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Ethical
“Thy kingdom come” has also reference to that whereto “Thy will be done” refers—in us, that is. For when does God not reign, in whose hand is the heart of all kings?[8790] But whatever we wish for ourselves we augur for Him, and to Him we attribute what from Him we expect. And so, if the manifestation of the Lord’s kingdom pertains unto the will of God and unto our anxious expectation, how do some pray for some protraction of the age,[8791] when the kingdom of God, which we pray may arrive, tends unto the consummation of the age?[8792] Our wish is, that our reign be hastened, not our servitude protracted. Even if it had not been prescribed in the Prayer that we should ask for the advent of the kingdom, we should, unbidden, have sent forth that cry, hastening toward the realization of our hope. The souls of the martyrs beneath the altar[8793] cry in jealousy unto the Lord, “How long, Lord, dost Thou not avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”[8794] for, of course, their avenging is regulated by[8795] the end of the age. Nay, Lord, Thy kingdom come with all speed,—the prayer of Christians the confusion of the heathen,[8796] the exultation of angels, for the sake of which we suffer, nay, rather, for the sake of which we pray!
But how gracefully has the Divine Wisdom arranged the order of the prayer; so that after things heavenly—that is, after the “Name” of God, the “Will” of God, and the “Kingdom” of God—it should give earthly necessities also room for a petition! For the Lord had[8797] withal issued His edict, “Seek ye first the kingdom, and then even these shall be added:”[8798] albeit we may rather understand, “Give us this day our daily bread,” spiritually. For Christ is our Bread; because Christ is Life, and bread is life. “I am,” saith He, “the Bread of Life;”[8799] and, a little above, “The Bread is the Word of the living God, who came down from the heavens.”[8800] Then we find, too, that His body is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.”[8801] And so, in petitioning for “daily bread,” we ask for perpetuity in Christ, and indivisibility from His body. But, because that word is admissible in a carnal sense too, it cannot be so used without the religious remembrance withal of spiritual Discipline; for (the Lord) commands that bread be prayed for, which is the only food necessary for believers; for “all other things the nations seek after.”[8802] The like lesson He both inculcates by examples, and repeatedly handles in parables, when He says, “Doth a father take away bread from his children, and hand it to dogs?”[8803] and again, “Doth a father give his son a stone when he asks for bread?”[8804] For He thus shows what it is that sons expect from their father. Nay, even that nocturnal knocker knocked for “bread.”[8805] Moreover, He justly added, “Give us this day,” seeing He had previously said, “Take no careful thought about the morrow, what ye are to eat.”[8806] To which subject He also adapted the parable of the man who pondered on an enlargement of his barns for his forthcoming fruits, and on seasons of prolonged security; but that very night he dies.[8807]
It was suitable that, after contemplating the liberality of God,[8808] we should likewise address His clemency. For what will aliments[8809] profit us, if we are really consigned to them, as it were a bull destined for a victim?[8810] The Lord knew Himself to be the only guiltless One, and so He teaches that we beg “to have our debts remitted us.” A petition for pardon is a full confession; because he who begs for pardon fully admits his guilt. Thus, too, penitence is demonstrated acceptable to God who desires it rather than the death of the sinner.[8811] Moreover, debt is, in the Scriptures, a figure of guilt; because it is equally due to the sentence of judgment, and is exacted by it: nor does it evade the justice of exaction, unless the exaction be remitted, just as the lord remitted to that slave in the parable his debt;[8812] for hither does the scope of the whole parable tend. For the fact withal, that the same servant, after liberated by his lord, does not equally spare his own debtor; and, being on that account impeached before his lord, is made over to the tormentor to pay the uttermost farthing—that is, every guilt, however small: corresponds with our profession that “we also remit to our debtors;” indeed elsewhere, too, in conformity with this Form of Prayer, He saith, “Remit, and it shall be remitted you.”[8813] And when Peter had put the question whether remission were to be granted to a brother seven times, “Nay,” saith He, “seventy-seven times;”[8814] in order to remould the Law for the better; because in Genesis vengeance was assigned “seven times” in the case of Cain, but in that of Lamech “seventy-seven times.”[8815]
For the completeness of so brief a prayer He added—in order that we should supplicate not touching the remitting merely, but touching the entire averting, of acts of guilt—“Lead us not into temptation:” that is, suffer us not to be led into it, by him (of course) who tempts; but far be the thought that the Lord should seem to tempt,[8816] as if He either were ignorant of the faith of any, or else were eager to overthrow it. Infirmity[8817] and malice[8818] are characteristics of the devil. For God had commanded even Abraham to make a sacrifice of his son, for the sake not of tempting, but proving, his faith; in order through him to make an example for that precept of His, whereby He was, by and by, to enjoin that he should hold no pledges of affection dearer than God.[8819] He Himself, when tempted by the devil, demonstrated who it is that presides over and is the originator of temptation.[8820] This passage He confirms by subsequent ones, saying, “Pray that ye be not tempted;”[8821] yet they were tempted, (as they showed) by deserting their Lord, because they had given way rather to sleep than prayer.[8822] The final clause, therefore, is consonant, and interprets the sense of “Lead us not into temptation;” for this sense is, “But convey us away from the Evil One.”
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