When a man would have looked, that the anger of God should have appeared in fire; now behold, his glory appears in a cloud. Oh the exceeding long suffering of God, that hears their murmurings! and as if he had been bound to content them, instead of punishing, pleases them; as a kind mother would deal with a crabbed child, who rather stills him with the breast, than calls for the rod. One would have thought, that the sight of the cloud of God should have dispelled the cloud of their distrust; and this glory of God should have made them ashamed of themselves, and afraid of him: yet I do not hear them once say, "What

a mighty and gracious God have we distrusted!" Nothing will content an impotent mind, but fruition. When a heart is hardened with any passion, it will endure much, ere it will yield to relent.

Their eyes saw the cloud; their ears heard the promise, the performance is speedy and answerable. Needs must they be convinced, when they saw God as glorious in his work, as in his presence; when they saw his word justified by his act. God tells them aforehand what he will do, that their expectation might stay their hearts. He doth that which he foretold, that they might learn to trust him, ere he perform.

They desired meat, and receive quails; they desired bread, and have manna. If they had had of the coarsest flesh, and of the basest pulse, hunger would have made it dainty: but now God will pamper their famine; and gives them meat of kings, and bread of angels. What a world of quails were but sufficient to serve six hundred thousand persons! They were all strong, all hungry; neither could they be satisfied with single fowls. What a table hath God prepared in the desert, for abundance, for delicacy!

Never prince was so served in his greatest pomp, as these rebellious Israelites in the wilderness. God loves to over-deserve of men; and to exceed not only their sins, but their very desires, in mercy. How good shall we find him to those that please him, since he is so gracious to offenders! If the most graceless Israelites be fed with quails and manna; oh, what goodness is that he hath laid up for them that love him! As on the contrary, if the righteous scarce be saved, where will the sinners appear? O God, thou canst, thou wilt make this difference. Howsoever with us men, the most crabbed and stubborn oftentimes fare the best; the righteous Judge of the world frames his remunerations as he finds us; and if his mercy sometimes provoke the worst to repentance by his temporal favours, yet he ever reserves so much greater reward for the righteous, as eternity is beyond time, and heaven above earth.

It was not of any natural instinct, but from the over-ruling power of their Creator, that these quails came to the desert. Needs must they come whom GOD brings. His hand is in all the motions of his meanest creatures. Not only we, but they move in him. As not many quails, so not one sparrow falls without

him how much more are the actions of his best creature, matt, directed by his providence!

How ashamed might these Israelites have been, to see these creatures so obedient to their Creator, as to come and offer themselves to their slaughter; while they went so repiningly to his service and their own preferment! Who can distrust the provision of the great Housekeeper of the world, when he sees how he can furnish his tables at pleasure? Is he grown now careless, or we faithless rather? Why do we not repose upon his mercy? Rather than we shall want, when we trust him, he will fetch quails from all the coasts of heaven to our board. O Lord, thy hand is not shortened to give; let not ours be shortened, or shut in receiving.

Elijah's servitors, the ravens, brought him his full service of bread and flesh at once; each morning and evening. But these Israelites have their flesh at even, and their bread in the morning. Good reason there should be a difference: Elijah's table was upon God's direct appointment; the Israelites', upon their mutiny: although God will relieve them with provision, yet he will punish their impatience with delay; so shall they know themselves his people, that they shall find they were murmurers.

Not only in the matter, but in the order, God answers their grudging. First they complain of the want of flesh-pots, then of bread. In the first place therefore they have flesh, bread after. When they have flesh, yet they must stay a time ere they can have a full meal; unless they would eat their meat breadless, and their bread dry. God will be waited on, and will give the consummation of his blessings at his own leisure. In the evening of our life, we have the first pledges of his favour; but in the morning of our resurrection, must we look for our perfect satiety of the true manna, the bread of life.

Now the Israelites sped well with their quails; they did eat, and digest, and prosper: not long after, they have quails with a vengeance; the meat was pleasant, but the sauce was fearful: they let down the quails at their mouth, but they came out at their nostrils. How much better had it been to have died of hunger, through the chastisement of God, than of the plague of God, with the flesh betwixt their teeth! Behold, they perish of the same disease then, whereof they now recover. The same sin repeated, is death, whose first act found remission: relapses are desperate, where the sickness itself is not. With us men, once goes away with a warning, the second act is but whipping, the third is death. It is a mortal thing to abuse the lenity of God; we should be presumptuously mad, to hope that God will stand us for a sinning-stock, to provoke him how we will. It is more mercy than he owes us, if he forbear us once it is his justice to plague us the second time: we may thank ourselves, if we will not be warned.

Their meat was strange, but nothing so much as their bread. To find quails in a wilderness was unusual; but for bread to come down from heaven was yet more. They had seen quails before,

though not in such number: manna was never seen till now. From this day till their settling in Canaan, God wrought a perpetual miracle in this food: a miracle in the place; other bread rises up from below, this fell down from above; neither did it ever rain bread till now; yet so did this heavenly shower fall, that it is confined to the camp of Israel: a miracle, in the quantity; that every morning should fall enough to fill so many hundred thousand mouths and maws: a miracle in the composition; that it was sweet like honey-cakes, round like corianders, transparent as dew: a miracle, in the quality; that it melted by one heat, by another hardened: a miracle, in the difference of the fall; that, as if it knew times, and would teach them as well as feed them, it fell double in the even of the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath fell not: a miracle, in the putrefaction and preservation; that it was full of worms when it was kept beyond the due hour for distrust; full of sweetness when it was kept a day longer for religion, yea many ages in the ark for a monument of the power and mercy of the Giver: a miracle, in the continuance and ceasing; that this shower of bread followed their camp in all their removals, till they came to taste of the bread of Canaan, and then withdrew itself, as if it should have said, "Ye need no miracles now ye have means."

They had the types; we have the substance. In this wilderness of the world, the true manna is rained upon the tents of our hearts. He, that sent the manna, was the manna which he sent he hath said, I am the manna that came down from heaven. Behold, their whole meals were sacramental: every morsel they did eat, was spiritual. We eat still of their manna: still he comes down from heaven. He hath substance enough for worlds of souls; yet only is to be found in the lists of the true Church. He hath more sweetness, than the honey and the honey-comb. Happy are we, if we can find him so sweet as he is.

The same hand, that rained manna upon their tents, could have rained it into their mouths or laps. God loves we should take pains for our spiritual food. Little would it have availed them, that the manna lay about their tents, if they had not gone forth and gathered it, beaten it, baked it: let salvation be never so plentiful, if we bring it not home, and make it ours by faith, we are no whit the better. If the work done, and means used, had been enough to give life, no Israelite had died: their bellies were full of that bread, whereof one crumb gives life; yet they died many of them in displeasure.

As in natural, so in spiritual things, we may not trust to means: the carcase of the sacrament cannot give life, but the soul of it; which is the thing represented. I see each man gather, and take his just measure out of the common heap. We must be industrious, and helpful each to other: but when we have done, Christ is not partial. If our sanctification differ, yet our justification is equal in all.

He, that gave a gomer to each, could have given an ephah: as easily could he have rained down enough for a month, or a year,

at once, as for a day. God delights to have us live in a continual dependence upon his providence, and each day renew the acts of our faith and thankfulness. But what a covetous Israelite was that, which, in a foolish distrust, would be sparing the charges of God; and reserving that for morning, which he should have spent upon his supper! He shall know, that even the bread that came down from heaven can corrupt: the manna was from above; the worms and stink from his diffidence. Nothing is so sovereign, which, being perverted, may not annoy, instead of benefitting us.

Yet I see some difference between the true and typical manna; God never meant that the shadow and the body should agree in all things. The outward manna reserved, was poison: the spiritual manna is to us, as it was to the ark; not good, unless it be kept perpetually; if we keep it, it shall keep us from putrefaction. The outward manna fell not at all on the Sabbath: the spiritual manna, though it balks no day, yet it falls double on God's day and if we gather it not then; we famish. In that true Sabbath of our glorious rest, we shall for ever feed of that manna, which we have gathered in this even of our life. Exod. xvi.

THE ROCK OF REPHIDIM.

BEFORE, Israel thirsted and was satisfied; after that, they hungered and were filled; now, they thirst again. They have bread and meat, but want drink: it is a marvel if God do not evermore hold us short of something, because he would keep us still in exercise We should forget at whose cost we live, if we wanted nothing. Still God observes a vicissitude of evil nd good; and the same evils that we have passed return upon us in their courses. Crosses are not of the nature of those diseases, which they say a man can have but once. Their first seizure doth but make way for their re-entry. None but our last enemy comes once for all; and I know not, if that: for even in living we die daily. So must we take our leaves of all afflictions, that we reserve a lodging for them, and expect their return.

All Israel murmured when they wanted bread, meat, water; and yet all Israel departed from the wilderness of Sin to Rephidim, at God's command. The very worst men will obey God in something; none but the good, in all he is rarely desperate, that makes an universal opposition to God. It is an unsound praise that is given a man, for one good action. It may be safely said of the very devils themselves, that they do something well; they know, and believe, and tremble. If we follow God and murmur, it is all one, as if we had staid behind.

Those distrust his providence in their necessity, that are ready to follow his guidance in their welfare. It is a harder matter to endure in extreme want, than to obey a hard commandment. Sufferings are greater trials than actions: how many have we seen jeopard their lives with cheerful resolution, which cannot endure in cold

blood to lose a limb with patience! Because God will have his thoroughly tried, he puts them to both; and if we cannot endure both to follow him from Sin, and to thirst in Rephidim, we are not sound Israelites.

God led them on purpose to this dry Rephidim: he could as well have conducted them to another Elim, to convenient waterings; or he, that gives the waters of all their channels, could as well have derived them to meet Israel: but God doth purposely carry them to thirst. It is not for necessity that we fare ill, but out of choice: it were all one with God to give us health as sickness, abundance as poverty. The treasury of his riches hath more store than his creature can be capable of: we could not complain, if it were not good for us to want.

This should have been a contentment able to quench any thirst: "God hath led us hither; if Moses out of ignorance had misguided us, or we by chance fallen upon these dry deserts, though this were no remedy of our grief, yet it might be some ground of our complaint. But now the counsel of so wise and merciful a God, hath drawn us into this want; and shall not he as easily find the way out? It is the Lord, let him do what he will. There can be no more forcible motive to patience, than the acknowledgment of a divine hand that strikes us. It is fearful to be in the hand of an adversary; but who would not be confident of a Father? Yet in our frail humanity, choler may transport a man from remembrance of nature; but when we feel ourselves under the discipline of a wise God, that can temper our afflictions to our strength, to our benefit, who would not rather murmur at himself, that he should swerve towards impatience? Yet these sturdy Israelites wilfully murmur; and will not have their thirst quenched with faith, but with water. Give us water.

I looked to hear when they would have entreated Moses to pray for them; but instead of entreating, they contend; and, instead of prayers, I find commands; Give us water. If they had gone to God without Moses, I should have praised their faith; but now they go to Moses without God, I hate their stubborn faithlessness. To seek to the second means, with neglect of the first, is the fruit of a false faith.

The answer of Moses is like himself, mild and sweet: Why cons tend you with me? Why tempt ye the Lord? in the first expos tulation condemning them of injustice; since not he, but the Lord had afflicted them: in the second, of presumption; that, since it was God that tempted them by want, they should tempt him by murmuring: in the one, he would have them see their wrong; in the other, their danger. As the act came not from him, but from God; so he puts it off to God, from himself, Why tempt ye the Lord? The opposition, which is made to the instruments of God, redounds ever to his person. He holds himself smitten through the sides of his ministers: so hath God incorporated these respects, that our subtlety cannot divide them.