Daniel 2:1-19

HOMILETICS

SECT. V.—THE ANSWERED PRAYER (Chap. Daniel 2:1).

We come to the first of the visions given to Daniel. The occasion of it was a dream of Nebuchadnezzar, of which it was required to give both the description and the interpretation. The vision thus in harmony with Daniel’s situation in Babylon, where pretensions to such wisdom and ability prevailed; a confirmation of the genuineness of the book. One object of the vision to elevate Daniel still higher in the king’s esteem and in the State, and so still further to prepare the way for Israel’s liberation at the appointed time. Another and more direct object to comfort the people of God, then and in all future time, with the assurance that God rules in the kingdoms of men, and that when the great monarchies of the world have run their allotted course, the kingdom of Messiah shall overthrow them all and bless the earth with a lasting reign of righteousness and peace.
The vision was given in answer to prayer. The time of it was “the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,” that is, as sole monarch, after having reigned two previous years conjointly with his father, Nabopolassar [28]. The king, having had his thoughts seriously exercised about the future (Daniel 2:29), [29] had a dream [30] which greatly disturbed him (Daniel 2:1); and as the wise men about him pretended to interpret dreams, he summoned the various classes of them [31],—magicians [32], astrologers, sorcerers [33], and Chaldeans [34], and required them to give both the dream and its meaning. Either in reality, as is generally supposed, the dream having left only a confused impression, or, as others perhaps more correctly think, in pretence, in order to put to the proof the pretended skill of his wise men, he declared that the dream had passed from his recollection [35], and they must give not only the interpretation, but the dream itself. In accordance with the character of Oriental despotism, the penalty of failure was to be death in most terrible and cruel form—to be “hewed in pieces” [36], with the utter demolition of their dwellings [37]. On the wise men disclaiming, in the Syriac or Chaldaic tongue [38], the entire inability of themselves or any mere man whatever, to gratify the king’s desire—a thing competent only to the gods, “whose dwelling is not with flesh”—Nebuchadnezzar, probably enraged at discovering, as he thought, the falsehood of their pretensions, but ostensibly at their wish only to gain time for the safety of their own persons [39], commanded the chief executioner [40] at once to inflict the penalty. Daniel and his three companions, being supposed to be included among the wise men, though apparently not among those who were summoned into the king’s presence, were sought out for execution with the rest. One refuge they knew, which the others had not. The God they worshipped was, as they had already experienced, a God that hears and answers prayer. At Daniel’s suggestion, they unite immediately in a concert of prayer for the preservation of their own lives and those of the wise men of Babylon, and, to that end, for ability from on high to describe and interpret the king’s dream. The prayer was graciously and speedily answered.

[28] “In the second year,” &c. The dream occurring at this early period in Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, observes Hengstenberg, agrees with the fame of Daniel’s wisdom and prevalency in prayer as indicated by Ezekiel. The first mention made of Daniel by that prophet was probably in the sixth year of the reign of Zedekiah (Ezekiel 8:1), consequently thirteen or fourteen years after the carrying away of Daniel into Babylon. The second mention of him five years later. The repeated mention of such a person quite natural in the circumstances. Yet this mention of Daniel by Ezekiel has been made the ground of an opinion, advanced by Ewald and espoused by Bunsen, that Daniel was led captive in the first Assyrian invasion, and that he lived and prophesied, not in Babylon, but in Nineveh! Kliefoth, quoted by Keil, observes that in Daniel 1:1 Daniel reckons Nebuchadnezzar’s years “according to the years of the Israelitish kings, and sees in him already the king; on the contrary, in chap, 2., he treats of the nations of the World-power, and reckons here accurately the year of Nebuchadnezzar, the bearer of the world-power, from the day in which, having actually obtained the possession of that power, he became king of Babylon.” Keil himself remarks: “If we observe that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed his dream in the second year of his reign, and that he entered on his reign some time after the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of Jehoiakim, then we can understand how the three years appointed for the education of Daniel and his companions came to an end in the second year of his reign; for if Nebuchadnezzar began to reign in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, then in the seventh year of that king three years had passed since the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in the fourth year of his reign. A whole year or more of their period of education had passed before Nebuchadnezzar mounted the throne.” It is, however, perhaps scarcely correct to speak of what took place in Jehoiakim’s fourth year as the destruction of Jerusalem, which did not happen till some years afterwards.

[29] “What should come to pass hereafter.” Dr. Pusey notices it as “a striking picture of the young conqueror, that, not contented with the vista of future greatness before him, he was looking on beyond our little span of life, which in youth so fills the mind, to a future when his own earthly life should be closed.”

[30] “Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams.” Mr. Wood, in his Lectures on Daniel, observes, that “Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was an event in the Chaldean history which bore upon it the stamp and impress of divine interposition. It involved in its interpretation the future revolutions of the world, and had reference to that most important revolution, the introduction of the religion of Christ, which was to cover the earth.”

[31] “The king commanded to call the magicians,” &c. On all occasions in the book, says Hengstenberg, not particular wise men are consulted, but the whole body of them, probably, as here, in the persons of their representatives, or of a selection made from them. Such in accordance with the information of Diodorus, that the observations of the Babylonian wise men were always instituted in company and by a college. The division of the wise men here indicated is not to be conceived of as if every individual always confined himself to the cultivation of only one particular branch of Babylonian wisdom; the division only amounting to this, that by rule each should particulary excel in only some one department. The different branches, too, were so nearly identified, that it would be difficult previously to determine whether any one of them would not, in any given instance, come into operation.

[32] “Magicians.” See note under chap. Daniel 1:20. Dr. Rule observes that the Hebrew name is generally considered equivalent with the Greek ἱερογραμμαπεῖς or sacred scribes, not magicians. The Assyrians had a sacred writing, not like the pictorial hieroglyphic of Egypt, but a literal hieroglyphic or ideograph. The characters were arrow-headed or wedge-like (cuneiform), as in ordinary inscriptions on the Assyrian sculptures and Babylonian cylinders. The style was enigmatic, or at least obscure, by brevity or abruptness or abbreviation.

[33] “Sorcerers,” מְכַשְּׁפִים (mechash-shephim), from a Syriac root meaning to “supplicate” or “perform sacred rites;” enchanters, magicians, Exodus 7:11; Deuteronomy 18:10; Malachi 3:5.—Gesenius. Sept., φαρμακὸς, one who uses drugs or incantations. Vulg., “maleficus.” Aben Ezra, one who uses horoscopes. Gesenius understands a magician, or one who pretended to cause eclipses by incantations.

[34] “Chaldeans.” He rerepresented as a class of themselves. A thing in itself most probable. The priest-caste not likely first introduced into Babylonia by the Chaldeans. No civilised people of antiquity without an order of priests. Isaiah, in whose time the Chaldeans had not yet become masters of Babylon, describes that city as the prime seat of the arts of divination. These possessed a priest-caste before their invasion of Babylonia. The name of the people was at Babylon the name of the whole caste, and occurs as such in the oldest writers. The name given from this distinction between the Chaldean and Babylonian priesthoods. Curtius speaks of the Persian magi, the Chaldeans, and the Babylonians as so many different kinds of wise men in Babylon. The distinction here no small attestation to the trustworthiness, and so to the genuineness, of the book.—Hengstenberg. Dr. A. Clarke observes that the “Chaldeans” might be a college of learned men, where all arts and sciences were professed and taught; that they were the most ancient philosophers of the world; and that they might have been originally inhabitants of Babylon, and still have preserved to themselves exclusively the name of Chaldeans. Keil views them as the most distinguished class among the Babylonian wise men.

[35] “The thing it gone from me.” The passage otherwise rendered by Michaelis, Gesenius, and others—“the word, or decree, has gone forth from me;” or, according to Winer, Hengstenberg, and others, “the thing has been determined by me,” or “the word stands firm,” like chap. Daniel 6:12, “the thing is true.” Others translate, “let the word from me be known,” “be it known unto you.”

[36] “Cut in pieces.” This punishment, observes Keil, common among the Babylonians (chap. Daniel 3:30; Ezekiel 16:40). “A Chaldean death-punishment,” says Hengstenberg, “and in accordance with the cruel character of the people.” The king’s treatment of the magicians, he observes, was barbarous, but nothing more than, judging even by our sparing historical information, we might expect of him (2 Kings 25:7; 2 Kings 25:18; 2 Kings 25:21; Jeremiah 39:5, &c.; Jeremiah 52:9, Jeremiah 52:24). A mistake to expect an Oriental despot to use our standard in the estimate of human life. An example of the author’s acquaintance with the usages of the time and country, and so a confirmation of the genuineness of the book. The Persians had quite a different mode of inflicting capital punishment.

[37] “Your houses shall be made a dunghill.” The houses of Babylon were built of earth burnt or simply dried in the sun. When a building was totally demolished or converted into a confused heap of rubbish, the entire mass of earth, in rainy weather, gradually decomposed, and the place of such a house became like a dunghill. Bertholdt admits that the accurate acquaintance here shown with the mode of building practised in Babylon shows the piece to have been written in that country.—Hengstenberg.

[38] “In Syriack.” Therefore, in the opinion of Hengstenberg, not the language of the king and court. The language here meant is the Eastern Aramaic or common Chaldaic; that in which the following part of the book is written as far as the end of chap. 7. Originally the language of Abraham in his own country, but changed by his descendants in Palestine for that commonly called Hebrew, the language of Canaan (Isaiah 19:18), which was given to them for their possession. This language of Canaan naturally closely allied to the Phœnician, whose characters, resembling the Samaritan, continued to be used by the Hebrews till changed after the captivity for those of the Chaldaic. Dr. Rule observes that the language of Aram (or Syria), now less properly called Chaldee in one dialect and Syriac in another, while yet the two dialects hardly differ, is very different from the old Chaldee, or language of Akkad, the classic tongue of Assyria used by the race of Akkadians, who had inhabited Babylonia from the earliest times. These Chaldees would converse, he thinks, with each other in their ancient language; but that speech the soldier-king would not have understood, and therefore they are under the necessity of speaking to him in his mother tongue. A different view from that taken by Hengstenberg.

[39] “Ye would gain the time.” Either till the king could recollect the dream himself, or should become indifferent about the matter, or till they could invent something in the place of it, or get time to escape with life and property.—A. Clark

[40] “Captain of the king’s guard.” Margin: “Chief of the executioners or slaughtermen.” “The chief of the royal bodyguard, who also executed the capital punishments. In Jeremiah 39:13 he bears a different name from that in this passage—an evidence of the genuineness of the book; as a spurious Daniel, if he had derived the corresponding statements from Jeremiah, would have surely transferred also the name, in order to give an appearance of trustworthiness.”—Hengstenberg. According to Keil, this man was regarded as the highest officer of the king (Jeremiah 39:9; Jeremiah 39:11; Jeremiah 11:1, &c.); his business being to see to the execution of the king’s commands (1 Kings 2:25; 2 Kings 6:8). Dr. Rule remarks that this was also the Egyptian title 1200 years before Nebuchadnezzar, and the repetition of both the office and the name may be noted as one of many affinities between Egypt and Babylon in customs, language, and tradition.

From the whole section observe—

1. Men’s minds capable of being acted upon by God. Dreams themselves often from God, as well as the apprehension of their meaning. The power of recollection, as well as the want of it, also from Him. By divine revelation, mediately or immediately given, Daniel is enabled not only to interpret the king’s dream, but to describe the dream itself, without the slightest clue to it. The office of the Spirit to “bring all things to remembrance,” as well as to “show things to come.” The faculties of our minds as well as the members of our bodies under the influence and control of Him who made both, and that both while asleep and awake. “I awoke, and my sleep was sweet unto me.” “Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions.”

2. The misery of ungodly men. Nebuchadnezzar troubled and unhappy in the midst of all his power and grandeur. A dream by night or a thought by day, laying hold of the mind, able to poison all earthly enjoyments. The sword of Damocles suspended over the ungodly in the midst of their mirth. Armed guards around a king’s chamber unable to keep trouble from his spirit. Sleep, the gift of God to His beloved (Psalms 127:2), often far from the pillow of the ungodly. An evil conscience a sufficient tormentor. A vague terror the usual accompaniment of unpardoned sin. Apprehended anger on the part of God enough to rob a man of peace by day and sleep by night. The mere man of the world “generally impatient under suffering; apprehensive of danger at every change both of body and mind; alarmed at every circumstance which to him appears to portend either adversity or dissolution.”—Wood.

3. The evils of despotism and absolute power. Like Nebuchadnezzar, a despot usually unreasonable and arbitrary, cruel and oppressive, hasty and impetuous. Is easily irritated, while his wrath is “like the roaring of a lion.” The capricious disposer of his subjects’ lives and property. The will of an absolute monarch, who in his wrath rather resembles a madman or a wild beast, takes the place of law, justice, and reason. Sad condition of a people when the will of one man is law. Usually the character of Oriental monarchies. The beheaded Baptist and the slaughtered infants of Bethlehem melancholy examples. The tendency of absolute power to make good men bad and bad men much worse. Such power only safe in the hands of Him who is King of Righteousness and Prince of Peace. The happiness of a free and constitutional State, as well as the duty of gratitude to God for the privilege of living under such, best seen in contrast with the misery of being under a despotic one. Adam Clarke exclaims on the passage: “Happy England! Know and value thy excellent privileges!”

“Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art,
Thee I account still happy, and the chief
Among the nations, seeing thou art free,
My native nook of earth.”

Plutarch relates that when Dionysius the Second took his departure from Syracuse, the whole city went out to behold the joyful sight, and that their hearts were so full of the happy event that they were angry with those that were absent and could not witness with what joy the sun rose that day on Syracuse, now at last delivered from the chains of slavery.

4. The fearful effects of sin, Sin makes men, who were created in the image of God, to resemble demons. Degraded Nebuchadnezzar into the likeness of a beast long before he was driven into the fields to eat grass. “When passion is on the throne, reason is under foot.” Both God and the devil stamp their image on their respective servants. Men must resemble the being they worship. We must either be like the God who is love, or him who was “a murderer from the beginning.” Causeless and unholy anger is murder in the germ. Anger may enter for a moment into the breast of a wise man, but “resteth only in the bosom of fools.” The maxim of Periander, the wise man of Corinth, was—“Be master of thine anger.” The Holy Spirit says, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Anger, Dr. Cox observes, is—

(1) undignifying;
(2) unreasonable;
(3) destructive of that just and useful influence to which we should aspire, and for which every one is naturally capacitated by his position in society;
(4) usually makes a rapid progress;
(5) is productive of great unhappiness;
(6) is a most guilty passion. It is remarked by Robert Hall: “Vindictive passions surround the soul with a sort of turbulent atmosphere, than which nothing can be conceived more opposite to the calm and holy light in which the blessed Spirit loves to dwell.”
5. The helplessness of heathenism and of men without God. Babylon’s wise men, with all their learning and science, unable either to find direction in their difficulty or deliverance from their danger. Like the mariners in the storm, they are “at their wit’s end.” They believed the gods could tell the king his dream, but they had no access to them. Their “dwelling is not with flesh.” Their gods do not dwell with them, and they confess that they have no converse with them. Thus heathenism, by its own confession, is powerless. Sorry gods, indeed, that cannot approach men, nor be approached by them! Even the great Bel of Babylon unable to help his royal and devoted worshipper. Contrast with this the God of the Bible, “a very present help in trouble,” and “near to all who call upon Him in truth.” Blessed are the people who know the “mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh;” and that, having been “made flesh” Himself, He can and does dwell with men on the earth. Matthew Henry notices the righteousness of God in causing men who imposed on others by pretending to do what they could not, to be threatened with death for not doing what they did not even pretend to do.

6. The happy privilege of prayer. Access to the throne of grace both the comfort and deliverance of Daniel and his three friends. A noble sight for angels to look down upon, those four young men on their knees, asking believingly, as children of a father, the gracious interposition of the God of heaven on behalf of themselves and others. They knew that for the God of their fathers nothing was too dark to know, nothing too hard to do, nothing too great to grant to His praying children. Nothing really good excluded from the subjects of prayer. “In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). Even under the law, Moses could appeal to Israel, “What nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for?” How much nearer under the Gospel! “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, I will do it.” “What soever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” “If we ask according to His will, we know that He heareth us; and if we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions we desire of Him” (1 John 3:22; 1 John 5:14). The Spirit of God given to help us in prayer, and to teach us to pray for what is according to the divine will (Romans 8:26). Hence—

7. The happiness of the godly. Daniel, though exposed to the same danger as the wise men, is calm and collected. He knew in whom he believed. An example of the text, “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.” He knew the God of his fathers to be the God “that heareth prayer.” The glory of the gospel that it brings the apostolic exhortation into realised experience and actual practice: “Be careful (or anxious) for nothing: but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God; and the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Such a religion needed by men in the battle of life; and the last-quoted words show how it is to be found,—“through Christ Jesus.” Daniel an example of it in the Old Testament; millions such in the New. Tried by men and things as others are, yet kept in a peace to which the world is a stranger,—a peace found in the knowledge and possession of Christ Jesus. “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”

8. The special importance of united prayer. Daniel invites his three friends to unite with himself in prayer for the divine interposition. “Two are better than one,” no less in prayer than in labour. “If two of you,” said the Master, “shall agree as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them” (Matthew 18:19). So Esther asked her Jewish maids to join their prayers with hers in a time of great emergency. The promised baptism of the Holy Ghost bestowed on the disciples when engaged, as they had been for ten days, in united prayer. Peter’s deliverance from prison in answer to the united prayer made by the Church for that object. Those the most valuable friends who are able to join us in our suit at a throne of grace. Dr. Cox remarks on the passage: “While the individual supplication of the ‘righteous man availeth much,’ union in prayer is adapted to increase its fervency, and, through grace, to promote its success; and while it is adapted to our social nature and suited to our circumstances of common necessity, it has the express assurance of a divine blessing.”

9. A praying man a national benefit. Here are four men, captives in a strange land and occupying the position of slaves, made the means, by their intercession with God, not only of saving the lives of a numerous class of citizens, and of bringing peace and comfort to the troubled mind of the sovereign, but of bringing that heathen king to confess the worthlessness of his idols, and for a time at least to favour the worship of the true God among his subjects. How many national blessings have been bestowed and national calamities averted by the believing prayers of godly men, eternity alone will disclose. A poet reminds us how much the world—

“Receives advantage from his noiseless hours,
Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes
Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring
And plenteous harvest, to the prayers he makes,
When, lsaac-like, the solitary saint
Walks forth to meditate at eventide,
And thinks on her who thinks not on herself.”

10. The special privilege of a godly ancestry. Daniel’s privilege that he could address his prayers to God as “the God of his fathers,” and then thank and praise Him as such, connecting with that relationship the gracious answer he had received. The title reminds us, as Dr. Cox observes, “that the recollections of piety are the most solemn and endearing that earth can afford. Some are privileged to look back upon an extended succession of holy ancestry, and to recount the names of those who are endeared by relationship as well as distinguished for their faith, who now form a part of the celestial society. Their sun is set, but their example continues to shed its holy twilight around the horizon of life, and cheer them on their pilgrimage.” The recollection of such an ancestry at once a stimulus to prayer and a help to faith.

DANIEL AN EXAMPLE OF THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER
“Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision” (Daniel 2:19).

Daniel obtained what he asked of God. Important to inquire, How may we Reason and Scripture teach us that various things are necessary to efficacious prayer. Prayer, to be efficacious, must obviously possess the following conditions. It must be—

1. Offered in faith. This constantly required. “Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering: for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord” (James 1:6). “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). The ability to grant on the part of the Giver, as well as His faithfulness if He has promised, must be cordially believed. “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” (Matthew 9:28). We must be able to say, “Thine is the power;” and to believe “He is faithful that promised.” Daniel prayed in confidence that God was the “Hearer of prayer.” “The prayer of faith shall save the sick” (James 5:15). “As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.”

2. Earnest. Prayer offered without earnestness only begs a refusal. Daniel prayed as in a matter of life and death. It is the “fervent” prayer that availeth much. “Elijah prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not” (James 5:17). “I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me” (Genesis 32:26). “They constrained Him.”

3. Importunate and persevering. This the evidence at once of faith and earnestness. Answers to prayer not always, nor often, granted immediately. Prayer to be continued till the answer come. Thus prayed Daniel and his three friends. The disciples in the upper room “continued in prayer and supplication” till they received the promised baptism of fire. The Church prayed for Peter’s release till it was granted. To this end Christ spake a parable that “men ought always to pray and not to faint,” or give up because the answer is delayed. “Shall not God avenge His own elect who cry day and night unto Him continually, though He bear long with him?” Jesus Himself continued whole nights in prayer to God. Elijah returned to his knees “seven times” before the “little cloud” appeared.

4. From a right motive and for a right end. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3). God’s glory and the good of others as well as ourselves to be our true motive. “Thine is the glory.” “Hallowed be Thy name,” the first petition taught in the Lord’s Prayer. Daniel prayed that men’s lives might be saved and God’s name glorified. Prayer offered to gratify lust, pride, ambition, covetousness, either unanswered or answered without a blessing. “He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul” (Psalms 106:15).

5. Offered with uprightness of heart and life. “Whatever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments” (1 John 3:22). The fervent prayer of the “righteous man” that which availeth much. The language of the man born blind that both of Nature and Scripture: “God heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth His will, him He hearth” (John 9:31). “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” “The prayer of the wicked is abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the righteous is His delight.” The sinner, however, also heard, if he come confessing himself such and feeling his sin a burden. “God be merciful to me a sinner,” a prayer when offered sincerely never returned unanswered. Paul’s prayers heard and answered as those of a sinner before they were so as those of a saint. The prayers of a sinner, groaning under his sin, and pleading for pardon and a clean heart, make sweet music in heaven. “Behold, he prayeth.”

6. With submission to God’s will and desire only for what is according to it. “Thy will be done,” the third petition in the Lord’s Prayer. The great Teacher Himself an example. “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.” Prayer without submission to God’s will, only the language of rebellion. Prayer for what is not according to God’s will better left unanswered. “If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us” (1 John 5:14). The work of the Spirit to teach us to pray for what is according to the will of God (Romans 8:26). Prayer thus offered never unanswered. Connected with this is—

7. With entire self-surrender. For the submission of the will to God the surrender of our whole self necessary; without such surrender our prayer still that of rebellion. The language of our heart either, “O Lord, I am Thy servant,” or, “Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?” Prayer only safely and profitably answered where there is entire self-surrender. Such surrender secures either the blessing asked or something better.

8. In the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ. Daniel, in a recorded prayer of his (chap. 9.), renounces all merit and righteousness of his own as a ground of acceptance, and pleads only to be heard “for the Lord’s, that is, Messiah or Christ’s, sake.” “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name” (on my account or for my sake), “I will do it.” David taught to use the same prevailing plea—“Look upon the face of Thine Anointed” (Psalms 84:9). God can refuse no blessing so asked, because He cannot refuse His Son. To plead the name and merits of Christ, however, implies a cordial acceptance of and trust in Him as a Saviour. The consequence of such acceptance and trust is a personal union with Him, and the consequent indwelling of the Spirit as a “Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” With that Spirit we not merely say, “Our Father,” but “My Father,” and “pray in the Holy Ghost.”