ON PRAYER.

"I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”

THERE is something that demands and deserves our attention, in the nature of the prayer itself. On the subject of prayer, we are sometimes apt to reason in this way: Prayer can produce no change in the will of the Almighty, it can only effect a change in the mind of the worshipper himself. The Lord's practice suggests an inquiry which may well lead us to doubt the soundness of this conclusion. Why did the Lord pray for His disciples? Such prayers could not be offered for His own sake, to effect a change in His own mind, although His prayers, like all His other acts, combined to make Him Righteousness itself; they must have been offered for the purpose they expressed, and they must have been efficacious in promoting that purpose. And if the Lord is our example in this, as in other points of Christian duty and virtue, our prayers for our brethren must be both dutiful and useful.

If the Lord prayed for His disciples, it must be their duty to pray for each other. If we were sufficiently convinced of the nearness of the unseen world, and of the closeness of the connection between mind and mind,—if we were fully satisfied of the truth that there is a universal sympathy between souls that have the same ends, and that these sympathies can be deepened and widened by increasing the desires of love,—we should feel as well as see that our prayers for others have a tendency to promote spiritual union amongst us, and bring us all unitedly into closer connection with the Lord. When we pray for those whom we desire to serve, that desire is strengthened and extended, and becomes a medium through which the Divine influence can descend upon us, and be carried out into the effect desired. But the object of this prayer of our Lord is the principal point for us to consider. "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." The Lord did not pray that Simon might be saved from the trial, but that he might be preserved from falling entirely under it. In this respect there is a very remarkable difference between the prayer which He instructed His disciples to offer for themselves and that which He on this occasion offered for one of their number. When the Lord instructed His disciples how to pray, He desired them to say-"Lead us not into temptation." He desired them to pray that they might not be tempted. He prayed that they might be faithful in temptation. This is not without a reason. are instructed to deprecate temptation, because it is our duty to avoid temptation, and to have a salutary fear of entering presumptuously into trials of our faith and virtue, in which our own wisdom and our own

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passions are so liable to deceive us.

Yet, if there can be no regeneration without temptation, why should we pray against it? Temptation is a warfare, but, like war, it should be regarded as only and invariably a necessary evil, which it is our duty never to desire, never to provoke, never willingly or wantonly to engage in.

No just principles should be sacrified to avoid it. Yet we should pray against it, and act according to the spirit of that prayer; and such a spirit and such a prayer are best calculated to prepare us for entering with the hope of success, into the contest, when it is unavoidable, to give us the means, the fortitude, the prudence, and the constancy which the contest itself requires. In waging a war with Satan, we must remember that we have the enemies of our own hearts to contend with, and that it is through these that we are assailed, and through these, if we fail, led captive; it is through these, also, that we are led to a false confidence in ourselves; for no one, till he is tried, practically believes that he is so prone to err-so feeble to resist. It was Peter's confidence in himself that lay at the foundation of his fault. "If I should die with Thee, yet will I not forsake Thee. So likewise also said they all." Although he denied the Lord, Peter was not perhaps worse than the disciples generally. He underwent a trial the others were not exposed to, but which would in all probability have proved too powerful for any of them. Had Peter dreaded the trial which he braved, he might have remained unshaken by it. "Lead us not into temptation" is, therefore, the best spirit which feeble humanity can cultivate, and the best prayer which, in these circumstances, it can prefer.

TRANSITION.

IV. THE INDEFECTIBILITY OF THE CHURCH.

Being an Illustration of the Doctrine of Development, and an Address to the Swedenborg Society on the occasion of the last Anniversary, June, 1868. (Continued from October No.)

Without entering into the question with regard to those in the Church specifically who are said to have fallen away, whether Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Greek Churches, we may revert to the interpretation of Origen, who says, that as Christ is the Truth, so Antichrist is that which is against the Truth; thus that Antichrist signifies false doctrine; and hence that to sit in the Temple of God, signifies false doctrine taught in the Church ex cathedra, or by authority.

How this state of things is ultimately brought about in the Church is thus described in the Apocalypse Revealed :—

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*"Every church at its beginning respects goods of life in the first place, and truths of doctrine in the second; but as the church declines, it begins to respect truths of doctrine in the first place, and goods of life in the second; and at length, in the end, it respects faith alone; and then it not only separates the goods of charity from faith, but also omits them. Hence, then, it may appear, that by these words, thou hast left thy first love,' is signified that they do not esteem good of life in the first place, which nevertheless is, and has been, done in the beginning of every church. . . . . If truths of doctrine are respected primarily, or in the first place, they may indeed be known, but not interiorly seen and loved from spiritual affection; therefore they successively perish. For to see truths in their own light is to see them from man's interior mind, which is called the spiritual mind; and this mind is opened by charity; and when it is open, light and the affection of understanding truths flow in out of heaven from the Lord, which constitutes illumination. The man who is in this illumination acknowledges truths as soon as he reads or hears them; but it is not so with the man whose spiritual mind is not opened, who is one that is not principled in the goods of charity, howsoever he may be principled in the truths of doctrine."

We may thus see how the organisation of the Church may remain the same, the traditions the same, the canonical Scriptures the same, the faith the same, the authority the same; thus how the Church may continue to be one and the same Church, while at the same time its candlestick has been gradually removed. "The Catholic and Roman Church," says Calmet, on 2 Thess. ii., "in spite of her losses and the apostacy of a great number of her children, is always the same. She has the same faith, the same morality, the same Scriptures, the same chiefs. In a word, she subsists, and will continue to subsist, to the end of the world." The same notes of identity the Jewish Church claimed for itself in the time of our Lord: "they were threatened with the evils which have befallen them, supposing they did not keep their law; whereas in the event the punishment has come upon them, apparently for keeping it; because they would not change the law for the Gospel, therefore have they been scattered through the nations." They did not see how the Christian Church was the continuation or development of the Jewish, or how the Gospel was a continuation or development of the law.

*Art. 82; also Arcana Calestia, 463.

+ Sermons bearing on Subjects of the Day, p. 222.

"The Bible," says a modern critic, it is supposed, is based upon an organic coherence, according to which the Old Covenant bears the same relation to the New, as the embryonic germ to the perfect development; and on these or similar principles the typical explanation is still defended by some writers;" but, says the same writer, "it must be absolutely denied that the authors of the Old Testament, and especially of the Pentateuch, regarded their forms and institutions as the transitory germ of some higher form to be unfolded in the lapse of ages, or as parts of a preparatory economy to be ultimately merged in some more perfect system; on the contrary, they looked upon them as final and immutable for all times, because embodying the sum of all truth and Divine wisdom." It was in this sense that the Jews believed the identity of the Jewish Church would be continued to the end of the world; and it is in the same sense that we are called upon to believe in the identity and continuity of the existing Catholic Church.

How the transition from the old to the new state of things was to be effected, so that the Christian Church should continue to be one and the same with the Jewish, has been a matter of controversy from the beginning of the Christian era down to the present time. If converts, while adopting the new, adhered also to the old state of things, they were reproached as Judaizers; if they adhered only to the new, they were reproached as separatists and sectarians; the consequence is that the transition from the old to the new gave rise to the same doubts, difficulties, and embarrassments, which have originated in the present day under similar circumstances.

In order to prove the continuity of the Church, and that this continuity is interrupted by an act of separation, it has been maintained that in passing from the old to the new state of things, the early Christians adhered to the old as long as it existed. Thus Dr. Dollinger observes, on that passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews-"Let us go forth therefore unto him, without the camp, bearing his reproach," "It is a mistake to affirm, as has often been done of late, that the author of the epistle required an entire separation from the Jewish religion. He would not have done that incidentally in a couple of passing words, but have explained his grounds at length. As long as the Temple stood, no Jewish Christian was required to abjure the Levitical worship."

* Historical and Critical Commentary on the Old Testament, by Dr. Kalisch; Leviticus, part i. p. 119.

+ First Age of Christianity and of the Church, Vol. 1. p. 120.

What, then, is the meaning of the words "Let us go forth out of the camp, bearing his reproach"? The meaning is thus given by Roman Catholic and Protestant writers :

Aquinas observes, that to go forth from out of the camp signifies, among other things, "to go forth from the observance of legal ceremonies, and to renounce them at the coming of the truth;" Cornelius a Lapide, that, among other things, it means "the going forth from out of the camp of Judaism;" Nicolas de Lyra, that it means "to go forth from out of the observances of the Jewish Law;" Calmet, that it means "Let us abandon the useless ceremonies of the Law; let us leave the Jews hardened in their infidelity; let us glory in being chased from their Synagogues, and excommunicated from their Church; let us esteem ourselves happy in having a part in the sufferings and humiliations of our Saviour." Calmet refers to Theodoret, Zegerius, Tirinus, and others, in confirmation of this meaning, which is also included in the interpretations of the Glossa Ordinaria.

Protestant Commentators follow the same method of interpretation. Indeed Calvin's interpretation is almost identical with that of Calmet. Bengel observes, on the words "Let us go forth out of the camp," that the camp here signifies "Judaism;" Dr. Wells, that the camp means "the Jewish Church and service;" Dr. Whitby, that it means "the terrestrial Jerusalem, the Jewish Church and service;" Dr. Hammond, that it means "Let us therefore leave the Judaical service, the Mosaic Law, though many afflictions threaten us for so doing ;" Dr. Burton, "Let us no longer follow the Jewish Law;" Prebendary Pyle, that it means, "Christ, our great sacrifice, was for our redemption crucified without the gates of Jerusalem, and accordingly none can partake of the blessings of His sacrifice and religion, till they come entirely off from the Jewish ceremonies, and become true Christians. Let us therefore leave the Jewish Camp, i.e., the Jewish ceremonial religion, and entirely embrace His more excellent Dispensation. Let us carry His cross, and after His example patiently suffer the reproaches and persecutions of our adversaries."*

Such are the interpretations of the great body of ancient and modern Commentators; and whatever may be thought of them, it is certain that none of these interpreters believed that the apostle was abandoning the principle of the continuity of the Church, when, at the end of the

* Owen, Poole, Slade, Adam Clarke, Wesley, and others take a similar view of the subject; and Cocceius and Vitringa make use of this and similar texts for the purpose of justifying separation from the Church of Rome.