5. _Be not ye therefore like unto them._ Ye who have tasted of the grace of God in _Christ Jesus_, are throughly convinced, _your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him_. So that the end of your praying, is not to inform God, as tho’ he knew not your wants already; but rather to inform yourselves, to fix the sense of those wants more deeply in your hearts, and the sense of your continual ♦dependence on him, who only is able to supply all your wants. It is not so much to move God, who is always more ready to give than you to ask; as to move yourselves, that you may be willing and ready to receive, the good things he has prepared for you. III. 1. After having taught the true nature and ends of prayer, our Lord subjoins an example of it: even that divine form of prayer, which seems in this place to be proposed by way of pattern chiefly, as the model and standard of all our prayers: _After this manner therefore pray ye_. Whereas elsewhere he enjoins the use of these very words, [97]_He said unto them, when ye pray, say_―― 2. *We may observe in general concerning this divine prayer. First, that it contains all we can reasonably or innocently pray for. There is nothing which we have need to ask of God, nothing which we can ask without offending him, which is not included either directly or indirectly in this comprehensive form: secondly, that it contains all we can reasonably or innocently desire; whatever is for the glory of God, whatever is needful or profitable not only for ourselves, but for every creature in heaven and earth. And indeed our prayers are the proper test of our desires; nothing being fit to have a place in our desires, which is not fit to have a place in our prayers: what we may not pray for, neither should we desire: thirdly, that it contains all our duty to God and man: whatsoever things are pure and holy, whatsoever God requires of the children of men, whatsoever is acceptable in his sight, whatsoever it is whereby we may profit our neighbour, being exprest or implied therein. 3. It consists of three parts, the preface, the petitions, and the doxology or conclusion. The preface, _Our Father which art in Heaven_, lays a general foundation for prayer; comprizing what we must first know of God, before we can pray, in confidence of being heard. It likewise points out to us all those tempers, with which we are to approach to God, which are most essentially requisite, if we desire either our prayers or our lives should find acceptance with him.