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when he vailed that glory in human nature," a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief?" and was he not therefore "despised and rejected of men ?"— it not for this cause that we hid our faces from him and esteemed him not?" Oh! shame, shame upon human nature! The Creator deigned to come in its likeness-the creature dared to despise him! The King of kings and Lord of lords took upon him the form of a servant, and because he was found in fashion as a man, and humbled himself even to the death upon the cross, to none but the monster man is the pre-eminency in crime allowed to dare to raise his impious voice against the Lord of love; and midst the rage and spite and malice of hell and all its legions, one voice alone is loud enough with maddened cry to drown all others-it is the voice of man-oF MAN, whose sorrows "the Man of sorrows" came to bear-of man, and against Him upon whom was the chastisement of man's peace-of man, and that towards the Man upon whom "the Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all!" And is there, then, "no form or comeliness" in this Being? Is there "no beauty in Him that we should desire him ?" Is it really so, that some sympathy with, and some gratitude towards any being may exist, and yet He alone be excluded from this sympathy who alone can share our every feeling ?—who alone has a right to command every grateful feeling of the mind? Oh! then, talk no more of the perfection or perfectibility of human nature. Can you, my friends, I put it not only to your consciences, but to the commonest feelings of your nature,--can you argue in favor of such a nature, whilst with a cold, and listless, and indifferent ear, the sure sign of an unfeeling, stoney heart, you can listen to truths which might make "the stones of those walls to cry out, and the beam out of the timber to answer them?" Oh no, no; you may censure the Israelites for loathing their light food, but take heed that ye have not loathed the "bread which came down from heaven to give life unto the world." As oft as ye hear this Gospel sound, and do not then instantly enlist yourselves under the banner of the cross, whether it be from love of the world, or of any particular sin-whether from its vexations or pleasures, or from a slothfulness which cannot exert itself to break through the shackles

of sin, galling though you may feel them to be-ye are ranked among those who "loved darkness rather than light," who "would not receive the truth in the love of it, that ye might be saved," who have said, with Israel of old, "I have loved idols, and after them will I go,” and who are still under the awful sentence "because thou hast made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto thee to sin." But more of the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ will appear, while considering

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II. THAT MANNA WAS A PROVISION ADAPTED TO ALL THE WANTS OF THE ISRAELITES AT THE TIME IT WAS SENT. The people had a month before left the land of Egypt; they left it in haste and confusion ; they could, therefore, bring with them very little food, and probably much of what they had secured was either lost or much damaged from the difficulty of finding means of transport on their march through a wilderness. Though they came up with very much cattle, yet many of these had been slain in sacrifice. It would be also necessary to reserve more for the same purpose; and allowances are to be made both for what had been consumed during the month by 600,000, beside women and children," and also for the numbers which in all probability died from want of care, or strayed from the camp in search of pasture. In what situation were the children of Israel then placed? Behind them was an enemy's country; all around them a waste, howling wilderness; and before them an unknown region, into which, the further they entered the more cheerless it appeared. In the camp there was nothing but starvation, discontent, and insubordination; no prospect but that of a fearful death, or a return to bondage, in which their "life would be spent in grief, and their years in sighing." Let me ask you, my friends, what would be the greatest blessing that could be conferred on people in such a situation? Had the Lord supplied them with immense riches, had he rained down on them showers of gold, would this have remedied their distress? Assuredly not. But he had respect to their peculiar condition and wants-food was what was required; and nothing but food would have been a blessing to them under their circumstances; therefore, it was manna, and manna only, the Lord supplied.

What a striking illustration is here given us of the adaptation of the Gospel to the sinner's wants. God looked down from heaven, and saw some thirsting after worldly distinctions, fame, honors, ambition, riches, or the gratification of the grosser sensual appetites-others sunk in the depths of ignorance, blindly following, as brute beasts, every instinct of their carnal, depraved natures. He could have gratified these appetites, indulged these propensities to the full-but would man have been the happier? would his real wants have been supplied? would this have proved a remedy for his most pressing evil? Far from it. God sees but one want in the case of a sinnera Saviour. God has but one who could be a Saviour-it is his Son-His only Son, whom he loved. He gives this Son-gives him freely—“gives him up freely for us all." How great must be the wants of man, when such a gift alone can satisfy them; and, what is still more wonderful, how vast, how infinite must be the love of God, who, by such a provision, undertakes to supply them.

Oh! my friends, there are few, perhaps none of you, who do not think that if some particular object which you have set your hearts upon were attained, some addition made to your fortunes, some favorite scheme crowned with success, or some dreaded trial averted, you would then be happy; but you are sadly deceiving yourselves ;--in reality, the very existence of such a feeling in your minds proves the position I would strongly maintain, that it is more of the Gospel of Christ you want. If Jesus be a portion at all to his people, he is surely calculated to be an all-sufficient portion.

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his presence is fully and sweetly experienced in the soul, no want is felt; and believe me, where there is a sense of craving, an inordinate desire of something else, the granting of your wishes would not leave you contented. You would, on the contrary, be more wedded to the world-the less willing to say, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace;" the less fervent would be your prayer, (if you could offer it at all in sincerity,) "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly,;" the more unwelcome would be the messenger of death. Can that, I would ask you, be really, then, so desirable an object, which would estrange your affections from such a God? which

would in any way conduce to render his absence supportable, whose presence gladdens heaven, and a knowledge of whose excellency, an experimental acquaintance with whose all-sufficiency, constitutes in saints and angels the very essence of their glory? No-you cannot suppose it. Probably, even while I address you, you are already taken in Satan's deceitful trap, and are saying to yourselves, surely the blessings I am desirous of, though they be only temporal, need not thus lead me from God; methinks they would be additional obligations to strengthen every existing tie of gratitude which already binds me to him." Oh! let me warn you to be wise in time: many have suffered, and given fearful proofs of the weakness of man and the strength of Satan by the very same temptation. Yon may be, as you think, very sincere; I question not your sincerity; but let me put the question,

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what is more natural than that there should be much self-deception in the case of a "heart deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?" The circumstance of your not being aware of your danger, makes it so much the greater; and before you proceed any further in this spirit, let me beseech you to apply to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, as that which alone is capable of satisfying the desires of an immortal soul. If you think you cannot be happy without the attainment of any favorite object, you have yet to learn that Jesus is "the fulness that filleth all in all"—that "they that fear the Lord, shall not want any good thing”—that whatever the appetite may be, "the true manna," the bread that came down from heaven, can, and only can, satisfy it, because it is the only bread of which a man can eat and live for ever. Manna was the only food of which the children of Israel partook for nearly forty years; yet it was a supply never exhausted. Those who lived on it were made "young and lusty as the eagle," for all its virtues and properties were unimpaired to the last; and those who take the Gospel of Christ as the food of their souls, will find in it the corrective of an unruly will, the restraint of a forbidden appetite, the fullest gratification of an allowed appetite; its nature, like that of its Author, is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever;" and however diversified may be the forms which the

fancied wants of your diseased minds may assume, the Gospel is your remedy, for it can adapt itself to all your necessities; yea, more it is God's remedy-God's one and only remedy.

Under this head let me remark, that as manna was not given to gratify or pamper the animal lusts of the Israelites, but to satisfy a pressing want under circumstances which would have otherwise proved fatal to them; so the Gospel of Christ is not given to feed the imagination only, or to lead the mind to indulge in speculative theories, which would have no direct bearing upon the principles of human conduct. The intention of the Gospel is to renew the mind of man in the image of God; not to amuse but to reform him; to furnish him here with motives which shall excite him to that joyful obedience which glorified spirits yield to God above, which Jesus yielded when here below. There are many who have paid deep attention to the word of God, who have admitted its precepts, and, as far as they have understood them, have made them the basis of codes of laws by which they have expected to emancipate the world from the thraldom of Satan; others, even of those whom in charity we cannot but hope to have been in some degree partakers of the Gospel, have been so engaged in the study of some particular subject, whether prophecy, or polemics, or criticisms, that the main object of a revelation from God has been very much overlooked-To all such the scriptures are not the words of eternal life. Characters such as these go on in the same course from year to year, without the subjugation of a single lust, or the excitement of a single feeling by which the world could be crucified unto them, or they unto the world--and for a very simple reason-The Son of God is never looked upon as "manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil." The curious may be gratified, the speculative be amused and entertained, to the polemic an extensive field of angry discussion may be opened; but if the word of God come not home with the clear, practical influence of sound, simple truth, so acting on the will, affections and actions, as to bring all into captivity to the obedience of Christ, there is at most but a refined description of natural religion, as unprofitable to the possessor, as it is unavailing in shedding upon the world any permanent blessing from its exhibition of a motiveless, specious, and hollow morality-If at

any time the real principles of the Gospelbe pressed home upon such characters as these, they immediately become to them, as the manna did to the children of Israel of old, "loathsome food;" and it is quickly discovered, either from an avowed hostility to its humiliating doctrines, or an unwillingness to submit to its uncompromising principles, which "require truth in the inward parts," that all their apparent admiration of its scheme arose either from a gross misconception, if not total ignorance of its real nature in general, or an exception in their own favor of its declarations of the total and universal depravity of human nature.— I would say then, my friends, beware both of "what ye hear," and also of "how ye hear,"If such was the Saviour's warning to his disciples, while he was with them, how much more does it behove us to lay these words to heart!

III. Let us remark that THE MANNA was SENT TO THE ISRAELITES AT A TIME WHEN THEY WERE MOST UNwORTHY OF IT, AND YET MOST IN NEED OF IT. It was probably a considerable time before their departure from Egypt that God first began to display those signs and wonders, by which he afterwards shewed himself to be "the Lord God of the Hebrews," or at least sufficient proof had been afforded both of his power to deliver, and his goodness and favor, to have convinced Israel that He who had in so extraordinary a manner befriended them when they were in the depths of misery in Egypt, would not have forsaken them in the wilderness.— But further evidence of this had been given them-" He had divided the Red Sea into parts, and made Israel to pass through the midst of it, but overthrew Pharoah and his host in the Red Sea, for his mercy endureth for ever."-The bitter waters had been made sweet, they had been guided by an unseen, but unerring hand through a trackless desert, and though but a short interval had elapsed since their deliverance from bondage, yet doubtless many instances had occurred in which an over-ruling Providence, as well as a Redeeming God might have been discovered; yet now, when a want is experienced, what is the language of the people? Is it, Surely he who so miraculously interposed to save us, has not brought us thus far to slay us in the wilderness? surely he who visited with severest judgments a whole nation for our sakes, will not now abandon us? it cannot be that he who revealed himself

to us as the God of our Fathers, and sware that he would bring us into a land flowing with milk and honey, and said that the memorial by which he would be known to all generations, was the unchangeable "I AM," has now forgotten to be gracious, and deserted us in our greatest extremity? No, my friends, in this manner they ought to have argued, but they "forgat his works and his wonders that he had shewed them ;" they waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert" and were such a people worthy of any favor? will it be said there was any principle of good in them? was there any thing to recommend them to the notice of God as those who could have any claim upon him?-Might not God have justly said, "let me alone, that I may destroy them in a moment? ye are a stiff-necked people; I will come up into the midst of thee, and consume thee in a moment?" Yes, he might—“but he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not; yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath; for he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again." Determined that his purpose according to election should stand, he suffered no after manifestations of pride, rebellion, or ingratitude, to alter the word that had gone forth out of his mouth. When first he set his love upon them, he knew that they would deal very treacherously, and were called transgressors from the womb, and therefore nothing on their part could weary a love that was strong as death, however often they might provoke it to jealousy. Hence it was that God had respect, not to the characters of the people, but to the pressure of their wants; and the manna was sent when they were most unworthy of it, because then they most required it.

Do we not here see something strikingly illustrative of the way in which God communicates his richest blessings to man? When our first parents were placed in the Garden of Eden, were they not bound by every law of love and gratitude to obey the will of their Creator? Every thing that could please the eye, gratify the taste, and ennoble the soul, was furnished in richest abundance. Were they thankful? Did the possession of such privileges exclude ambition, pride, covetousness, sensuality? Did they prove themselves wor

thy of the continuance of the blessings they had hitherto enjoyed? Or when their heinous offence gave but too faithful and melancholy evidence of their altered condition, did the Lord suspend all gracious intercourse with them? Did he even wait until there had been some signs of repentance, some expressions of a desire to be restored to the state whence they had fallen, or some efforts on their part to appease his wrath? Oh no, my friends,-had God waited for any such change in them, you and I had never been able to say this day, "To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, be glory and honour". "worthy is the Lamb that was slain”. "thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood." No; Adam and Eve, like all God's children, once were endeavouring to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord, when "WHERE ART THOU ?" those startling words which prefaced the sweetest accents ever heard, plucked them as brands from the burning, and opened to them the gates of a celestial paradise, ere the cherubim and the flaming sword forbade a return to an earthly Eden. Surely in this, the first instance of grace upon record, God looked to the wants, not the worthiness of the object.

And now, bear witness, ye children of God, is not the history of Adam's conversion an exact account of your own? Believer in Jesus, wast thou not hiding thyself from the presence of the Lord, running swiftly in the way of destruction, fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, receiving with a thankless heart blessings hourly lavished upon thee, and turning a deaf ear to every invitation mercy could whisper, to every threat justice could denounce, when the Spirit of Life and Holiness arrested thee in thy ruinous course, and said, "where art thou?" Behold the Lamb of God! Behold Gethsemane and Calvary, what did they witness for thee! Behold the heavens opened, and beside the throne of the Eternal, Him whom thou persecutest, pleading for the soul thou art so madly destroying; and now, go on in sin, if thou darest; nay, go on in sin if thou canst.

But even from the period of your conversion to the present moment, have you not been living proofs that mercy rejoiceth over judgment? that however high the tide of your ingratitude and other sins rose, the overflowings of grace and pardoning love have infinitely more

abounded? have not many of your temporal blessings taken you as it were by surprise, so as to prompt the inquiry, "who or what am I, that God should deal so bountifully with me!" have not many of your greatest deliverances been from fears and dangers, the origin of which you can trace to your own backslidings and unfaithfulness? and have not your most hallowed seasons of joy been doubly precious, doubly profitable, when you have been enabled to contrast them with the coldness and deadness of heart by which they were preceded? Surely we receive our manna, when it is least deserved and most required.

Under this head there is a practical remark of much importance I would desire to notice. There is a strong tendency in the mind to forget, or at least to lose very much of the sweet and profitable sense of what are called common mercies; ; yet is not the frequency of their recurrence an enhancement of their value? Do we not tempt a jealous God to teach us their worth by their loss? Well were it for us that the evil of such a spirit terminated here; but when not checked, it extends much further, and leads to very fearful results. It is generally the case, that when man's carnal mind is eagerly bent upon attaining some favourite object, every other mercy he enjoys is thrown into the back ground; he looks upon himself as one who is hardly dealt with, because denied the only thing upon which he has set his affections; memory reverts to bygone times; and at such seasons, those things only which were pleasurable are suggested, whilst all the petty crosses or grievous trials with which they were intermixed, are never taken into the account. The effects of such unholy meditations are easily anticipated; hard thoughts begin to be entertained of God; an unthankful spirit is sure to follow; whilst many a mercy which once called forth songs of praise, comes to be despised. Thus it was with Israel of old. They were at first thankful for the manna which saved them from immediate death; as this mercy became common, it was less prized; they then began to wish for something more; the desire grew to be inordinate; nothing but flesh would satisfy them; until at last, the only language in which they acknowledged the daily supply of their most pressing want was, our soul loatheth this light food""we remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and

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the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; but now our soul is dried away, there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes." Oh, what a change in less than one year! And was the manna so trifling, so insignificant a blessing? What had they done without it? or were there no other blessings accompanying it? Is the pillar of cloud and of fire forgotten? the river which followed them in all their journeyings? True, they were in a wilderness; but is there no mention made of the good land they were promised? Above all, is He, the patient, kind, forgiving, long-suffering, compassionate God forgotten, who " many a time turned away his anger from them," but who never turned away his mercy from them! But let us look at another part of the picture-" we remember the cucumbers and the melons which we did eat in Egypt freely." Freely! and does Israel say freely? and does Israel remember nothing of Egypt but luxuries obtained freely? Is there no mention of an "iron furnace ?" are the days of servile labour beneath its scorching sun forgotten? the tale of bricks without straw? the inhuman murder of their male offspring? their bitter groanings unto the Lord by reason of their bondage? Israel, we condemn thee not: let him that is without sin cast the first stone at thee:-but, "Lord, what is man?" or "who is a God like unto thee?"

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But who denied Israel flesh to eat? The God who brought him forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; the God who made waters gush out of the stony rock for him; the God who gave him manna, angels' food," that he might "eat bread to the full." Believer, when afflictions, crosses, disappointments, have befallen you, have you never been tempted to forget; nay, more, have you not often completely forgotten all the mercies by which you were surrounded, and asked yourself the insidious question, Why were the former days better than these?" Oh, in seasons such as those to which I allude, when thoughts like these will arise in the mind, let me entreat of you to consider who sends trials; to " encourage yourself in your God," by saying, "the very hand that strikes the blow was wounded once for me." Will you not take patiently, vea, joyfully, the gentle guidance of the Shepherd's rod ? or if ever you be tempted still to murmur and repine, to indulge a fretful, peevish spirit under the

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