by day it fell ;—a new thing, one might say, was created to meet the necessity of the case,—something before unknown to the people or to the fathers, but only one of ten thousand things, any one of which God could have sent, and on any one of which life could have been sustained,-for the life of man is not absolutely and necessarily dependent on bread, it may be supported and sustained by anything whatever that may come forth by the Divine command with that view. The lesson in all this is, of course, Learn to trust. Have faith in God.Individual men, God's children, in all times and places, may be terribly put to it by trial and change, by secular vicissitude and pecuniary loss, by the pangs of hunger, it may be,-the pressure of calamity on mere physical wants; but they are never to give up hoping and trusting; there may seem to be no prospect and no possibility of a supply; it may be so, but have faith. Heaven is round about you; God is over all; He can command the ravens to feed you, or can bring to your relief, in the most marvellous manner, the fulness of the sea or the food of the skies,- -as the fish filled the net of the men who had toiled long and taken nothing, and the manna fell as from the superfluity and from the hand of angels. We don't tell you that a miracle will be wrought for you, but something may be done which, to the eye of faith, shall be as direct a Divine interposition as if "the hand of the Lord was visibly revealed." II. The next use that we shall make of the text may be indicated in this way :-"bread" may be taken not literally, but representatively; that is, as standing for all animal and secular satisfactions and enjoyments, for everything that gratifies the appetites and passions, for "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life."-Human nature is sensitively alive to these things. Within certain limits, and under certain laws and restrictions, man can come into contact with all the objects of interest or pleasure, and may touch them without sin. But he cannot live on them. They were made for him, not he for them. "Man's life," the true and proper life of man, "consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesses." If ever a man becomes the mere slave of any object of desire which may be allowable and innocent in itself, then desire becomes lust, and "lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin being accomplished bringeth forth death." There is a higher life for man, simply considered as man, as a moral and intelligent being, a being endowed with reason and conscience; there is a higher life for him than that which can be fed and pampered through the exercise of the senses, the animal appetites, or even the more respectable of the passions, -though none of them, separate from the control of the normal sense, can be called respectable,-they then become derogatory and base. Man cannot live by bread alone by the pleasures and good things of this life, even if he gets them honestly and enjoys them with moderation. He was made for something greater than that. But if a man has no faith in anything but in animal satisfactions, if his creed consists of only one article, that which affirms that "pleasure is pleasant," and if this faith is perfected by appropriate works, and he sinks down into a mere voluptuary, saying continually "stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant," why, he ceases, in any proper sense, to live at all, or to live a life worthy of a man, for we know who hath said, that "he that liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth." In the same way, if a man despises the "secret bread" and the "stolen waters" of licentiousness and sin, but lives solely for the objects of the affections and passions, for the gratification of pride and ambition, the love of money, of power, of worldly rank and secular distinction; why, these things are not his life, not what he ought to live for; they are not health or strength, but weakness and disease, for " they will eat into his vitals like a cancer;" the higher passions will destroy the soul, as the tyranny of the lower appetites destroys both soul and body. The fact is, that even the most depraved and the most worldly men know and feel that they "cannot live on bread alone -on that bread which is furnished by the flesh, the world, and the Devil. The most profligate and abandoned are often sick and satiated, and have to turn away from the objects of concupiscence to find relief in books or travel, in science or song, or some exercise of faculty more or less intellectual, which is the utterance and protest of their higher nature against the despotism of the senses;-and the most fierce and fevered in the race of worldly distinction are compelled at times to pause in the pursuit,—to sigh for rest, to confess to themselves the worthlessness of the prize for which they labour and toil,-and they always know that it will be worse than worthless if it is not obtained consistently with honour. This, again, is the unconscious testimony of men of the world to the great truth that man, as man, has within him the yearning and the capacity for a higher life than theirs, and that he cannot live by bread alone, not only by that which is like the husks and garbage which swine may eat, and with which the grovelling and the debauched try to fill their belly; but even by that which is served up on plate,-on gold and silver, and with all the elegant appliances which to vanity, ambition, or pride, can make it seem "pleasant to the eye or good for food." III. But there is yet one other way in which the passage before us may be applied, which will lift us into a higher sphere than that either of the reason or the conscience. Man is not only capable of a higher life than that of the animal nature and the secular affections, by having within him improvable reason and moral capacity, but is endowed with something greater than these,— he has the capacity for religion, for Divine faith, for love to God, and likeness tɔ Him, and communion with Him; for all that belongs to the attributes and enjoyments of a holy and spiritual life. In this sense also, then, he cannot live by bread alone, that is, by anything which is visible and tangible ;—which can be looked at, or handled, or even heard by the ears and received by the understanding. Things of these different sorts may be all necessary to him, and all helpful; they may be means to lead him to that by which he is to live, or they may be channels by which its influence comes to him, and through which he is fed,—but they are not the food itself; they may be very important, so important that he may not be able, ordinarily, to live without them, but he cannot live on them alone. The principle which underlies all these general statements is this: Christ is our life; Christ received by faith; Christ formed in our hearts; we, by loving trust, entering into Him; He, by His Spirit, taking personal possession of us. Man, being taught of God, feels the reality if he does not understand the mystery of sin and guilt; he sees the emptiness of natural virtue and the utter impossibility of being justified and accepted on the ground of his own righteousness. He comes to perceive that the proper and true life of the human spirit, that for which it was made, must consist in its being in harmony with God,-in perfect repose in God's fatherhood, in likeness to Him, and in the conscious enjoyment of His favour and complacency; and he is farther taught that for such a life he was not only created, but that his condition is such that for it, and in order to it, he has had to be redeemed; that only by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus can it either be possessed or retained. Hence, coming to God in contrition and repentance, accepting Christ with trust and love, he is raised up by the Holy Spirit from the death of sin into the life of righteousness. Then, whether he has been converted from flagrant sin, or turned from trusting in his own virtue, he can say with Paul, "I was alive once, under the law and in ignorance of it, but when the law was revealed in its terrible majesty, sin lived and I died. Then, when, after this, God revealed His Son to me, and I was able to receive Him as my new, divine, and better life, then what had been gain to me I counted loss for Him; yea, all things were esteemed loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; now I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; for the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Christ, then, is our life,-Christ thus spiritually apprehended and received. This is the true bread, the Divine manna, that is given for the life of the world. This bread becomes, when spiritually received, flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of God. This is the Christian man's daily and necessary food; but this spiritual food has its visible type and emblem in the Church ; the senses of hearing, sight, touch, taste, are all brought into play as helps to faith and means of nourishment, and it is to these outward and visible things that we now take the liberty of applying the words of the text. The kingdom of God, like the life of God, is within you,-and "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;" that is to say, it is not ritual, outward forms, bodily service; it is not hearing, or preaching, or praying, or being baptized, or taking the Sacrament; all these things are important in their place, and are not to be neglected, but you cannot live on them alone; they are the outward and visible bread. Like the manna that fell in the wilderness, or the loaves that Christ multiplied in the desert, they are types and representatives of Him, but they are not Him. The Sacrament cannot say, "He that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Christ only can say that; and if we do not penetrate through all forms, if we do not rise above them, if we do not spiritually see the Lord and partake of Him we have no life in us. We cannot do without means; they are very important; but the Lord gave us the philosophy of them all when He uttered the golden words, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Services and Sacraments are made for us, not we for them;-we cannot spiritually grow and thrive without them, but we cannot live on them alone. They must lead us to Christ; and just in proportion as they do that, do we obtain the sustenance of the inward man. Christ is God's great gift,-His redemptive undertaking the divinest work ever accomplished in all the ages or in any world, and it was done with the express object that "in Him we might have life, and have it abundantly." Man, as a spirit, created for a glorious, eternal life, cannot live by bread alone; by anything of the nature of outward service and mere ritualism, however significant; but by that great work of God, the redemption of His Son, which He has accomplished for this very purpose,-by that work doth man live. THE PURITAN AND HIS BIBLE. FROM DR. VAUGHAN'S REVOLUTIONS IN ENGLISH HISTORY. IN our secular and conventional times it is not easy to imagine the influences which made the Puritan forms of thought so potent in their sway over minds of eminent sagacity. But the Bible in the sixteenth and during the first half of the seventeenth century, was, even to thoughtful men, comparatively a novel book- -a treasure which had been lost and was found. It was to them, moreover, a book the full inspiration—the unerring truth of which, was above suspicion. It was, in the most emphatic sense, the word of God, and its facts and doctrines were taken in their most simple and natural significance. The age was an age of faith-we may say, of a childlike and a loving faith. Such men as Eliot and Hampden, Cromwell and Vane, believed in God and Christ; in Sin and the Evil One; in Heaven and Hell, as the Bible presents them, and very much as Milton has depicted them. The world to them was full of spiritual influences both good and bad -full eminently of God. Where duty called, men of this order could brave all things, and still feel that nothing was hazarded. To them As there was no such thing as accident. It is easy to see how men living in such relations to a higher world would be inclined to question earthly authorities when regarded as opposing themselves to that Higher Power. Every man who supposes that right is on his side, supposes that God is on his side. But the Puritan conceived that he had a special warrant so to think. And he was too much accustomed to concern himself with questions affecting the law and the government of the Almighty, to be deterred by any superstitious scruple from a free scrutiny as to the basis of law and government when merely human. Hence his speculations often darted onward, so as to anticipate some of the most advanced positions of modern speculation. "Treason," said a Puritan preacher, addressing a London congregation, "is not limited to the royal blood, as if he only could be a traitor who plotteth or attempteth the dishonour, or the shedding thereof; but may be, and is too often, committed against the whole Church and nation, which last is so much the worse of these two, by as much as the end is better than the means, and the whole of greater consequence than any one part." Such was the clear, strong grasp of political principle of which the mind of a Calvinistic lecturer was capable in the early days of Charles the First. So spoke Milton and Locke in their season, and so have many great men spoken since. Bound by conscience to resist the pretensions of the civil power in regard to religion, it was natural, as this controversy grew upon their hands, that the Puritans should thus extend their inquiries to points affecting the foundations of all government. The reader must not forget that the Puritans under James and Charles were in a position differing considerably from that of the modern Nonconformist. They were of the national Church, both ministers and laity. There was much in the existing ecclesiastical system which they would have reformed. But their parish churches were their religious homes. They had been baptized within those walls. There they had been married. There they had buried their dead. There they expected in their turn to sleep their own long sleep. Their ministers were all University men. Their laity embraced persons of all ranks. In that age Puritan and Orthodox were terms denoting parties who differed from each other in thoughts and sympathies, but who were of the same social status. 'The fact that English Puritanism embraced not only the strong feeling of the middle and the lower classes, but much of the intelligence and culture of the classes above them contributed to make it the power it became in our history. One grand fault alleged against the Puritans, and a fault regarded as convicting them both of cant and bad taste, consists in the manner in which they used the language of Scripture. Almost everything belonging to the religion of the Bible they describe in the language of the Bible. What is more, they looked upon all things in the light in which that volume presents them, and they spoke of them very commonly in the words which that volume supplied. To the majority of the Puritans, the great educating power of their time consisted in the teachings of that book, and in the expositions of it by their ministers from the pulpit. It was the atmosphere of thought-of simple, sober, grand thought-in which their spirits breathed. Hence it was just as natural that men receiving the Bible with the faith and affection with which the Puritan received it, should use its language as he did, as it was that the sceptical and shallow wits of the time of Charles II. should fail to appreciate the sources of this peculiarity and should heap their ridicule upon it. That this use of Scriptural expressions was often a cant, no man of sense will deny. Language could not have become thus common in connexion with any subject, without fault, more or less, of that nature. But if the ring of that coin had not proved to be in the main the ring of the true metal, it would not so long have passed current. Symbols in words, like symbols in ceremonies, may become mere symbolism. When that comes their work is done. But there is an |