On the Lord's Prayer 17

It can also be understood thus, dearest brothers: since the Lord commands and warns us to love even our enemies and to pray also for those who persecute us, we should ask also for those who are still earth and have not yet begun to be heavenly, that God's will may be done concerning them too, which Christ accomplished by preserving and restoring man. For since the disciples are called by him no longer earth but the salt of the earth, and the apostle calls the first man from the clay of the earth but the second from heaven, rightly do we too, who ought to be like God the Father, who makes his sun rise on the good and the bad and sends rain on the just and the unjust, so pray and ask, as Christ warns us, that we may make our petition for the salvation of all; so that, as in heaven, that is, in us, God's will has been done through our faith, so that we are of heaven, so also on earth, that is, in those who will not believe, God's will may be done, so that those who are still earthly by their first birth may begin to be heavenly, born of water and the Spirit.