: 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 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. be convinced, when they saw God as glo- | pose upon his mercy? Rather than we rious in his work as in his presence; when shall want, when we trust him, he will they saw his word justified by his act. God fetch quails from all the coasts of heaven tells them aforehand what he will do, that to our board. O Lord, thy hand is not their expectation might stay their hearts. shortened to give; let not ours be shortHe doth that which he foretold, that they tened or shut in receiving. might learn to trust him ere he performed. 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 overdeserve 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 of fenders! If the most graceless Israelites be fed with quails and manna, O 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 overruling 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. man, 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 re 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 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 crumb gives life; yet they died many of 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 honeycomb. 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 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 baulks 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 on that manna which we have gathered in this, even of our life. CONTEMPLATION III. THE ROCK OF 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 and 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 7. first seizure doth but make way for their re- | strikes us. It is fearful to be in the hand entry. None but our last enemy comes of an adversary; but who would not be once for all and I know not if that; for confident of a father? Yet, in our frail even in living, we die daily. So must we humanity, choler may transport a man from take our leaves of all afflictions, that we the remembrance of nature; but when we reserve a lodging for them, and expect their 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." 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 a 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 an 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 should 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 had 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 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 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 contend ye with me?" Why tempt ye the Lord?"—in the first expostulation condemning them of injustice; since not he, but the Lord, hath 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 subtilty cannot divide them. But what temptation is this?" Is the Lord among us, or no?" Infidelity is crafty and yet foolish; crafty in her insinuations, foolish in her conceits. They imply, "If we were sure the Lord were with us, we would not distrust." They conceive doubts of his presence, after such confirmations. What could God do more to make them know him present, unless every moment should have renewed miracles? The plagues of Egypt and the division of the sea were so famous, that the very inns of Jericho rang of them. Their waters were lately sweetened; the quails were yet in their teeth; the manna was yet in their eye; yea, they saw God in the pillar of the cloud: and yet they say, "Is the Lord amongst us?" No argument is enough to an incredulous heart; not reason, sense, nor experience. F How much better was that faith of Thomas, that | vidence, which knows how to dispose, and would believe his eyes and hands, though how to end them. his ears he would not! O the deep infidelity of these Israelites, that saw and believed not! And how will they know if God be amongst them? as if he could not be with them, and they be athirst. Either God must humour carnal minds, or be distrusted. If they prosper, though it be with wickedness, God is with them: if they be thwarted in their own designs, straight, "Is God with us?" It was the way to put God from them, to distrust and murmur. If he had not been with them, they had not lived. If he had been in them, they had not mutinied. They can think him absent in their want, and cannot see him absent in their sin; and yet wickedness, not affliction, argues him gone: yet then is he most present, when he most chastises. Who would not have looked, that this answer of Moses should have appeased their fury? As what can still him, that will not be quiet to think he hath God for his adversary? But, as if they would wilfully war against heaven, they proceed; yet with no less craft than violence, bending their exception to one part of the answer, and smoothly omitting what they could not except against. They will not hear of tempting God; they maintain their strife with Moses, both with words and stones. How malicious, how heady is impatience! The act was God's; they cast it upon Moses: "Wherefore hast thou brought us?" The act of God was merciful: they make it cruel; " To kill us and our children;" as if God and Moses meant nothing but their ruin, who intended nothing but their life and liberty. Foolish men! what needed this journey to death? Were they not as obnoxious to God in Egypt? Could not God by Moses as easily have killed them in Egypt, or in the sea, as their enemies? Impatience is full of misconstruction. If it be possible to find out any gloss, to corrupt the text of God's actions, they shall be sure not to escape untainted. It was no use expostulating with an unreasonable multitude. Moses runs straight to him that was able at once to quench their thirst and their fury ; "What shall I do to this people?" It is the best way to trust God with his own causes. When men will be intermeddling with his affairs, they undo themselves in vain. We shall find difficulties in all great enterprises: if we be sure we have begun them from God, we may securely cast all events upon his pro Moses perceived rage, not in the tongues only, but in the hands of the Israelites : "Yet a while longer, and they will stone me." Even the leader of God's people feared death, and sinned not in fearing. Life is worthy to be dear to all; especially to him whom public charge hath made necessary. Mere fear is not sinful; it is impotence and distrust that accompany it, which make it evil. How well is that fear bestowed, that sends us the more importunately to God! Some men would have thought of flight: Moses flies to his prayers; and that not for revenge, but for help. Who but Moses would not have said, This twice they have mutinied, and been pardoned; and now again thou seest, O Lord, how madly they rebel, and how bloodily they intend against me! Preserve me, I beseech thee, and plague them. I hear none of this; but, imitating the long suffering of his God, he seeks to God for them, which sought to kill him for the quarrel of God. Neither is God sooner sought than found. All Israel might see Moses go towards the rock: none but the elders might see him strike it. Their unbelief made them unworthy of this privilege. It is no small favour of God to make us witnesses of his great works: that he crucifies his Son before us, that he fetches the water of life out of the true rock in our sight, is a high prerogative: if his rigour would have taken it, our infidelity had equally excluded us, whom now his mercy hath received. Moses must take his rod: God could have done it by his will, without a word, or by his word, without the rod; but he will do by means, that which he can as easily do without. There was no virtue in the rod, none in the stroke; but all in the command of God. Means must be used, and yet their efficacy must be expected out of themselves. It doth not suffice God to name the rod, without a description: "Whereby thou smotest the river." Wherefore but to strengthen the faith of Moses, that he might well expect this wonder, from that which he had tried to be miraculous. How could he but firmly believe, that the same means which turned the waters into blood, and turned the sea into a wall, could as well turn the stone into water? Nothing more raises up the heart in present affiance, than the recognition of favours, or wonders passed. Behold, the same rod that brought plagues to the Egyptians, brings deliverances to Israel. By the same means can God save and condemn; like as the same sword defends and kills. That power which turned the wings of the quails to the wilderness, turned the course of the water through the rock. He might, if he had pleased, have caused a spring to well out of the plain earth; but he will now fetch it out of the stone, to convince and shame their infidelity. What is more hard and dry than the rock? what more moist and supple than water? That they may be ashamed to think they distrusted, lest God could bring them water out of the clouds or springs, the very rock shall yield it. And now, unless their hearts had been more rocky than this stone, they could not but have resolved them into tears for this diffidence. I wonder to see these Israelites fed with sacraments: their bread was sacramental, whereof they communicated every day. Lest any man should complain of frequence, the Israelites received daily; and now their drink was sacramental, that the ancient church may give no warrant of a dry communion. Twice, therefore, hath the rock yielded them water of refreshing; to signify that the true spiritual Rock yields it always. The rock that followed them was Christ. Out of thy side, O Saviour, issued that bloody stream, whereby the thirst of all believers is comfortably quenched. Let us but thirst (not with repining, but with faith); this rock of thine shall abundantly flow forth to our souls, and follow us, till this water be changed into that new wine, which we shall drink with thee in thy Father's kingdom. CONTEMPLATION IV. —THE FOIL OF AMALEK: OR THE HAND OF MOSES LIFT UP. No sooner is Israel's thirst slacked, than God hath an Amalekite ready to assault them. The Almighty hath choice of rods to whip us with, and will not be content with one trial. They would needs be quarrelling with Moses without a cause; and now God sends the Amalekites to quarrel with them. It is just with God, that they which would be contending with their best friends, should have work enough of contending with enemies. In their passage out of Egypt, God would not lead them the nearest way, by the Philistines' land, lest they should repent at the sight of war; now they both see and feel it. He knows how to make the fittest choice of the times of evil, and withholds that one while, which he sends another, not without a just reason why he sends and withholds it: and though to us they come ever, as we think, unseasonably, and at some times more unfitly than others, yet He that sends them knows their opportunities. Who would not have thought a worse time could never have been picked for Israel's war than now? In the feebleness of their troops, when they were wearied, thirsty, unweaponed; yet now must the Amalekites do that which before the Philistines might not do. We are not worthy, not able to choose for ourselves. To be sick, and die in the strength of youth, in the minority of children; to be pinched with poverty, or miscarriage of children in our age,-how harshly unseasonable it seems! But the infinite wisdom that orders our events, knows how to order our times. Unless we will be shameless unbelievers, O Lord, we must trust thee with ourselves and our seasons, and know, that not that which we desire, but that which thou hast appointed, is the fittest time for our sufferings. Amalek was Esau's grandchild, and these Israelites the sons of Jacob. The abode of Amalek was not so far from Egypt, but they might well hear what became of their cousins of Israel: and now, doubtless out of envy, watched their opportunity of revenge for their old grudge. Malice is commonly hereditary and runs in the blood, and, as we used to say of runnet, the older it is, the stronger. Hence is that foolish hostility which some men unjustly nourish upon no other grounds than the quarrels of their forefathers. To wreak our malice upon posterity, is, at the best, but the humour of an Amalekite. How cowardly and how crafty was this skirmish of Amalek! They do not bid them battle in fair terms of war, but without all noise of warning, come stealing upon the hindmost, and fall upon the weak and scattered remnants of Israel. There is no looking for favour at the hands of malice: the worst that either force or fraud can do, must be expected of an adversary; but much more of our spiritual enemy, by how much his hatred is deeper. Behold, this Amalek lies in ambush to hinder our passage unto our land of promise, and subtilely takes all advantages of our weaknesses. We cannot be wise or safe if we stay behind our colours, and strengthen not those parts where is most peril of opposition. |