On the Lord's Prayer Chapter 1
Editor's note
Cyprian takes the prayer a phrase at a time and asks, of each one, what it commits the person praying it to. He is the first Latin writer to do this, and Tertullian before him and Augustine long after both worked from the pattern he set here.
The evangelical precepts, beloved brethren, are nothing else than divine teachings, foundations on which hope is to be built, supports to strengthen faith, nourishments for cheering the heart, rudders for guiding our way, guards for obtaining salvation, which, while they instruct the docile minds of believers on the earth, lead them to heavenly kingdoms. God, moreover, willed many things to be said and to be heard by means of the prophets His servants; but how much greater are those which the Son speaks, which the Word of God who was in the prophets testifies with His own voice; not now bidding to prepare the way for His coming, but Himself coming and opening and showing to us the way, so that we who have before been wandering in the darkness of death, without forethought and blind, being enlightened by the light of grace, might keep the way of life, with the Lord for our ruler and guide!
Chapter 2
The next chapter opens when you reach the end.