itself, which has never learned to love, or to sacrifice itself to another, never learned even to pray, has nothing in common with the Lord’s Prayer; that prayer is not intended for it. The Christian, on the contrary, says, “ Give us,” and in this generous and charitable us, he includes all who are exposed to the suffering of privations and misery; in this US) he associates with his own joys and sorrows, the joys and sorrows of his brethren.
And, indeed, if there is ever a moment when our hearts ought to open to sympathy and love for others, is it not when we approach that God who is love, and whom we address as our Father 1 If there is ever a moment when “ our conversation ought to be without covetousness,” is it not when we address ourselves to that God who scatters, with profusion and with love, upon all the worlds which he has created, abundance, life, and happiness? Yes, if we come as Christians to the throne of grace, it must be in leading, as it were, by the hand, all those who have a claim upon our interest, our charity, or our prayers; that is, it must be. to say. “Give us,” and never ’’ Give me!” And if this be the case, if you ought to in elude your brethren, the poorest of your brethren, in your prayers, is it not evident, that since God has heard you, and since he has loaded you with temporal blessings, he means by you to hear the prayer of the poor man? You associated him with you in your prayer, and can it be possible that you did. not wish to associate him with you in the gift of God accorded in answer to that common prayer? What! you would say us in praying, me in enjoying! Then you would falsify your own prayer, you would frustrate the end for which Jesus Christ taught it to you; you would make void the design of God towards the poor; you would be unfaithful stewards of the goods committed to your trust, prevaricators Take heed, then, that you pronounce not the words of this petition; take heed that you say not to God, Give 2is: it were an insult to God, to whom you would speak falsely to his very face; it were a cruel irony towards the poor, whom you include in your prayer, but shut out from your charity!
I know, my beloved brethren, (and why should we not here acknowledge it with thankfulness to God?) I know that in general, you are disposed to sympathize in the necessities of those who suffer. But in the situation in which God has placed you, and with the gifts which he has committed into your hands, does your conscience bear witness that you do, in this respect, all that he expects from you, and above all, that you do it in the spirit in which he requires it? Is there one among us that ever arrives at the point of duty which this simple petition under our consideration prescribes to us? I do not merely ask, Do you give enough of your goods? but do you give enough of your hearts? Is it a Christian interest, full of love, that leads us to the poor? Do you confine your chanty to their temporal wants, to their earthly life,- to their bodies? or do you also extend it to the essential part of their immortal being, to their real happiness, to their hearts too often wounded and bleeding, to their minds too often degraded by misery? And if these suffering 1 beings do not present themselves before you, do you seek them out that you may do them good, and that a permanent good? Ah! if our privileges are great, our obligations are great also. God does not measure our works according to man’s measure; it is not merely the material thing, the mental that he takes account of; he looks to the heart that gives it.
What had that poor widow done, whose praise the Lord Jesus had caused to be inscribed in the pages of his Word, that her praise might live there to the end of time, and meet her again in eternity? She had given a mite; but it was “ all that she had, even all her living.” Doubtless it was because she had learned to pray in the temple, that she was also taught to give when she came out of it, and the Saviour, who knows the heart, declares that she gave more than the rich Pharisees, notwithstanding the sums which they had cast into the treasury.
Oh! let us learn, in the spirit of real prayer, what ought to be the spirit of real charity! The spirit of real prayer! the spirit of real charily! Jesus teaches us it once more in the short and simple petition upon which we are meditating. Hear these words, the last to which we would draw your attention this day. What is it that extinguishes the spirit of prayer and of charity 1 Is it not the insatiable love of possessing- which so easily occupies our carnal hearts? But how does Jesus Christ here deal with this tendency of our corrupt nature? He who knows wherein our happiness consists, and wishes to make us happy, leads us into the presence of our heavenly Father, permits us to address to him a petition touching our terrestrial life, and directs us to say, Give us,... what? our daily bread) that is to say, our necessary bread.*
* Though we allow the word daily to stand here, because it has been consecrated by a usage Which it is difficult to alter. yet it may be well to remark, that it docs not faithfully render the sense of the original. The expression which our Lord employs, is formed from a word (jivf,) which signifies the substance or essence of a thing, so that Jerome translating it literally, rendered it pattern super substantmlem. Hence we demand in it the bread ESSENTIAL to life, extending the meaning of the word to all that is necessary to our subsistence. The idea expressed by daily is not lost by this interpretation, as it is still preserved in the expression this day, instead of which St. Luke uses day by day, which with, daily would be an unmeaning repetition: “ Give daily our daily bread.’“ As to the general meaning of the petition, “we cannot adopt And for how long a time are we to ask this provision of the goodness of God? This day. And first, to prevent all misconception, and every objection that might be raised against this doctrine, we would observe that the Gospel, far from condemning, commands the labor, order, and economy, by means of which a man arrives at an honest and praiseworthy independence for himself and his family. Let us observe further that the Gospel, which never tends to, or sanctify the opinion of those who understand by it spiritual bread, the bread of life. Besides that this petition would then evidently be included in the three former, would there not be something incomplete in this model of prayer, if it contained no reference to our earthly life 1 Is it not a great happiness to the poor man, who often knows not in the morning from whence he shall derive nourishment for his family is it not an immense consolation, a salutary preservative against the anxieties by which he might be tormented, to find in the prayer taught by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, even an express permission to ask of his heavenly Father wherewithal to meet his pressing wants 1 “We do not, however, mean by this, absolutely to exclude the spiritual sense; we may, to use the beautiful illustration of Augustine, draw from the source of Scripture a first draught, then a second, and then a third. Let us realize the idea that God is the source of all life, physical and spiritual; that he communicates it to whom he will, and as he will; that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” and the two ideas in our text will be reduced into one tions the subversion of social order, but, on the contrary, condemns it, has thereby consecrated a diversity of conditions in society, and consequently, that diversity cannot be disapproved of in our text, though the rich as well as the poor must ask of God only their necessary bread.
But, notwithstanding this just concession, how* immeasurably removed is the disposition of the natural man from the spirit of prayer which the Saviour teaches us! Say, my brethren, if you sincerely expressed your desires before God, is it your necessary bread that is, what is required to meet the wants of life, that you would ask for? Necessary! ah. each one finds means to interpret this word according to his own views, and to extend the signification of it, if possible, to the most brilliant opulence. And as the wants of life increase in proportion as we create them to satisfy them; as afterwards, the ambition of the influence which fortune bestows comes in. with all its insatiable pretensions, there are not, and there cannot be any longer, any limits to the desires of the man who has once entered upon such a career. Arid if that man were sincerely to examine his thoughts, if it were still possible for him to embody these thoughts in prayer, he could never, never, say,
“ Give us this day our daily bread,” but rather, Give us treasures, give us the consideration, the honors, the influence which men lavish upon fortune! And such a man, after having demanded opulence instead of bread, would not say, “this day” as our Lord directs us, in order that we may wait upon God from day to day with confidence, and with an acknowledgment of our absolute dependence upon Him, but would say, “ for ever!” for ever, that we may be able to live without God, and to banish from our minds every thought of him. Jesus himself has given us the type of this utterly carnal and earthly disposition, in that rich man who, when he had heaped together vast treasures, cried, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;” forgetting the answer of the Lord, “ Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!” forgetting that, after all, “we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we shall carry nothing out.” But further: as such a man could not and would not offer up for himself the prayer of Jesus; as his desires, instead of confining themselves to his necessary bread, would embrace the treasures of opulence; and instead of embracing this day, would embrace his whole life; do you think that they would stop upon the verge of the tomb? No, my brethren; accomplished for himself, he would refer them to his children, to the future glory of his house; he would refer them to a time which shall never belong to him, to a time when he shall already have appeared before the tribunal of God, to give an account of a life sacrificed to an impure idol.
Expect not that I shall here demonstrate to you the folly of such a life, or attempt to describe to you the happiness that is to be found in the spirit of this prayer, or that I shall prove to you that “godliness with contentment is great gain” the greatest of gains. I shall not do it; for those among you who know and possess the true riches, who. have placed their treasure in heaven, in “ the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled. and that fadeth not away,” have no need of new demonstrations: a precious experience bears witness to them that they have chosen “ the good part;” and, as for others, they would not understand it; they would see in our words nothing but vain declamation. I shall content myself with drawing from what I have just been saying, one single observation, to which I beg your most serious attention. You acknowledge, then, you to whom I address these reflections, you acknowledge that hitherto you have been strangers to the spirit of this prayer, which has issued from the mouth of Jesus; you acknowledge that that prayer, if you uttered it, would be disallowed by your wishes and by your lives! you acknowledge that you cannot present it; you then place your happiness in something else than that in which Jesus has placed it; you are then in direct contradiction with the Saviour!
Bring home ’with you this conclusion; meditate upon it, and may it produce in you a new life, and fruits which shall never perish!
O Lord our God! detach us more and more from this world, which, with all its lusts, passeth away! And if thou art pleased to support our earthly life a short time longer, by means of that bread which we ask of thee, and which thou givest us in thy goodness, O enable us to consecrate those short moments to thy glory! They are lost, O Lord, miserably lost, if they belong not to thee. Preserve us from so great a misery. Enable us, by the power of thy Divine Spirit, to live henceforward, not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life! Amen!