the thing to be heard and it is a gospel to all; for the Father judgeth no man, and the committed judgment of the Son is yet

future.

"The manna which is hidden," is an expression to be understood by understanding the meaning, first, of the manna, and then of its concealment; the latter of which will be found intimately connected with the futurity of the gift. As to the former, the Psalmist aggravates the unbelief of the Jews, and their want of trust in God's covenanted but future salvation, by the fact that God "had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven" (Ps. lxxviii. 22). This fact is, as a foretaste or earnest, intimately connected with the promise of Canaan, Neh. ix. 15, Deut. viii. 16. It is no less directly associated with spiritual teaching and blessing, in the words "thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldedst not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst" (Neh. ix. 20). We find that the down-pouring of manna upon the camp of Israel was attended, or rather preceded, by the falling of the dew; which served as a method of conveyance for the manna, and which is an admitted type of the Holy Ghost in his instructing, enriching, and refreshing work, by shewing the things of Christ (Num. xi. 9, Exod. xvi. 14). And as the manna was bestowed to satisfy literal hunger, so from the words "he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna (which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know), that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live" (Deut. viii. 3)—which last words are quoted by our Lord in his great act of faith against Satan, Matt. iv. 4-it is plain that the hunger and the manna are both types of spiritual things. Nor is it less important to observe, that the supply of manna was meant to be regarded as no more than a temporary provision, inasmuch as it ceased immediately after the Israelites came to a land inhabited, and first ate the old corn and the fruits of Canaan, even before the reduction of Jericho (Josh. v. 12; vi.; Exod. xvi. 25). With these considerations the circumstances of the heavenly supply remarkably accord. The people, after having got water of the Lord, murmured for hunger in the wilderness, and, while professing a readiness to receive food at the hand of the Lord, longed in their hearts for the flesh-pots of Egypt: so the Lord, having shewn his glory in the cloud, rained down the manna, to prove them whether they would walk in his law or no; for he knew that the rebellious children, who could afterwards say, "Now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes" (Numb. xi. 6), would not be content with his spiritual

:

sustenance. Daily, at the rising of the morning dew, the people found and gathered this bread from heaven: he that gathered much had no more than he required, and he that gathered little had no lack ;-so graciously are the words of God and the things of Christ ministered unto us by the Spirit of Christ, exactly according to our need and especial calling. Every day they behoved to gather; none might leave of it till the morning for the Lord will have us his daily dependents, and will not suffer us to appropriate and dispose of the things of Christ, as if they could ever become ours, by any title but that of bare and sovereign grace. Whatsoever remained went to corruption; indicating what a curse must spring out of an abused blessing. On one only occasion did that corruption not ensue, for it was the occasion of the Lord. On the Sabbath the people might not gather, because the Sabbath represented that restful possession the fruit of which should supersede the temporary supply of manna; and so no manna fell on that day (Exod. xvi. 23). But though the typical character of the Sabbath forbade the fall of manna, the futurity of the antitype rendered still necessary a supply of manna even on that day of hope: accordingly, on the sixth day there fell, (as we shall yet see before the coming and kingdom of Christ,) a double portion, two omers to each; and what remained till the Sabbath corrupted not; upon the same principle as that on which the promised land brought forth in the sixth year a superabundance, to meet the demands of the seventh or sabbatical year, in which no tillage was allowed, " and the land kept a Sabbath to the Lord" (Levit. xxv. 2, 20.) Of this manna an omer was laid up by Aaron, at the command of the Lord to Moses, in a golden pot, before the testimony, to be kept as a remembrance of the wilderness (Exod. xvi. 32). Of this the Apostle to the Hebrews makes mention, in enumerating the furniture of the holiest of all; which was a figure for the time, till Christ should by his own entry make manifest the way into the true holiest (Heb. ix. 9). And this prepares us the better to understand his words in the Gospel by John, concerning his relation to the manna of the wilderness. He there states, that God, and not Moses, bestowed the manna of old; and that He who of old bestowed the manna, did in the fulness of time bestow the true and life-giving Bread, from heaven the Christ of God; him whom by resurrection the Father had sealed and anointed God (John vi. 27; Heb. i. 8, 9); him who, having been sanctified and sent of the Father through the Spirit, is through the Spirit applied unto the saints against which Bread the Jews were then commanded not to murmur, as of old, seeing it was spirit and life (John vi. 43, 53, 63). The words of the Godhead concerning God the Christ, spoken by the Holy Ghost, whether through the Head or through the members of the

body, do give the efficacy of spirit and life to that flesh which the Word became, and which the Spirit of the Father and the Son perfectly anointed (John vi. 63). And therefore the feeding of the people with manna in the wilderness till they attained the promise, represents the sustenance of the saints while seeking a country, with the testimony of God through the Holy Ghost concerning Christ till that which is in part shall give place to that which is perfect; yet, as Christ is not only the sacrifice for sin, but the great example of faith in the Father, and therefore in the testimony of the Father, we should expect to find our Lord exhibiting in the person of himself, as the Head of the church, that obedient reception of spiritual sustenance from the Father which he expects at the hands of his people. We find such an exhibition during his temptation in the wilderness. Our Lord was carried down into Egypt: in being brought up thence he fulfilled the words, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son" (Matt. ii. 15); and these words in the original prophecy are directly applicable to the children of Israel in their literal deliverance from Egypt (Hos. xi. 1): whence we rightly infer that there is Divine authority for refering the one event to the other. In like manner the baptism of Christ, the Prophet like unto Moses, in Jordan (Matt. iii. 13), is evidently to be referred to the baptism of the Israelites unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, after they had been called out of Egypt (1 Cor. x. 1.) And as the Israelites were led out of the Spirit into the wilderness to be proved forty years, a year for every day of their search for the land, so was Christ led out of the Spirit to be proved forty days, a day for every year of his people's temptation, a day for every day of their search. In the narrative of each of his three trials while in the wilderness with the wild beasts, the angels ministering unto him (Mark i. 12; Matt. iv.; Luke iv.), we find ourselves referred to the history of the Israelites in the wilderness. In the one, we find him set, as they of old, on a high mountain, in the sight of the promised land-theirs being Canaan, his the inheritance of the earth (Rev. xi. 15; Psa. xcvi. 13; xcviii. 9): we find Satan, from whose hands, as the god of this world, the earth will yet be rescued, as Canaan of old, offering to Christ his own proper inheritance on condition of diabolic fealty and we find Christ answering him, not of himself, but in the faith of the Father's word, given of old unto his Jewish people (Matt. iv. 10; Deut. vi. 13; x. 12, 20). In the second, our Lord employs the very words applied to the temptation of God by the Israelites at Massah. (Exod. xvii. 2, 7; Deut. vi. 16; 1 Cor. x. 9). And in the third, we find him, through the sinless infirmity of hunger, subjected to the like temptation with the Israelites-viz. that of refusing to depend on or esteem the Lord's bounty and spiritual provi

sion. It is most important to observe, that on this occasion he confesses his faith in his Father's sustenance in the very words in which God expresses the end for which he fed the Israelites with manna when a-hungered-viz. that they might know that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. iv. 4; Deut. viii. 3). By all which we are most clearly instructed in this double mystery, that Christ is both, as the life-giving Redeemer and Instructor of his church, the manna itself; and also, as the Ensample of his members and brethren, the partaker of the manna: in both of which aspects his office, like the use of the manna, is intended to cease and determine at the time of his appearing and kingdom, when the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, shall be revealed to sight (2 Cor. ii. 7).

The next question regards the meaning of the word "bidden." In the first place, it is clear that the manna to be given hereafter has been concealed, and is not merely unseen; (as the original word, Kεкρνμμεvov, expresses an act, and not a mere property.) It is equally evident that the manna is to remain concealed till given, and will be revealed in the act of its gift. Now there are just two ways in which the epithet can possibly be understood-viz. either by regarding the hidden manna as expressing the yet unseen but expected fruit of the land; or by regarding it as expressing the omer laid up in the tabernacle within the veil. That the former is not the interpretation, appears from considering that the fruit of the land has never been concealed, although it is unseen; and that, although it will be food, as the manna was, it cannot on that ground be also called manna, inasmuch as we have it on the authority of the Spirit that manna represents that temporary ministry of word of which Christ, as the bread of life, did in the days of his flesh avow himself the subject (Deut. viii. 3; John vi. 33, 49; Psa. cxix. 11): therefore the hidden manna must mean the omer commanded to be laid up in the tabernacle, into which none but the high priest might enter. Now God has declared his intention, in so commanding, to have been, that when they should have arrived at a land inhabited they might then and there see in the holiest that bread wherewith he had fed them from heaven in the wilderness, and which he had commanded to be laid up before his tables of testimony in token of the magnifying of his law (Exod. xvi. 32): therefore, by the future gift of the hidden manna must be understood the future recognition of Christ, at his appearing and kingdom, as the same who was once sanctified, invested with life in himself, sent and given of the Father, and who was and yet is testified unto by the Holy Ghost. Christ has gone into heaven to purify the heavenly things: these are, the New Jerusalem; the tubernacle (onvn, as in the temple

of old, Heb. ix. 3); the kingdom, yet above, yet to come, yet reserved. When the tabernacle (okyn) of God shall be with men, and he shall tabernacle (oknywσE) with them, and God himself shall be with them; their God when the New Jerusalem shall come down from God out of heaven, made ready as an adorned bride for her husband; when Christ shall return with the kingdom which he went to receive (Rev. xxi. 3, 2; Luke xix. 11); then the manna laid up in the tabernacle of God shall descend with it; then all the saints, with that true boldness of access which they now have in faith, shall receive and recognise it in the tabernacle, no longer secret and secured; then shall they know even as they are known, and see face to face; and be like their Forerunner in seeing him as he is, and join the emphatic chorus, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev. i. 5), "Unto him that liveth and was dead" (ver. 18), and say, with the loud voice of ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, "Worthy is THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing!" (Rev. v. 11.)

The following are among the most obvious reasons why the promise to the churches is addressed in the form of the gift of the hidden manna to the church of Pergamos, that church out of which the Papacy sprang. First, The Papacy pretends that the people of God are not now receiving manna; that they are not in the wilderness, receiving a temporary supply from the word of the Lord, till they shall see face to face; that the kingdom and priesthood of Christ is already manifest in the infallible and unlimited supremacy of the pope, the visible uniformity and universality of the church, and the perfect dispensation of righte ousness. Second, The Papacy virtually denies that any manna has ever been laid up, or, at any rate, is yet hidden; seeing that it denies that of which the laying up intends the everlasting remembrance of glory, and denies that there is any such hidden gift to be given; for the tabernacle was the place of deposit, and the beast blasphemes the tabernacle of God in heaven, as well as his name (Rev. xiii. 6).

The stone, or pebble (ngov), is not the stone of a building (as AO, 1 Pet. ii. 5), but the pebble employed by the ancients in voting. Accordingly, Paul, in consenting to the death of the saints, threw down his pebble (noor) against them (Acts xxvi. 10.) Therefore its whiteness expresses not the quality of purity, which the term expresses elsewhere in Scripture, as applied to the glorious garments of the redeemed; but the quality of favour or acquittal; a black pebble being the indication of opposition or condemnation. The future gift of the white stone, then, expresses the consequence of our names being