AND SADDUCEES). (F BUHL.)
II. In the New Testament: The reader of the New Testament, in the course of a rapid reading, might receive a very strong impression that as compared with other sacred books, including the Old Testament, there is an almost comi. Source plete absence of the sacerdotal and and Char- sacrificial elements. The main cause acteristics. is the revival of prophetism, begun by John the Baptist, embodied in Christ and giving distinctive quality to the Christianity of the Apostolic Age. A secondary cause is found in the history of Judaism. The bankruptcy of the Jewish state, the development of the Jewish Church, the shifting of the center of gravity from the nation to the individual, the irresistible though unconscious forces whereby the synagogal system
ousted the Temple from the center of consciousness — it was along this road that prayer came to take the place of sacrifice. The immense outflow of spiritual power and moral energy that founded the Christian Church made prayer its spring and soul. Necessarily Christian prayer was strongly corporate. Such was the tendency in Jewish prayer. Even stronger was the tendency in Christian prayer. And this because of the psychology of prayer. For prayer is yearning and desire fed on hope and grounded in faith. The reason for the Apostolic Church's existence was her belief in the kingdom of God. The power that grouped chosen individuals together and built them into congregational units was an impassioned confidence in the reality and immanence of that divine order. Consequently, prayer was the soul of the Christian community, and this prayer, by its constitution, was intensely corporate. The Lord's Prayer clearly shows this. Jesus put it forth not to serve as a specific prayer but to manifest the perspective and the proportion of prayer. It gives the framework and the constitution of prayer as Christians learned it from their master. The heart of it is a profound sense of solidarity between the followers of Jesus. Its fundamental quality is a corporate desire and will bent upon the kingdom of God.
Healing in the Apostolic Church was inseparable from prayer. The only deliberate testimony on this point is found in the epistle of James (v. 14-15). But the necessity of the connection is 2. James everywhere taken for granted. The and Paul, personal practise of the Savior is clear. The incidental allusions of the New Testament are conclusive. There is no present need of arguing for the healing value of prayer when prayer, rightly framed, has control of consciousness both personal and corporate. Its therapeutic power can not be doubted; the question is how to use it wisely. The deep consciousness of salvation that pervades the New Testament makes joy the keynote of prayer as of life. In Paul, the supreme individual of the Apostolic Age, and at the same time its master-worker, this is strikingly true. Prayer is the atmosphere of life. It should be unceasing (I Thess. v. 17). It is the voice of the creative spirit in the soul of redeemed people (Rom. viii. 15). And because it is the deepest reach of experience, it is the final mystery. The redeemed man learns that his prayers by themselves are incompetent (Rom. viii. 26-27), but within the spirit of prayer in his breast he finds the Holy Spirit yearning. It is this discovery that gives him indestructible confidence.
The nature of prayer in the New Testament accounts for and explains the relation of prayer to the person of Christ. The fact that prayer is essentially corporate being clearly in mind, it follows forthwith that prayer must be in the 3. Christo- name of the Savior. The new comcentric. munity was inseparable from its founder and head. Baptism, the rite of entrance into Christian fellowship, was in his name (Acts ii. 38). The working creed was the conviction that he was master of the world's fortunes, this conviction taking the form of an impassioned be-