the goodwill of him to whom we pray, then to say what we pray for; goodwill is usually conciliated by our offering praise to him to whom the prayer is directed, and this is usually put in the beginning of the prayer: and in this particular our Lord has bidden us say nothing else but “Our Father who art in heaven.” For many things are said in praise of God, which, being scattered variously and widely over all the Holy Scriptures, every one will be able to 39 consider when he reads them: yet nowhere is there found a precept for the people of Israel, that they should say “Our Father,” or that they should pray to God as a Father; but as Lord He was made known to them, as being yet servants, i.e. still living according to the flesh. I say this, however, inasmuch as they received the commands of the law, which they were ordered to observe: for the prophets often show that this same Lord of ours might have been their Father also, if they had not strayed from His commandments: as, for instance, we have that statement, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me;”271 and that other, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High;”272 and this again, “If then I be a Father, where is mine honour? and if I be a Master, where is my fear?”273 and very many other statements, where the Jews are accused of showing by their sin that they did not wish to become sons: those things being left out of account which are said in prophecy of a future Christian people, that they would have God as a Father, according to that gospel statement, “To them gave He power to become the sons of God.”274 The Apostle Paul, again, says, “The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant;” and mentions that we have received the Spirit of adoption, “whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”275 16. And since the fact that we are called to an eternal inheritance, that we might be fellow- heirs with Christ and attain to the adoption of sons, is not of our deserts, but of God’s grace; we put this very same grace in the beginning of our prayer, when we say “Our Father.” And by that appellation both love is stirred up—for what ought to be dearer to sons than a fath- er?—and a suppliant disposition, when men say to God, “Our Father:” and a certain pre- sumption of obtaining what we are about to ask; since, before we ask anything, we have re- ceived so great a gift as to be allowed to call God “Our Father.”276 For what would He not now give to sons when they ask, when He has already granted this very thing, namely, that among the Jews. The simplicity, symmetry of arrangement, depth and progress of thought, reverence of feeling, make it, indeed, the model prayer,—the Lord’s Prayer. Tertullian calls it breviarium totius evangelii (so Meyer). 271 Isa. i. 2. 272 Ps. lxxxii. 6. 273 Mal. i. 6. 274 John i. 12. 275 Rom. viii. 15–23 and Gal. iv. 1–6. 276 Patrem quisquis appellare potest, omnia orare potest (Bengel). 97 Chapter IV