09 - Prayer and Pains

Chapter 9 PRAYER AND PAINS "Give us this Day our Daily Bread" In exhibiting , as we have done in the previous chapter, some of the great principles recognized in the request, " Give us this day our daily bread," we have endeavored to magnify the creature’s dependence, and God’s bounty. We would not so represent either, as to overlook the fact that God deals with men as rational and active creatures, and that, as such, they are bound to make use of their reason and their activity. The law of reason and nature, and the law of grace are in this respect perfectly coincident. Just as there ever has been a difficulty in the method of redemption by Christ Jesus in reconciling the activity of man with his dependence, has there been a difficulty in reconciling the dependence of men on God for their daily subsistence with the necessity of effort on their part to procure it. But the oracles of God teach and insist on both these truths; they call upon men to " work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who worketh in them to will and to do, of his good pleasure;" and they call upon them, if they would have their daily bread, not to look for it in the neglect of those well-known laws of his providence, which he has established for their conduct in the common affairs of human life.

Man’s dependence on God for his daily subsistence, leaves all the motives and all the influences of human activity and enterprise precisely where it found them. No man may exercise a presumptuous confidence in the divine bounty — a confidence which gives him hope in the neglect, or violation of his known duty. God is the giver of his daily bread; but he himself has a part to act in procuring it. God’s blessing is to be sought and hoped for only in the due and proper use of his own powers. The purposes of God, be they what they may, are never carried into effect without the means by which they were intended to be accomplished. The means, in every instance, form an integral part of the purpose itself; they sustain, in the original arrangement of the divine mind, an indissoluble and necessary connection with the end; and without them, there is no purpose formed, no end to be attained. There is the existence and influence of the great primary Cause of all things; but this does not supersede the existence and influence of numerous proximate and instrumental causes; because these latter are the selected means and instruments by which the great overruling Cause himself has ordained the accomplishment of his purposes.

Although he is the great Giver of all temporal blessings, yet if it be by wisely appointed means and instruments that he gives, the application of these means and instruments is indispensable to the gift. It is so for every gift which God bestows. Men, in the common affairs of human life, never think of acting upon any other principle. There are things which God has to do, in furnishing his creatures with food and raiment; and there are things which his creatures themselves have to do. The place which he occupies is one which if he do not fill, it is in vain that they occupy the place which he assigns to them; while, if they occupy not the intermediate places assigned to them, the series of his operations is left incomplete. With his work of beneficence they have nothing to do, save gratefully to acknowledge that it is his work; while, in their own sphere, they have everything to perform, else they may not hope for his blessing upon the labor of their hands, What then, are the appointed means by which a beneficent Providence supplies the temporal wants of men? These are mainly the following : In the first place, there is nothing in man’s dependence that dispenses with his own industry. His dependence does not destroy the obligations under which he is placed by the law of nature; and one of these is diligence in his calling. It is so employing his time, and the talents committed to him, as to turn them to good account. He owes it to his Maker, to society, to himself, to put forth his exertions to some valuable end. He who so richly endowed man with such diversified powers of body and mind, and rendered him capable in so many ways of benefiting himself and his fellow-men, has not denied him a wide and varied field wherein he may exert the powers so freely bestowed. Useful occupation is his appropriate employment; without it, he will never answer the great end of his existence. Exertion, vigorous, persevering exertion commends itself to the texture and constitution of his body and mind. An unoccupied and idle man countervails all the laws both of his animal and intellectual frame, and wages war upon every organ of his material, and every faculty of his immaterial being. He is like children among men; he is like the dead among the living; he buries himself alive.

If there are those who so pervert the instructions of the Bible, in regard to man’s dependence and God’s bounty, as to rest satisfied with praying that God would give them their daily bread, without themselves working for it, there is one very ready way of rectifying their error; and the Bible furnishes it, when it deliberately declares, " He that will not work, neither let him eat." It is the published law of the Redeemer’s kingdom, that work a man must, or he shall starve. Religion offers no bounty to idleness; her bounty is for those who would, but cannot, labor. If Christian liberality were regulated by the Bible, men who are able to labor, and can get anything to do, would be constrained to exertion by necessity. It is a law of Christianity, as well as nature, that " drowsiness shall cover a man with rags." And it is both an equitable and a benevolent law. It is equitable, because there is no equity in imposing a burden upon the industrious, which is not borne by their more idle companions; it is benevolent, because in relieving men from the necessity of labor, you take from them their best heritage, and sink them in irreclaimable degradation. If they would live above want, they must pay the price for it in corresponding effort; if that may be called a price which, where the habits of industry are imbibed and cherished, is itself a pleasure.

There is no relief from the operation of this wise and healthful, this equitable and benevolent law. Labor and success, effort and attainment, without some special countervailing influence, are rarely dissevered; while the few instances in which they are so, form such obvious and striking exceptions, that they only evince the importance of the rule. Though " the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," yet is it a law which no man may trifle with, that men attain their ends by the laborious and steady pursuit of them. It is a dream of the imagination to look for a competent portion of the good things of this life without effort.

I have said that the law of labor is a benevolent law. An idle man is always a disappointed man; he is ever complaining of his misfortunes; he sinks in despondency, because he is sunk in negligence and sloth. There is nothing in his eager hopes and vivid expectations that encourages and charms him. He lives only for the present, and has none of that bright impulse which carries him forward to halcyon days to come. In this respect he scarcely differs from the inferior animals; but, like them, is environed with a dense wall, beyond which he can catch but a glimmering light. His prospect is scarcely brighter or wider than theirs. The actual scenes of human life never present themselves to him in their true coloring, but are tinged with many a dark and melancholy hue. That absorbing sentimentalism, that morbid sensibility, which is so often the bane of manly and energetic qualities, find no welcome in the bosom of the man whose high aims are gratified in the prospect of responsible exertion. The primeval paradise was not sufficiently fair to make its inhabitants happy without occupation. Man could not be deprived of a greater blessing than useful employment. If you would make him miserable, let him have nothing to do. The moral virtue of men depends, in no small degree, upon their industry and enterprise. Idleness is the nursery of crime. It is that bitter and prolific germ of which all rank and poisonous vices are the fruits. It is the source of temptation. It is the field where "the enemy sows tares while men sleep." Could we trace the history of a large class of vices, we should find that they originate in the want of employment, and are brought in to supply the place which some useful employment would otherwise supply. There are others which take their rise from mere reluctance to labor, and are resorted to, because those who practise, and those who patronize them, are too indolent to work. Idleness has slain its thousands. It is the corrupter of men and nations. It corrupted Sodom. It corrupted Nineveh. It corrupted Babylon. It corrupted Greece and Rome. The greatest, I had almost said the only barrier against vice is the habit of industry. Industrious habits render vice unnecessary and disagreeable, and prevent the opportunity of indulgence. An industrious man is the companion of industrious men, and has neither time nor temptation to be vicious. There is no other possible way of preventing and restraining vice in our families, in our community, in our land, in our young men, and in all ranks and orders of human society, than by promoting industry. Few men know how to make the most of human life. Time is the most valuable of all the talents entrusted to them. It is of more importance to improve human life, than to extend it unimproved; to live well than to live long. No man can promise himself twenty years; yet may he live twenty in ten. Nor are these unchristian thoughts, nor beyond the instructions of the Bible, or in any way removed from the legitimate sphere of its influence. ’’ In the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat thy bread until thou return to the ground." " Seest thou a man diligent in his business; he shall stand before kings he shall not stand before mean men." " The hand of the diligent maketh rich," and " shall bear rule." ’’ Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks and thy herds." " Diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." " Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work.’’ While, therefore, in all their industry, men must depend on the blessing of God, they may not expect his blessing except upon their industry. The Scriptures nowhere countenance an inactive reliance upon God, save where the opportunity and power of action are taken away. Men do not live by miracles. They have no warrant to throw themselves upon divine providence without any efforts of their own, until God constrains them so to do. They should be slow to believe that such necessity exists; nor until it does exist may they cast themselves upon God without concern, and feel that they themselves have no active responsibility.

Another of the means, without which we may look in vain for temporal good to God as the giver, is economy. It is scarcely less a perversion of the laws of divine providence, to rely on that providence for our daily bread in the disuse of the powers and faculties which God has given us, than in the perversion and abuse of the bounties he bestows. I know not how a wasteful and extravagant man can ever, with good conscience, repeat the Lord’s Prayer. He who wastes what God gives him, may not complain if he ceases to give.

Nature and providence are constantly reading us this lesson. One law is made to subserve a thousand purposes, and acts everywhere. Nothing is thrown away; nothing lost; nothing but accomplishes its appropriate end. The accuracy of the divine arrangements is as truly wonderful as their bounty. In all that God does there is a place for everything, and everything is in its place; nor may this economical arrangement be disturbed by human recklessness, or even human thoughtlessness and improvidence, without suffering. This is the universal law of nature. Accurate philosophical investigations have discovered that every substance in the natural world that does not retain its original form, passes into some other equally important in its place. The vessel of water which is converted into vapor and steam, is again condensed, and loses not a scruple of its original weight. The billet of wood that is consumed in the fire, or the trunk that decays in the forest, gives out the whole of its substance, either in the matter it deposits, or the gases it emits. There is no example of the entire destruction of anything in the universe. Changes are indeed taking place in countless variety; but the most penetrating observer has not been able to discover that anything has been absolutely destroyed.

If then such is the wise economy in the kingdom of nature; if the most worthless mineral, or the meanest vegetable, when decomposed, is resolved into elements which immediately enter into new combinations, and in other forms assist in carrying on the designs of providence; surely nothing was given to men to destroy. The voice of this frugal arrangement is, that no man may innocently overlook this divine constitution, and either slight the gifts of providence, or profusely scatter them, as if they were made only to be thrown away. And such is the voice of the Bible. " Godliness is profitable to the life that now is." It gives even the lowest moral duty a place in its system of instruction. " The disciple is not above his Lord." The Saviour was standing in the midst of abundance miraculously created by his command, and he chose this opportunity to give utterance to the injunction, " Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." He did not deem it dishonorable and mean to be frugal; dishonor and meanness are more justly chargeable to waste and prodigality. He that is regardless of little things, will be very apt to be careless of those that are greater. The foundation of wealth is laid not merely in habits of industry, but in habits of wise and persevering economy. Property is not usually acquired by a few bold, successful operations, but by a slow and prudent, though always advancing process, and by minute and careful accumulations. " A good man," says the Psalmist, " will guide his affairs with discretion." Men must themselves not only plant and water, but watch and spare, if they expect God to give the increase. The man who makes the best use of what God gives him, takes care of it that he may use it to the best advantage. His economy becomes the welcome handmaid of his benevolence; and though he may sometimes complain that it is taxed to relieve wants occasioned by the extravagance of others, he spares that he may give; the great sources of his charity are found in his retrenchments. He spares that he may spend; he lives not for the luxury of wasting. Nor do we hesitate, in the next place, to specify among the means of temporal prosperity, a sacred regard to the Lords Bay. The command, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," is so consonant to the law of nature and of providence, and is so adapted to the wants of man as an intellectual, moral, and physical being, that he who trifles with it usually pays the penalty in temporal suffering. To rest from secular and worldly employment one seventh part of every week, and to devote this season to the cultivation of personal, domestic, and public piety, has been found by experience to exert a benign effect on the temporal interests of men. Health of body, cheerfulness and activity of mind, cannot be long enjoyed without this repose. The statistics have been greatly accumulated which show the fearful waste of human comfort in communities and employments, where there is no such suspension from care and toil. If a man would make the most of human life for this world, to say nothing of the world to come, he will charge himself to be a conscientious observer of this consecrated day. A little reflection will show even the most worldly men, that the appointment of such a day of rest is founded in great wisdom and goodness, and that it is the interest, as well as the duty of men, to preserve it inviolate. If you look over this extended metropolis, and mark the history of those whom God has prospered in the world, you will find them, for the most part, among men who were early educated in communities and families that were taught to fear the Lord of the Sabbath. And though many of them may not at heart be pious men, yet are they men whose consciences and conduct are controlled by strong impressions of the sacredness of this holy day. There is very little hope for the prosperity of a young man, who tramples upon this great institution. Had I the control of an important mercantile establishment, or a responsible pecuniary institution, I would say to a man who habitually profanes the Lord’s Day, " Sir, we do not want you. There is something rotten in the character of the man who despises the Sabbath day." The parent who would see his child prosper may not fail to instil into his mind a due regard to the fourth commandment. If there be no other lesson of business which he teaches him, let him teach him this. Let a young man habitually remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, and into what a sphere of moral influences is he at once thrown by what a circumvallation is he surrounded, that separates him from a multitude of causes that are ruinous to his temporal prosperity !

Another of the means of worldly good is a sacred regard to truth. Truth between man and man, is the only solid basis of human intercourse. Without it there can be no confidence in the transactions of business; no order, no happiness in human society. Men scarcely know the value it gives to their character as men of the world, to have it known that they speak the whole truth when it ought to be spoken; that they speak it fully and without concealment; that they speak it freely and without fear; without mincing and obscuring it, and without sinister and selfish ends, and impartially. A lying tongue is fatal to all hope of advancement in this world, as well as all hope of the life that is to come. It is in vain for a man to say, that he means no harm when he utters that which is false; he does harm, and probably more than all others, to himself. Let him once imbibe the habit of uttering that which is untrue, and he will find that the dishonor cleaves to him, nor can the stain easily be wiped away. There is not one, even among those who love him best, and would fain contribute to his welfare, who does not esteem and love him less, and less confide in him for every instance of falsehood. A liar has no confidence in himself, because he has no consciousness of an inward principle of truth and integrity in his own heart. His word is doubted; he is a suspected man; he has lost caste; he has inflicted unspeakable injury on himself; and if his daily bread is but scantily supplied, the fault is his own, the unkindness his own, the cruelty his own. The thought may well be deeply impressed, especially on the minds of the young, that a lying tongue throws insurmountable barriers in the way of their temporal prosperity.

Love, confidence, and honor, or detestation, distrust and disgrace, will follow them, as they are, or are not observant of the claims of truth. Every unfounded statement, every misstatement, every evasive, equivocating statement, where truth is called for, every low art of concealment and dissimulation, every broken promise, serves to shut up the avenue to advancement. While on the other hand, truth, pure truth with all its simplicity, loveliness, and transparency, is so usually attended with the other great moral virtues, that, with God’s blessing, it is the sure road to comfort, usefulness and distinction.

Another means of temporal prosperity is that genuine rectitude and integrity of character which secure honesty in our dealings with one another. Dishonesty is one of those deliberate and sober vices, the effects of which cannot often be survived even by a thorough reformation. Sometimes it is the result of inconsiderateness; sometimes of passion; but more usually it is a calm and premeditated sin, which, if it does not always indicate an advanced stage of wickedness, indicates a mind that is reckless of ultimate success in the world. A single act of indiscretion, in this sensitive department of morals, is very apt to demoralize the mind of the perpetrator, and lead to perpetuated wrong. " He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much." Dishonesty is a sin too destructive to the well-being of society, not to be ruinous to the individual who practises it. He who is willing to be poor rather than dishonest, by honesty may become rich.

One more thought deserves consideration, as connected by the divine appointment with temporal prosperity: it is, filial, respectful, and dutiful deportment toward parents, " Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." That this arrangement was not exclusively applicable to the Israelites, is evident from the fact, that the Apostle refers to it as the " first commandment with promise." For one act of dishonor to parents, the race of Ham was doomed to subjection and servitude. Where the obligations under which a child is to his parents are disregarded, there is little reason to confide in the influence of any of those moral principles which are the ordinary pledge of success in secular pursuits. There are few more certain proofs of a fearfully depraved heart. This is, probably, one reason why a duty which has no proximate relation to worldly prosperity, is prescribed as one of the conditions of it. But however this may be, it is one of the conditions which God himself has established, and which none will disregard who hope to prosper. Youthful indiscretions his providence may overlook; but where this undutiful spirit and deportment are persevered in, even though repented of in after life, they are very apt to carry along with them the forfeiture of the promise contained in the fifth commandment. There stands the dreadful and unrepealed, though figurative declaration, " The eye that mocketh at his father, and that refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it".

Such are the ordinary means of procuring temporal blessings. Where these are faithfully adopted and pursued, men may consistently pray, ’’Give us this day our daily bread!" Where, in defiance of these, they are poor, God will take care of them. His hand may be upon them; sickness, infirmity, age, misfortune, may invade them; and they may be cut off from all other resources, except his immediate care; and then he will care for them. They are then God’s poor; and though manna may not be rained for them out of heaven, nor water gush from the rock; though their lands may not be like Gideon’s fleece, nor their supplies furnished by the same miraculous Power that replenished the widow’s cruise of oil and barrel of meal; the promise shall not fail, " No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."

I have not presented the preceding thoughts, seemingly upon a topic of purely temporal interest, without some hesitation. If any of my readers feel that they have too much to do with time, and not enough with eternity; if they are repelled by them, as by a cold and heartless morality, and as " savoring not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men;" I entreat them to guard their own minds against all such unhallowed impressions. Nothing is further from the heart of him who pens the present chapter, than thus to justify a worldly mind, I seem to hear a voice, as if from heaven, as I draw to a conclusion these secularizing thoughts, saying to the reader and the writer, " Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life." If God and nature require care for earthly things; if they may have a place even in our daily prayers at the throne of grace; what is not required for the things that are heavenly? Oh ! Let us seek the bread of life; let us strive to enter into the kingdom of God. God has done much to provide temporal enjoyments; but to provide those that are heavenly, the heavens themselves have bowed, and emptied themselves of their choicest treasure. After all their industry and economy, men may fail of attaining earthly treasures; and they will disappoint them, if attained. Heavenly treasures are unfading and eternal.