bread: Ezek. v. 16. I will break your staff of bread. And all this is to put us in mind, that we are to ask for and to use these earthly enjoyments only as travellers, that make use of a staff for their help and support, whilst they are in their passage home. And we are hereby also taught, to crave no more than will suffice for our convenient supplies: otherwise we make our staff our burden, and our support itself a load and pressure.

(2) It is observable, that, though we are commanded, to seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, with a promise that all other earthly things shall be added to us; yet here our Saviour places the petition for temporal blessings, before the two petitions we present to God for spiritual blessings. And this order hath seemed so strange and incongruous to some, that, hereupon alone, they have been moved to affirm that this bread, which we here ask, is not any temporal good thing, but the Bread of Life, even Jesus Christ himself: as shall be shewn more, by and by.

Now this order doth not intimate to us, that earthly blessings are better and more considerable than heavenly; or that they should have the preference in our esteem or desires: (I hope there are none of us so brutish, nor so far degenerated into beasts, as to account the poor enjoyments of this life, more valuable than the pardon of sin, and those spiritual mercies that are in a tendency to eternal life and happiness:)

But,

[1] Our Saviour useth this method in his prayer, in conformity to the method of Divine Providence towards us, which first gives us life and the necessities of it, and then orders us spiritual and heavenly blessings, as an accession and happy addition to those natural good things he bestows upon us.

[2] Because we are usually more sensible of our temporal than of our spiritual wants, our Saviour therefore doth by degrees raise up our desires by the one to the other: for, seeing we are commanded to pray for the supply even of our temporal necessities, which are but trivial in regard of the necessities of our souls; we cannot but be convinced, that we ought to be much more earnest and importunate with God for spiritual mercies than for temporal, by how much our spiritual wants are more important and of vaster consequence than our temporal. When, therefore, thou comest to this petition, think with thyself, O Christian, If I must pray fervently and affectionately for my daily bread, which can only nourish my vile carcase for a

few short years; a carcase, that must, notwithstanding all these recruits, shortly moulder into dust, and itself become meat for worms: how much more importunate ought I to be, for the pardon of my sins, and those spiritual mercies and blessings without which my precious and immortal soul must eternally perish! since Christ hath commanded us not to labour, and by consequence not to pray for that meat which perisheth, with any comparative industry and earnestness, to our labouring and praying for that which endureth to eternal life.

And thus much concerning the Order of this petition.

2. In the Petition itself we have,

(1) The Matter of it, or that which we pray for: give us

BREAD.

(2) The Kind, or Quality of it: called here, DAILY bread. (3) Our Right and Property in it: OUR daily bread.

(4) The Limitation of it in respect of Time: give it us

THIS DAY.

Of all these briefly.

(1) The Matter of this petition, or that which we pray for, and that is bread: Give us our bread.

By Bread here is meant all temporal and earthly blessings, that contribute either to our being or to our well-being in this life. And, because we have need of very many things for our present subsistence, as food, raiment, habitation, and each of these comprehend many other necessaries in them; all which would have been too long particularly to enumerate in this compendious prayer: therefore our Saviour hath summed them up in the word bread; figuratively denoting all kinds of provisions necessary for this natural life, whereof bread is the most usual and the most useful. And, therefore, as when God speaks of a famine, he calls it a famine of bread: Amos viii. 11. not as if a scarcity of bread were the only dearth intended by it, but that there should be likewise a want of all things requisite to the sustentation of life: so here, when Christ teacheth us to pray for our daily bread, this phrase extendeth to all things conducible to maintain health, or to recover it; to preserve life, or to prolong it.

Some, indeed, think this too mean and sordid a request to be preferred to God; and would not have any of the low conveniences of this present life to have any place in a prayer, all whose other parts are so spiritual and heavenly, and the whole so short and compendious. Where the petitions are so few,

they will not believe any of them should be spent so trivially, as to beg that, which, though they might not attain, yet they might be eternally blessed and happy: and therefore they interpret this word, bread, in a spiritual sense; and take it for the food of the soul, whereby it is nourished unto eternal life; and especially for our Lord Jesus Christ, who is called the bread of life: John vi. 35. and living bread, which came down from heaven: verse 51.

But here seemeth no place for any such mystical interpretation; the word bread being put without any addition or like circumstance, that might refer it to Christ or to spiritual things; and, therefore, ought to be understood according to the words literally, and in their ordinary signification: although, indeed, it be here used by way of synechdoche, one part of temporal good things being put for the whole accession of them.

Now from this we are taught these three things.

[1] That temporal mercies and blessings may lawfully be prayed for.

And, although we ought not to be most earnest and importunate, nor to enlarge and expatiate most upon these requests; but more earnestly to covet the best gifts: yet neither is it unworthy of a Christian, whose affections and conversation is in heaven, to beg at God's hands those mercies, that he knows needful for the support and comfort of this present life. Yea, we read of nothing more frequent, than the saints praying either for the removal of some temporal evil or punishment, or the receiving of some temporal blessing or favour. If I should quote the Scriptures, I might transcribe a great part of the Bible. Nay, so far were they from looking upon it as below them, that we find Jacob putting it into his Indentures, when he bound himself to God; and made it, as it were, the condition of his obligation to God's service: Gen. xxviii. 20,21. then Jacob vowed a vow saying, If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God.

And, indeed, there is a great deal of reason and ground to pray for these things; for they are both needful for us, and God hath promised to give them to us.

1st. They are Needful for us, as the means, that God hath appointed for the preservation of our temporal life and being; in which we have so many opportunities to serve and glorify him, and so many advantages to secure heaven and glory to our souls. And, therefore, as we tender either the obtaining of heaven,

or the additional degrees of glory and happiness there: so we stand obliged to pray, that God would afford us those necessaries, that may conduce to the prolonging of our natural life; till, having finished our work, we are made fit to receive our wages and reward. Your Heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things, says our Saviour: Mat. vi. 32. And therefore, though miracles be a kind of non-obstante to the law of nature, and a suspension of the ordinary course of providence; yet we often find God working a miracle to supply these wants of his people; whereas, it had been alike easy, by another miracle, to have caused them not to want; for it had been no more difficult, for God to have kept Elijah from hungering, than it was to make the ravens his purveyors, or to make a barrel of meal become a whole harvest, or to open a spring and fountain in the cruse of oil: but he chooseth rather to supply these wants than to cease them; to keep us in a continual dependence upon him, that the sense of our necessities might engage us to have continual recourse unto God for relief.

2dly. As temporal good things are needful for us, so God hath Promised to give them to us.

Ps. 1. 15. Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee. And, my God, says the Apostle, shall supply all your wants: Phil. iv. 19. The Lord will give grace and glory; and no good thing will he withhold from them, that walk uprightly: Ps. lxxxiv. 11.

Thus we see temporal good things may be prayed for, both because they are needful for us, and because God hath promised them to us.

Yet,

[2] They must be prayed for only conditionally; for they are only conditionally promised.

And these conditions are twofold: if they be consistent with God's pleasure, and if they be conducible to our good: for, without the observing the one, we should not so much seem to petition as to invade; and, without observing the other, we should but beg a curse instead of a blessing.

[3] We may learn, likewise, that God is the giver of every temporal mercy and good thing.

Whatever thou enjoyest, it is from his mere free bounty. He spreads thy table, fills thy cup, makes thy bed, puts on thy garments, is the God of thy health and strength, and loadeth thee daily with his benefits. If thou hast riches, it is the blessing of

God, that maketh rich: Prov. x. 22. It is God, that giveth thee power to get wealth: Deut. viii. 18. Hast thou credit and reputation? It is God, that hideth thee from the scourge of tongues: Job v. 21. Hast thou friends? It is God, that giveth thee favour in their sight. Hast thou gifts and parts? It is the Almighty, that giveth thee understanding: Job xxxii. 8. And hast thou joy and comfort in all these? It is God, who not only filleth thy mouth with food, but thy heart with gladness.

Now God is said to give us our daily bread, and all the necessaries of life, especially two ways.

1st. By Producing them and Bringing them to us.

He is the great Lord and Proprietor both of Heaven and Earth. The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; and he gives it to whom he will. He maketh it bring forth abundantly all its stores, for the use and service of man: for, be the chain of Second Causes never so long, yet the first link of them is held in his hand. And, therefore, we have it expressed, Hosea ii. 21, 22. I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens; and they shall hear the earth; And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

2dly. God gives them, by Blessing them to us.

Without which blessing, our daily bread would no more nourish us than so much chaff: for, had we all the abundance that the earth could yield, and the blessing of God withheld from it, the very air would stifle us, and our very food would famish us: for it is not so much by these things that we live; not so much by our daily bread, as by every word; that is, by every word of blessing upon them, which proceedeth out of the mouth of God: Deut. viii. 3. And, concerning those to whom he denies this his blessing, he tells us, Job xx. 22. In the fullness of their sufficiency, they shall be in straits. And, therefore, when we pray that God would give us our daily bread, we pray, not only that God would give us the possession and enjoyment of earthly comforts, but that he would put virtue and efficacy into them, by his blessing upon them, to be subservient to our relief and support, without which the staff of bread would break under us, and the stay of water roll away from us.

And, thus much, for the first thing, Give us bread.

(2) Let us consider, the specification of this blessing, or the Kind and Quality of it, our DAILY bread.

αρτού,

This word aprov, is variously rendered. I shall not trouble you with the particular notions of it: let it suffice, that here by