I. NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY. That is assumed throughout. It is not stated in so many words, but the idea of it pervades the whole prayer. The people of Israel were not at liberty to choose their own deity, nor their own ecclesiastical polity, nor even their own forms of worship; nor might they determine how they should be related to one another. In all the important relationships in which they stood, of every kind, they owed a direct obedience to God. And this rested upon the bases of -

II. NATIONAL INHERITANCE. Their land was that which God had "given his people for an inheritance" (ver. 27). So very distinctly and remarkably had God bestowed their land upon them, that they might well realize their national obligation. But when we take all things into account, we shall see that every nation owes all that it has and is to the creative, formative, providential goodness of Almighty God; and it is, therefore, responsible to him for its creed, its religious worship, its laws and statutes, its habits of life; for there is no nation anywhere that has not derived its inheritance from him. Even that which may, at first sight, seem to disconnect it from him, viz. the element of national courage, energy, industry, struggle, suffering, - this also is "of the Lord."

III. NATIONAL ACTIVITY. Solomon prayed (ver. 34) that, when God's people "went out to war," their prayers for victory might be heard, and that God would "maintain their cause." He could offer this supplication with a perfectly clear conscience. Neither as a spirit nor as a sentiment, much less as a religious conviction, had peace entered into the minds of men as it has now. Be had not been born who came to be the Prince of peace, and whose advent was to be the beginning of the era of "peace on earth." War was then regarded as a rightful, honourable, commendable activity - a field of enterprise and capacity which any one might desire to enter. There may still be found a place for it, as a sad and deplorable necessity. Under the sway of Jesus Christ, it can hold no larger or higher position among national activities than that. But as it was right that prayer should be offered for God's blessing on national wars, more certainly is it right that his Divine blessing should be continually sought on all peaceful industries; that is to say, on all those peaceful industries which make for the comfort, the enrichment, the well-being of the world. There are activities on which the pure or kind heart must shrink from invoking the blessing of God. And what we cannot conscientiously ask him to bless we should refuse to promote or to entertain. Surely, however, it is a very large part of national piety that prayer should be made continually, in the church and in the home, that, in every path of honourable and estimable industry, the people of the land may walk before God, and fulfil in this respect his holy will; that they may also receive his sanction and his blessing.

IV. NATIONAL MISFORTUNE (Vers. 24, 26-28.) Solomon anticipates the hour of national misfortune - defeat in battle, drought, pestilence, locusts, etc. He regards this conceivable calamity as the consequence of national sin and the sign of Divine displeasure (vers. 24, 26), "because they have sinned against thee," and he prays for mercy and for the removal of the stroke of penalty. It is a question of great importance whether this view is to be taken under all circumstances whatever. We must remember that the way in which the favour of God was manifested in Old Testament times was the way of temporal prosperity, and (conversely) the form of Divine disapproval was that of temporal adversity. But we are living in a period when the spiritual and the future are the prevailing elements; and what was a certain conclusion then may be only a possibility or a probability now.

1. It may be true that national calamity speaks of national delinquency, and calls for national repentance. It is not only possible, but even probable, that this is the case. For national sin is commonly showing itself in guilty indulgence, and that leads to weakness, to exposure to the enemy, to misfortune of many kinds.

2. It may be that national calamity is Divine discipline. It is quite possible that God is testing, is purifying, is refining the nation as he does the individual, is intervening to save it from sin and shame, is working thus for its moral elevation and enlargement, And therefore it may be that the question to be asked is - What have we to learn? what is the peril to be shunned? which is the way God desires should be taken? - C.

II. A MORAL DESIGN IN THE INFLICTION OF NATURAL EVILS.

1. To requite justice.

2. To lead to God.

III. A PLACE FOR PRAYER IN THE REMOVING NATURAL EVILS. This denied by many. Prayer may be necessary for man's highest culture. We do not classify with powers in physical nature. It is not a natural but a moral power. The ordination of God leaves room for prayer. Prayer may be one of the laws of the universe as certain in its sphere as the laws of heat or of gravitation in their peculiar realms. Neither history, Scripture, nor experience forbid us to pray in times of national distress.

(J. Wolfendale.)