" evil " in tlie abstract, and not tlie devil, that our Lord means I think so, partly because the devil is not anywhere brought forward in this prayer, and partly because it is more consistent to reason to suppose our Lord would have His disciples kept from ,all kind of " evil," than from the devil only. This is the more clear to my mind, from the fact that it is " the world," and its hatred and enmity, which our Lord has just been speak- ing of, and not the devil. However, I freely admit that it is an open question.
16. — {They are not of the world, etc.] These words are a literal repetition of the end of the fourteenth verse, and need no fur- ther comment. Our Lord seems to repeat them in order to add emphasis to the request He has just made ; and the repetition strengthens my opinion that it is " the evil in the world " which He specially desires His people to be kept from. " They need to be specially kept and preserved, because, I repeat, there is an entire want of harmony, a gulf of separation between them and this wicked world, in which I leave them. They are much hated, and need to be much kept."
Repetitions in real, earnest prayer, we may observe, are not wrong : Christ's example warrants them. It is " vain repeti- tions," such as were common among the heathen, repeating the same w^ords over and over again, without thought or feeling, against which we are warned in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt. vi. 7.)