As the Bounties of Providence gives us no room to murmur at our present Province or Portion, so on the other hand, the Toils and Troubles of this State should cause us to aspire after the heavenly Paradise, where no Curse ever found Access, where none of the Thorns of Affliction, or the Briers of Sorrow grow. ---------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER II. CONTENTS. _Of the_ fiery Serpents _that annoy’d the Camp of_ Israel: _The Reason of that judicial Stroke_, i.e. _Murmuring under a Dispensation of Miracles. Why punish’d by Serpents? Why called_ Fiery? _The last Plague in the Desart. Flying Serpents._ SECTION. I. It might be said with great Propriety of the _People of Israel_, that they were _a Generation of Vipers_. Ingratitude, Unbelief, Discontent and Murmuring, were the dominant Passions in the Wilderness; they were always quarrelling with _God_ and _Moses_: never easy, no not under a Theocracy, a divine Government. No wonder that Rage and Faction haunt the Dwellings of good Princes, when we find perverse Spirits have murmur’d at a divine Administration. A Magnificent Table was Spread for them in the Wilderness, their daily Entertainments were miraculous; they were fed by _Manna_, a delicious Food distilled from Heaven, admirably suited to every one’s Palate. _He commanded the Clouds from above, and opened the Doors of Heaven, and rained down Manna upon them to eat, and gave them the Corn of Heaven[350]. Wherefore have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the Wilderness, for there is no Bread, neither is there any Water, and our Soul loatheth this light Bread[351]: This vain and empty Bread, say the_ LXX. Footnote 350: _Psal._ lxxviii. 23-25. Footnote 351: _Numb._ xxi. 5, 6.—τω αρτω τω διακενω— They were also furnish’d with _miraculous Drink_, i. e. _Water out of a Rock_; Water that swell’d into a River, and follow’d ’em in all their Motions, till they arrived in the Land _flowing with Milk and Honey_; Terms, that include a Scene of Plenty and Pleasantness. In all their Traverses through the Wilderness, they were always under the Guidance and Protection of the _Shekina_; by which Word the _Jews_ understood the _Presence of the Holy Spirit_; of _Christ_, say the Christians. The _Shekina_ was the most sensible Mark of the Presence of God among them, which rested over the Propitiatory, or the golden Cherubims, which adher’d to the Propitiatory or Covering of the Ark; there the _Shekina_ abode in the Shape of a Cloud. The _Rabbins_ tell us, that it first resided in the Tabernacle, and descended into it in the Figure of a Cloud, on the Day of Consecration. It past from thence into the Sanctuary of _Solomon’s Temple_, on the Day of its Dedication by that Prince[352]; where it continued to the Destruction of _Jerusalem_ by the _Chaldeans_, and was not afterwards to be seen there. Footnote 352: