and in deep poverty themselves, they yet abounded unto the riches of liberality ; being willing to give not only to their power, but beyond their power, and praying him with much entreaty to take upon him the office of dispensing their alms to their afflicted brethren*1." Nay more, he proposes to us the example of our blessed Lord himself, who " though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich1." Let this mind then be in you, my beloved brethren ; and account yourselves rich, not in propor- tion to what you can consume upon yourselves, but according to what you are able to administer for the benefit of others. " In bearing one another's burthens, ye shall best fulfil the law of Christ s."]
<i 2 Cor. viii. 1 — 4. r 2 Cor. viii. 9. s Gal. vi. 2.
Exod. xvi. 35. And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited: they did eat manna until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
THE history of the Israelites in the wilderness con- tains an uninterrupted series of miracles. It might be well expected, that two millions of people en- camped in a barren desert would soon begin to want fresh supplies of food. And so it happened. In a month after their first departure from Egypt, they had exhausted the store that they had brought with them. But God, who had brought them thus far, would not suffer them to remain destitute any longer than was necessary to try their faith and patience. He therefore gave them from the clouds a peculiar kind of food, (such as had never been seen before,) a small white substance, like coriander-seed, which, when ground in a mill and baked or seethed in water, was extremely palatable.
We propose to make some observations upon,
I. The provision he gave them —
Let the occasion on which he gave it be first con- sidered—
[Instead of confiding in that God who had so often, and so wonderfully interposed for them, they murmured against