2. _Ending with an outburst of triumphant praise_ (vers. 20, 21).--Praise soars higher than prayer. Man's desires will never overtake God's bounty. When the apostle desires that God's praise may resound in the Church "throughout all ages," he no longer supposes that the mystery of God may be finished speedily as men count years. The history of mankind stretches before his gaze into its dim futurity. The successive generations gather themselves into that consummate age of the kingdom of God, the grand cycle in which all the ages are contained. With its completion time itself is no more. Its swelling current, laden with the tribute of all the worlds and all their histories, reaches the eternal ocean. The end comes; God is all in all. At this furthest horizon of thought, Christ and His own are seen together rendering to God unceasing glory (_Findlay_). +Lessons.+--1. _Prayer is the cry of conscious need._ 2. _Increases in importunity as it is strengthened by faith._ 3. _Finds its sublimest themes in the culture of the spiritual life._ _GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._ Vers. 14, 15. _The Christian Church a Family._ +I. The definition here given of the Christian Church.+--1. _A society founded upon natural affinities--"a family."_ A family is built on affinities which are natural, not artificial; it is not a combination, but a society. In ancient times an association of interest combined men in one guild or corporation for protecting the common persons in that corporation from oppression. In modern times identity of political creed or opinion has bound men together in one league in order to establish those political principles which appeared to them of importance. Similarity of taste has united men together in what is called an association, or a society, in order by this means to attain more completely the ends of that science to which they had devoted themselves. But, as these have been raised artificially, so their end is, inevitably, dissolution. Society passes on, and guilds and corporations die; principles are established, and leagues become dissolved; tastes change, and then the association or society breaks up and comes to nothing. It is upon another principle altogether that that which we call a family, or true society, is formed. It is not built upon similarity of taste nor identity of opinion, but upon affinities of nature. You do not choose who shall be your brother; you cannot exclude your mother or your sister; it does not depend upon choice or arbitrary opinion at all, but is founded upon the eternal nature of things. And precisely in the same way is the Christian Church formed--upon natural affinity, and not upon artificial combination.