which art in Heaven.' It was
taught by Jesus to His chosen disciples; then it is only for
Christians. No man who is unconverted can or has a right to pray thus.
Christ taught _His disciples_, not all men, not the multitude, to pray
like this. A man must be born again before he has any right to breathe
this prayer. What right has any man living in sin and in open enmity
with God, to lift up his voice and say, Our or My Father? It is a lie
and nothing else for him to say this."

The Saviour was very explicit on this point: "Ye do the deeds of your
father. Then said they to him, We are not born of fornication; we have
one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father,
ye would love me; for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither
came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech?
Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the
devil."--John 8:41-44. Here are the unredeemed calling God their
Father. If He is their Father, here was the time for the Great Teacher
to make it plain. If He is their Father, _in any sense_, here was the
opportunity to make it plain. The Saviour does not reply, "Yes, He is
your Father in one sense, but I am speaking of another and a higher
sense." His answer is plain and unequivocal.

There are those who fly in the face of the Saviour's plain teaching.
Hear two of them:--Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, in "Science and Health,"
"God is the Father of All." "Man is the offspring of Spirit." "Spirit
is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father and
Life is the law of his being." "He recognized Spirit, God, as the only
creator, and therefore as the Father of all"; "demonstrating God as
the Father of men." Another makes his meaning just as plain: "He
[Jesus] was the son of God in like manner that every other person is;
for _the Creator is the father of all_."--_Thomas Paine, in "The Age
of Reason."_

The issue is joined between these two on the one side and the Lord
Jesus and Paul on the other, and men are lining up on one side or the
other, and many of them will spend eternity with the ones whose
teaching they are following _now_, with whom they are lining up; and
the reader may as well face the fact that many of them will not spend
eternity in the same place with the Saviour and Paul. With many the
question as to whether the Saviour, when He said, "Ye are of your
father the devil," told the truth, or was a wilful liar and deceiver,