shall be said, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”2038 But it will not come to them to whom it shall be said, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.”2039 Therefore when we say, “Thy kingdom come,” we pray that it may come to us. What is, “may come to us”? May find us good. This we pray for then, that He would make us good; for then to us will His kingdom come. 4. We go on, “Thy will be done as in heaven so in earth.”2040 The Angels serve Thee in heaven, may we serve Thee in earth! The Angels do not offend Thee in heaven, may we not offend Thee in earth! As they do Thy will, so may we do it also! And here what do we pray for, but that we may be good? For when we do God’s will (for He without doubt doeth His own will), then is His will done in us. And we may understand in another and a right sense these words, “Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth.” We receive the commandment of God, and it is well-pleasing to us, well-pleasing to our mind. “For we delight in the law of God after the inward man.”2041 Then is His will done in heaven. For our spirit is compared to heaven, but to the earth our flesh. What then is “Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth”? That as Thy command is well-pleasing to our mind, so may our flesh consent thereto; and so that strife be ended which is described by the Apostle, “for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”2042 When the Spirit lusteth against the flesh, His will is even now done in heaven; when the flesh lusteth not against the Spirit, His will is now done in earth. There will be harmony complete when He will; be then the contest now, that there may be victory hereafter. Thus again, “Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth,” may be well understood, by making “heaven” to be the Church, because it is the throne2043 of God; and “earth” the unbelievers, to whom it is said, “Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou go.”2044 When therefore we pray for our enemies, for the enemies of the Church, the enemies of the Christian name, we pray that His will may be done “as in heaven, so in earth,” that is, as in Thy faithful ones, so in Thy blasphemers also, that they all may become “heaven.” 5. There follows next, “Give us this day our daily bread.”2045 It may be understood simply that we pour forth this prayer for daily sustenance, that we may have abundance: or if not that, that we may have no want. Now he said “daily,” for as long as it is called “to- day.”2046 Daily we live, and daily rise, and are daily fed, and daily hunger. May He then give 2038 Matt. xxv. 34. 2039 Matt. xxv. 41. 2040 Matt. vi. 10. 2041 Rom. vii. 22. 2042 Gal. v. 17. 2043 Portat. 2044 Gen. iii. 19, Sept. 2045 Matt. vi. 11. 2046 Heb. iii. 13. 605 Again on the Lord’s Prayer, Matt. vi. To the Competentes.