Two remarks will, substantially, elucidate our subject.

1. The proper food of the church militant is a suffering Christ:

And 2. The gracious recompense of the church triumphant will be a participation of Christ's immortality and glory.

What was the food of the wilderness? Manna. Moses gave it not, but Israel's God and Saviour. It was, moreover, the sustenance of the whole period of their sojourn in the land of barrenness. The manna ceased not until the borders of Canaan were approached. Some indeed, contemned it, speaking against God and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread, Numb. xxi. 5; nevertheless, there was none other afforded to them; and the bread so given was only light in their esteem because of their murmuring and rebellious spirit. Forty years did the people subsist upon it and the merciful vouchsafement was alike free and accessible unto all. He that gathered little had no lack, and he that gathered much had nothing over. Exod. xvi. 18. Now, if the manna of the desert typified the true bread, and the true bread be Jesus Christ from heaven, and Jesus Christ has given his most precious body and blood for our redemption, then does it necessarily follow, that a suffering and a dying Saviour must be our constant and daily food, until the whole church has been brought out of her wilderness-condition, and the land of everlasting life has been obtained. While therefore the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews

a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 1 Cor. i. 23, 24. Men only contemn our Redeemer, because they are carnal, ignorant, proud, and self-sufficient. He is, however, the only Saviour, and, in this sense, he is the Saviour of all men, given in the Divine beneficence to the whole world. The life of faith can only be sustained by his suffering and bleeding humanity. Beautifully does the Church of England set his body forth as broken, and his blood as shed before the contemplation of her communicant members, and lead us to ask through their atoning efficacy, the purification of our bodies and souls from all pollution and sin, and their preservation unto eternal life. To draw near with faith, we are exhorted and when by this appropriating act, we partake of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ, we do it to our great and endless comfort. Your fathers, said Jesus to the Jews, did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead this is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. John vi. 49,50. Do you doubt this participation in grace of Jesus Christ? Are you ready to say, Our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes? Numb. xi. 6. O beloved! take heed how you scorn the appointment of the Almighty. If Israel's murmuring called for rebuke and chastisement, what, think you, will be the punishment of those who reject the Lord's Christ, and trample underfoot this bread from heaven? Refuse the manna of the wilderness, you may this light bread, may you contemptuously call it; but know, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. John vi. 53.

And now as the manna of the wilderness betokened a suffering Saviour, and shows us the food of the church during her militant and preparatory state, so will the hidden manna be found to represent the gracious recompense of the church triumphant in her participation of Christ's immortality and glory.

For, the hidden manna was laid up, as we have seen, in the ark of the testimony, within the vail, and therefore could not be obtained for nourishment until the sacred things should be revealed. This opening of the heavenly temple finds no place until the seventh or last trumpet sounds, and now, remarkable to say, the time being come to give reward unto the prophets and servants of God, the Temple of God is opened in heaven, and there is seen in his temple the ark of the testament. Again, on the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath, which are the seven last plagues, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony is seen to be revealed and opened, Rev. xi. 19, and xv. 5; evidently connecting the revelation of the hidden manna with the recompense of God's victorious saints. Now, as the up-laid manna prefigured the incorruptible and immortal flesh of Jesus Christ, it manifestly follows, that the saints' participation of that manna must signify, their participation of their Redeemer's immortality and glory. We shall be like him when we see him, and our vile flesh will become like the glorified humanity of the Son of God. This is further confirmed by the term, eat of the hidden manna for what is eating? It is that appropriating act whereby two things that were separate and apart before, become one. Our participation of Christ's glory in the resurrection-state of the church, could only be represented by the act of eating, because this is the only bodily act that possesses a uniting or assimilating

character. The Lord himself instructs us in the nature of true faith by the use of the same expression: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. John vi. 56. Hence, coming to him, believing on him, and eating his flesh, are synonymous terms in the holy Word, all resolving themselves into a vital union with the Son of God. This union in grace, is the precious prelude to our union in glory : and as now, in our suffering and conflicting condition, we live by faith upon Jesus dying, so shall we subsist hereafter, in the world of triumph, by Jesus crowned with immortal life and glory. The body sown in weakness and dishonour, shall be raised in power and glory, and that which before was a natural, shall become a spiritual body. 1 Cor. xv. 43, 44. The manna of the desert will cease, soon as we reach the borders of the land of promise. Sorrow and sighing will flee away, and nothing will remain but high, boundless, rapturous, and eternal joy in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour. If the flesh and blood of Jesus, were meat indeed and drink indeed in our fallen and militant condition, what will that flesh and blood be in the world to come! What we shall be, doth not yet appear: but thus the Spirit saith unto the churches, To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.

And is not this the hope set before us in all the Scriptures of truth? Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; and preferred privation and travail with the people of God, to the ease, the luxury, and the splendours of a court; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. Heb. xi. 24-26. Abraham received his virtually slaughtered son, in a figure, from the dead; and in this wonderful type, he beheld the actual death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Heb.

xi. 19. John viii. 56. Abraham looked, too, for another, that is, an heavenly country, and there with him, in his own proper body, is it promised that the saints shall sit. Matt. viii. 11. Paul pressed toward the mark for the prize of his high calling, and Paul himself assures us, that that prize was no fancied halo of mysterious nothingness, but a body redeemed and glorified, and fitted to be the instrument of holy pleasure and unwearied servitude in the house of God. Phil. iii. 10-21. 2 Tim. iv. 8. But, individual instances of believers in the future glory, we need not to multiply, when St. Paul informs us, that for the realization of the promise made unto the fathers, he was personally arraigned before Agrippa; and concerning which promise he asserts, Our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. Acts xxvi. 6, 7. In following so illustrious a preacher of God's truth, fain would we witness the same, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come. No light bread do we account the suffering flesh of Jesus Christ; but we sigh to be partakers of the hidden manna, or to share the incorruptibility and the purity of Jesus glorified. I am that bread of life, was his gracious declaration Lord, evermore give us this bread, should be our earnest prayer: let our wanderings end, let the wilderness of our fallen condition be passed, and the corn of the heavenly land become our everlasting aliment.

But IV. To whom shall this privilege especially be vouchsafed?

This was our final inquiry. Dwell largely upon the point, we cannot now: suffice it to remark, The pecu