one amongst them : with this they were to be content ; and with a similar portion should we also be content1". Hear St. Paul's experience on this subject: "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased ; and I know how to abound : everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need"." Precisely such should be the frame of our minds also. We should offer con- tinually, and from our inmost souls, that prayer which our Lord has taught vis, " Give us day by day our daily bread :" and we should really be willing to live dependent on our God for every blessing, whether for body or for soul, whether for time or for eternity.]
2. Confidence —
[In parting with any superfluity which they might have attained, the whole people of Israel shewed that they looked to God alone for a supply of their necessities, and that they had no doubt of his continued care even to the end. The same lesson should we also learn. We should " take no thought for the morrow, but seek first the kingdom of God and his right- eousness, and rest assured that all needful blessings shall be added unto us0." We should regard God as our Parent; who, if he neglect not the birds of the air, or the meanest worm of the earth, will surely not neglect his own children, but will rather feed them with bread from heaven, and cause that bread to follow them in all their journeys, than leave them one day without the supply that is needful for them.]
3. Liberality —
[Certainly, to give away the superabundance which they had gathered, when they had not any thing in hand for their subsistence on the morrow, was a bright example of gene- rosity. I am far from saying that we, under our dispensation, should carry our liberality to the same extent; but I have no doubt but that the spirit which they manifested should be cultivated by us also, and that to a much greater extent than is generally imagined. The instruction given by John the Baptist to the people of his day was, " He that hath two coats, let him give to him that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise p." If it be thought that this was nothing but an Eastern proverb, I answer, that St. Paul, in the very place where he quotes the words of my text, pro- poses to our imitation the example of the Macedonians, which scarcely fell short of the very letter of St. John's instructions : " For at a time when they were in a trial of great affliction
m 1 Tim. vi. 8. n Phil. iv. 11, 12.
0 Matt. vi. 31—34. p Luke iii. 11.