providence of God. Six hundred thousand men, besides women and children, had come out of Egypt; and now for forty years together their supplies had never failed; but their bread came from heaven for them, new and pure every morning. And the several particularities in this food were such as were enough to have arrested the most insensible mind to attention. For the manna itself was of so delicate a nature, that if left for a day to the broiling heat of the vertical sun, it bred worms and stank. And yet the omer, which the Lord commanded to be laid up in a pot, that it might be handed down to successive generations for their children to see the bread, with which the Lord had fed their fathers in the wilderness, continued sweet and unsullied. So that even in a providential sense only, to call that light bread, which came so wonderfully day by day from heaven, and was possessed of such miraculous qualities, was foul ingratitude in the extreme. But when this food was considered, in a spiritual nature, as typical of Christ; to say "their soul loatheth it," made their sin assume a complexion of a blacker kind; and arose to a magnitude which called forth the just judgment of God. Hence we are told "that their carcases fell in the wilderness ;" and as the following Scripture rehearseth it; "the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, which bit the people; and much people of Israel died." (Num. xxi. 6.)

وو.

And let not the reader, (for whose spiritual improvement, under divine teaching, I have detained him in all these observations,) overlook what the Holy Ghost hath graciously said in his divine comment upon his history. "Now these things (saith the Lord) were written for our example, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and were destroyed of serpents." (1 Cor. x. 6. 11.)

Christ is our bread of life, the true manna; yea, the hidden manna, which the Lord Jesus himself saith he will give to eat of, "to him that overcometh." (Rev. ii. 17.) In Christ we have the written word; for man liveth not "by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Matt. iv. 4.) And in Christ we have the " uncreated word." (Johni. 1.) And he it is that saith, "The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life." (John vi. 63.) Oh! for grace, to live upon this true manna; this hidden manna; and day by day to be going forth in all the awakenings of the soul, saying, "Lord! evermore give us this bread."

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, an they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." (Numb. xxi. 6.)

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS.

THERE is a striking analogy between the first original fall of our nature in the garden of Eden; when at the instance of the serpent's beguiling Eve, our whole nature was involved in all the ruins of the fall; and the punishment in the bite of those fiery serpents in the wilderness, by which many of the people died. It was that "old serpent, called the devil and satan: which deceived the whole world: (as Scripture expresseth it, Rev. xii. 9.) which first tempted to sin; and the fiery serpents, of whose bite the people died in the wilderness, became a very apt resemblance of the same; connecting the crime with the punishment.

But what I would particularly, upon the present

occasion, beg to call to the reader's attention on this subject is this; namely, that while our whole nature is all alike involved in the same sinful state; and no one, neither son nor daughter of Adam, is more fallen or more sinful one than another; the church in Christ hath a thousand and ten thousand mercies, from her union with Christ, of which, however unconscious during the whole time of our unrenewed nature, are still the church's blessings more or less, as may be in the special lot of the Lord's people. The Holy Ghost, by his servant Jude, hath very blessedly expressed this; and thereby given authority to the church of God to know it; for, when speaking of the church, he calls her sanctified, or set apart "by the Father; preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.” (Jude i.) So that there is a preservation in Christ, before that we are called to Christ. And who shall say to what extent this preservation in Christ reacheth, during the whole state of our unregeneracy; and before that the highly favoured objects of such grace and mercy, are brought into any spiritual knowledge of it? How shall I, or you, or any other redeemed and regenerated child of God, calculate. the many manifestations of the kind by which we were kept from going down into the pit, because the Lord had found a ransom; when neither the conscious want of a ransom, nor concern about a ransom, had ever entered our mind; no; nor even the Lord himself, the Almighty Ransomer, was in our knowledge or regard?

In my apprehension, this view of the Lord, and his preserving grace over his people, opens to one of the sweetest of all possible subjects. And though until "the day dawn, and the day star hath arisen in the heart," there can be no consciousness of it; yet when enabled by that sovereign act to discern things spiritually, I would cherish it with all the warmth of

affection. It should lie down with me, and arise up with me. And looking up for grace to guide me in all the vicissitudes of life, to watch over the comings forth, and the footsteps of the Lord to whose watchings over me during the whole days and years of my unregeneracy, I now can, and do, ascribe all my deliverances and preservations. And in every instance where an unction from the Lord is shewn, to give a spiritual understanding to this subject, sure I am that the redeemed and regenerated child of God will find blessings of a special and personal nature; such as to the superficial beholder would pass and repass unnoticed. Carnal men behold nothing of the Lord's hand, more than the mere shell of the thing, either in the departments of nature, providence, or grace; but the Lord's people, taught of the Lord, will discover the Lord's hand in all. The beast of the field will overlook and trample down many a flower, from whence the bee of the hive would extract both honey and wax. So diversified are all the ways and works of the Lord, as they appear in their improvements by gracious, or their misimprovements by ungodly, men. Hence the Holy Ghost, after recapitulating through a long but sweet psalm, the distinguishing mercies of the Lord over his people, makes this blessed conclusion from the whole : "Whoso is wise, and will ponder these things; even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord." (Psalm cvii. 43.)

I have been led into this train of observation from the perusal of the short but striking verse at the head of this paper. "The Lord (it is said) sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much of the people of Israel died." There was enough in this judgment for the spiritual Israel to discern, and to connect with it the original sin of man by the temptation of the serpent; and the punishment of death which the Lord God pronounced in consequence thereof in the

bite of the serpent. How came it to pass, that those fiery serpents should now spend their venom upon the people, when all along through the wilderness the people had sustained no injury from them whatever? Moses had very particularly dwelt upon this circumstance of special mercy; when, in describing the Lord's goodness to Israel all the way along, he called the attention of the people to this vast subject: "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to show what was in thine heart; whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint. Who fed thee in the wilderness, with manna, which thy fathers knew not; that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end." (Deut. viii. 2—16.) How came it then to pass that the Lord should now send those serpents to bite the people, whom the Lord had caused to flee from Israel, all the way before? Were those venomous creatures let loose to the fury of their nature, because Israel had offended the Lord; and did they now take part with the Lord, against the people, because they had despised the Lord? Ah! how sure it is that the Lord can arm an host of foes, and bring forth his artillery from any thing, from every thing, even the beast of the field, to war against them that war against the Lord.

And let the reader not fail to observe the cause of this quarrel: namely, their souls "loathing this light bread;" that is, despising Christ. And let the reader farther consider who they were that despised Christ! Not the faithful. Not the Calebs, nor the Joshuas, as before in the searching the promised land, which also