Taste is the most necessary sense of all, saith a wise searcher of the mysteries of nature : onr life is maintained by taste (6). Every creature Bees not, every creature hears not, but every creature hath taste. You may
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judge of yourselves by your taste and relish ; and if once you have tasted and relished Christ, all the world cannot persuade you to fall from him. K all should say there were no sweetness in religion, that it were better to be a worldling, &c., you would defy* it ; you would never believe it. There is no disputing against what a man tastes. If all men should say sugar were sharp, if I once tasted it I would say otherwise.
* Labour for the meat that endures to everlasting life.'
The arguments enforcing this act upon the object to labour for Christ are, that he is food, and food that endures ; * and food that endures to everlasting life.'
Let me from these arguments here in the text, for I will draw no other, enforce what I have said before. I have shewed you what this labour is, and rules how you may know whether you rightly labour for this food or no. Now to enforce this act, consider, first, the necessity of that our Saviour here enjoins us to ; it is food.
It is a strange thing that persons should persuade themselves that they are Christians, and yet go from day to day without refreshing themselves with Christ, and witli the meditation of the blessed estate they are in by him, both in respect of this world and that which is to come ; without getting strength from Christ against tentations and against corruptions. Christ is food, and the promises and prerogatives we have by him are food. We should labour after it every day, feed on it every day. If a man should ask a man in his calling. Why do you take such pains, morning and evening, rising early and going to bed late ? he would answer. It is to get bread ; it is to get food to maintain my family. So should it be our answer to any that wonder why we take such pains for our souls, why we labour so after' Christ. Oh, remember we take pains for life ; to get and maintain life ; and what is so necessary as life ? And if life be so necessary, food which, preserves it must be necessary. We see the patriarchs for food left their country ; and the poor Egyptians sold themselves and their cattle, and ail- to get food to keep life. We famish eternally except we feed on Christ ; except we have so much faith as makes us one with him ; except by faith we digest him and get nourishment and strength from him. It will appear to be so when it is too late. Ere long nothing in the world will relish us ; and then if we have not Christ and the things of another life to relish us, what will become of us ? I beseech you, consider what opinion and judg- ment we shall have ere long of these earthly things, and of the better things of another world. At the hour of death, our judgments will be convinced that the things of heaven are the best things ; and if it be true that they will be so then, why is it not true that they are so now ? Labour to have the same judgment now.
With the necessity our blessed Saviour joineth the excellency of this food, ' It is food that endures to everlasting life.' Christ and the good things we have by him are of equal extent and of equal time with our souls. If we labour for earthly things, we labour after that which is of shorter con- tinuance than our souls. We may outlive our happiness, and what a miserable state is that ! But if we labour for the food that endures to everlasting life, our happiness is of the same continuance with our souls, and that is only true happiness.
If there were such a tree upon the earth now as there was in paradise, a tree of life, that whosoever should taste of the fruit of it should live, * That is, in the literal sense, = disbelieve. — Ed.
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though but on the earth hero to enjoy his sensual pleasures, oh what would not men give for a little fruit of that tree, tliough it were to redeem a little time, and to lengthen out a fading, base life on earth, but much more to live for ever ! Here is food ' that endures to everlasting life,' to such a life as is heavenly and glorious. Now, blessed be God that since we are cast out of the first paradise by sin, that'now in our relapsed estate God is so merciful to us as to provide another manner of tree of life. That in paradise was but a typical tree. The true tree of life is Christ ; and who- soever feeds on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Certainly if we believed this, it could not be, but it would wondrously set us on to labour after this meat, because it is not only food that tends to the preser- vation of life, but to life everlasting, to a life that endures as long as our souls.