If, then, in calamities and dangers the wnbidden impulse of nature prompts men to call on God, it surely becomes the duty of those, to whose fidelity and prudence their salvation is in trusted, to instruct them, in a special manner, in the proper performance of this duty. There are some who, contrary to the command of Jesus Christ, invert the order of prayer: he, who commands us to have recourse to him in the day of tribulation, [1] has also prescribed to us the order in which we should solicit the divine favours. It is his will that, before we pray to be delivered from evil, we pray that the name of God be sanctified; that his kingdom come, and so of the other petitions of the Lord's Prayer, which are so many gradations by which we ascend to this their summit. Yet there are those who, if their head, their side, or their foot, ache; if they sustain loss of property; if menaces or dangers from an enemy alarm them; if famine, war, or pestilence afflict them, omit all the other petitions of the Lord's Prayer, and ask only to be delivered from these evils. This preposterous practice is at variance with the express command of Christ: " Seek first the kingdom of God." [2] To pray, therefore, as we ought, when we beg to be delivered from calamities and evils, we should have in view the greater glory of God. Thus, when David offered this prayer: " Lord rebuke me not in thine anger," he subjoined the reason, " For there is no one in death, that is mindful of thee, and who shall confess to thee in hell;" [3] and, having implored God to have mercy on him, he added: "I will teach the unjust thy ways; and the wicked shall be converted to thee." [4]
The faithful are to be excited to the adoption of this salutary manner of praying, and to an imitation of the example of the prophet; and at the same time, their attention should also be pointed to the marked difference that exists between the prayers of the infidel and those of the Christian. The infidel, too, begs of God to cure his diseases, and to heal his wounds, to deliver him from approaching or impending ills; but he places his principal hope of recovery, or deliverance in the remedies provided by nature, or prepared by art. He makes no scruple of using medicine no matter by whom prepared, no matter if accompanied by charms, spells, or other diabolical arts, provided he can promise himself some hope of recovery. Not so the Christian: when visited by sickness or other adversity, he flies to God as his sovereign refuge; in him does he centre all his hopes of returning health; him only does he acknowledge as the author of all good, adoring him as his deliverer, and ascribing to him whatever healing virtue resides in medicines, convinced that then only are they efficacious, when it is the divine will that they should be so. They are given by God to man to heal his corporal infirmities; and hence these words of Ecclesiasticus: " The Most High hath created medicines out of the earth, and a wise man will not abhor them." [5] He, therefore,
