VI. LECT. their adverfary ended: and we know that Satan has not that fovereignty over baptized Chriftians as he has over men in the ftate of nature. After baptism a Christian is no longer the subject of that Tyrant, but the child of God, who undertakes thenceforth to conduct him through all the trials and dangers of this life to the inheritance promised to the fathers. 1 No We see how man is to be fupported in this life, and to what dangers he is exposed in the way of his falvation, if we observe what happened to the Hebrews in their way through the wilderness. temptation befalls us but fuch as is common to man, and of which their cafe gives us an example. The things which befell them are not only appofite and applicable to our own cafe, but St. Paul affirms they were purposely ordained by the providence of God to answer this very end: Now all these things happened to them for enfamples; (or, as the margin calls them, types) and they are written for our admonition*. And * 1 Cor. x. II. here VI. here we are to note, as the apoftle him- LECT. self does next after their baptism, how they were fed and fupported. They might have been carried a short way through a fruitful country to the land of Canaan ; but it pleased God to lead them into a wildernefs, where there was neither meat nor drink: which made fome of them suspect he had carried them there to destroy them: but his defign was to teach them the neceffity of prayer and faith and dependence upon himself; and bleffed are they to whom the Lord now teaches the fame leffon under the want of many things. But, in the spirit, this is the cafe of every man; for we are all brought after our baptism into a barren world, where we find no more to support that life which God promifed to his people, than the Hebrews found in the wilderness. Here we wander (as the Pfalmift figuratively defcribes the ftate of man) hungry and thirsty, our fouls fainting within us, and depending upon God for his daily grace. The people were taught this in the wilderness by receiving their meat from day to day in a miraculous LECT. manner from heaven. VI. It was mere manna fuch as Mofes gave, to those who looked no farther than their bodies; and they were confequently foon tired of it; but to those who received it in faith, it was the bread of God which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. God in all ages has been the giver of that support which is neceffary to all men, whether followers of Mofes or followers of Chrift*: and Hebrews, if they had fouls to be faved, could no more live by bread alone, than Chriftians can. God therefore was pleased to take this way of teaching them that they could not and the apoftle feeing his intention, fays, they did all eat the fame Spiritual meat; and did all drink the fame Spiritual drink; for they drank of that Spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Chriftt. There is not a more extraordinary fentence in the fcripture than this before us-that rock was Chrift. It is impoffible to take the words literally, any more than those which Chrift fpake of the bread which he brake, and faid, this is my body. *See John vi. 32. † 1 Cor. x. 3, 4• A rock VI. A rock of ftone in a defert could not be LECT. Chrift in the literal fenfe; and yet it must be fo in fome fenfe, because the apostle hath affirmed it. This fenfe is therefore figurative and fpiritual; as the bread, which is broken in the holy communion, is bread to the body, but Chrift to the fpirit. And as Chrift was the invisible fountain of grace to the thirfting Ifraelites, communicating himself to them by the facramental waters of a rock, fo he ftill offers himself to us in the fame capacity— If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink*; that is, if any man, fenfible of the drought and emptiness of his own nature, thirst after spiritual things, he shall be refreshed with grace, as the thirsty body is refreshed by the waters of a living spring. He difcourfed to the fame effect with the woman of Samaria by the fide of a well to which she came to draw water-Whofoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him fhall never thirst. But now, as this meat and drink in the LECT. wilderness were figures of Chrift, fo the VI. people in their use of them are enfamples to us. God fhewed them, that man is in want of fome nourishment, which nature and the common course of things cannot give him: therefore he fed them with manna from heaven and water from a dry rock. But many of them took no delight in this spiritual diet. Though they had feen the wonders of the red fea, yet they carried Egypt with them in their hearts into the wildernefs, and were forry that they had left it. He who reads of their loathing that light bread, and defiring to return to the bondage of Egypt for the gratification of their lufts, may wonder at their stupidity; who could fee manna fent down from the heavens, and the stream of a river running miraculously through a dry defert, and not partake of them with thankfulness and devotion ! But he will find, when he looks around him, that men are just such now as they were in the wildernefs: carnal, inattentive, and worldly minded. Chriftians, called to a ftate of falvation, give the preference to that |