The concluding So be it administers useful caution and, in many instances, necessary reproof relative to brotherly love and Christian union among those that unite in social [public] prayer. For as they address God by a public instrument (the one leading in prayer), so they have but one mouth in prayer. Consequently, the Object of their address; the character which they assume; the medium of their approach to the divine throne; the grounds of their expectation to receive a condescending answer; together with their confessions, petitions, and thanksgivings, are all the very same with regard to each concerned in the devotional exercise. Besides, by the closing and comprehensive amen, unless there be any latent exceptions in their own minds, they epitomize the whole that has been expressed. Such being their professed union, therefore, when conversing with God on the mercy-seat, the dispositions of their hearts and the tenor of their behavior one toward another should undoubtedly be in holy unison with their social (public) address to Him Who searches the heart. Their dispositions and behavior should be kind, affectionate, and harmonious. It is not possible for them all to unite in a truly devout amen if their affections one toward another be unkind, unsociable, and immoral.

Once more, the concluding and comprehensive term before us (amen) very strongly cautions and severely reproves respecting the use of language in prayer, which the heart is not in genuine agreement with. To an acceptable amen, in the sight of God, an enlightened understanding, an impressed conscience, and an upright heart must all be engaged in prayer; for, without some degree of these mental qualities in exercise, the closing and emphatical So be it does not express the least devotion in them that use it but becomes a mere word of course. A conviction of sin, sincere desire of receiving blessings from the hand of sovereign mercy, serious attention to the language of social (public) prayer, and a cordial adoption of scriptural petitions presented to God are necessary to a devout amen.

Destitute of these and unconcerned about them, how often, alas, in how many millions of instances, has a verbal So be it been annexed to the several parts of this divine pattern of prayer, when used as a form, the state of the heart and the tenor of the conduct having been opposed to the language. Multitudes of persons have said, without hesitation, “Our Father which art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9), as if they had undoubtedly stood in the filial relation to God, revered His majesty, confided in His paternal care, and lived in high expectation of enjoying the eternal inheritance, whose conduct nevertheless manifested that they were, as our Lord speaks, of their father the devil (John 8:44).

They have daily used and added their amen to “hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9), as if the sanctification of His most august character were the first wish of their hearts and the main object of their lives, while it was the riding passion of their souls to raise their own characters and those of their families in the world though perhaps at the expense of piety and of truth, of justice and of humility.

They have added their amen to “thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10), as if the conversion of sinners to Jesus Christ, the extending of His gracious empire in the souls of men, and the enlargement of His visible church upon earth were objects of their ardent desire, when their predominant concern was to have their own secular possessions, power, and honor increased—nay, when their hearts were full of bitterness and their hands armed with vengeance against the true subjects of that spiritual kingdom.

They have said, “Amen,” to “thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10), as if they were heartily disposed to perform the revealed will of God and earnestly desirous of the same disposition becoming universal among mankind, when the prevailing bias of their souls and the general course of their behavior were in a state of hostility with every principle of true virtue and every precept of real piety.

They have said an amen to “give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), as if, habitually feeling their dependence on the bounty of God for every temporal enjoyment, they were sincerely thankful for the mere necessaries of life, while they disregarded Providence in the bestowment of temporal benefits, were eagerly desirous of amassing riches, and of rising in the scale of ecclesiastical or of secular distinction.

They have added their amen to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13), while far from cautiously avoiding the occasions of temptation to sin, and equally far from habitual prayer that God would preserve them from falling by the snares of Satan, they were devoted to the pleasures of sensuality, the gratifications of avarice, or the pursuits of ambition.

And finally they have added their amen to “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12), as if, being full of benevolence and mercy toward those who have injured them, the least evidence of repentance for it would command their forgiveness, when [in reality] their hearts were so full of malevolence toward their offending neighbors that if God as an echo to their amen had annexed His own righteous and omnipotent So be it, their case must have been hopeless and their future damnation certain.

It is, indeed, a very common thing for the prevailing temper of a person’s heart and the prominent features of his behavior to be the reverse of his amen in prayer. Nor is it an easy matter for a real Christian, in certain cases, cheerfully to receive the Lord’s amen to his own petitions. Does a believer pray, for instance, that our heavenly Father would subdue his corruptions, purify his heart, and elevate his affections to things above? Does the Lord graciously sanction his prayer with an efficacious amen? It is expressed, perhaps, and takes effect, partly by means of great affliction in his own person, relatives, or temporal circumstances—by sickness, pain, or poverty. He forgets, it may be, that the Father of mercies afflicts the heirs of heaven in order to make them partakers of His holiness. When afflictions come on, continue, and increase, instead of expecting from God an answer to his prayers by means of this kind (though a common mode of divine proceeding), he is too frequently alarmed and filled with distress, as though the Lord had entered into an awful controversy with him, or as if some strange thing had happened to him. To Christians in such circumstances, the language of Paul is instructive, corrective, and encouraging: “Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Hebrews 12:5-6). Such are the important cautions, admonitions, and reproofs which the expressive So be it suggests to private worshippers.

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