who has pledged his fidelity to Jesus Christ, does not place his principal hope of recovery in such remedies: he places it in God the author of these medicines, and the Sacred Scriptures condemn the conduct of those who, confiding in the power of medicine, seek no assistance from God. [1] Nay more, those, who regulate their lives by the laws of God, abstain from the use of all medicines, which are not evidently intended by Al mighty God to be medicinal; and, were there even a certain hope of recovery by using any other, they abstain from them as so many charms and diabolical artifices.
The faithful, then, are to be exhorted to place their confidence in God: our most bountiful Father has commanded us to beg of him our deliverance from evil; and commanded as we are, by him to implore his goodness, we must cherish a hope of obtaining the object of our prayers. Of this truth the Sacred Scriptures afford many illustrations, that they whom reasoning may not inspire with confidence, may be compelled to yield to a strong array of examples. Abraham, Jacob, Lot, Joseph, and David are unexceptionable attestations of the divine goodness; and the numerous instances recorded in the New Testament of persons rescued from the greatest dangers, by the efficacy of devout prayer, are so familiar as to supersede the necessity of crowding the page with citations. On this subject therefore, we shall content ourselves with one sentence from the prophet, which is sufficient to confirm even the weakest mind: " The just cried, and the Lord heard them; and delivered them out of all their troubles." [2]
We now come to explain the force and nature of the petition, in order that the faithful may understand that in it we by no means solicit deliverance from every species of evil. There are some things which are commonly considered evils, and which, notwithstanding, are fraught with advantage to those who endure them: such was the sting of the flesh experienced by the Apostle, that, by the aid of divine grace, power might be perfected in infirmity. [3] When the pious Christian learns the salutary influence of such things, far from praying for their removal, he rejoices in them exceedingly. It is, therefore, against those evils only, which conduce not to our spiritual interests, that we pray; not against such as are auxiliary to our salvation. The full force of the petition, therefore, is, that freed from sin, we may also be freed from the danger of temptation, and from internal and external evils; that we may be protected from water, fire, and lightning; that the fruits of the earth may be preserved; that we be not visited by dearth, sedition, or the horrors of war; that God may banish disease, pestilence, desolation from us; that he may keep us from slavery, imprisonment, exile, treason, treachery, and from all those evils which fill man kind with terror and misery. Finally, we pray that God would remove all occasions of sin and iniquity.
