For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world."
      (2.) That they preferred the miraculous feeding of Israel in the wilderness before all the miracles Christ wrought (; John 6:31):  Our fathers did eat manna in the desert;  and, to strengthen the objection, they quote a scripture for it:  He gave them bread from heaven  (taken from  Psalms 78:24),  he gave them of the corn of heaven.  What a good use might be made of this story to which they here refer! It was a memorable instance of God's power and goodness, often mentioned to the glory of God (; Nehemiah 9:20-21), yet see how these people perverted it, and made an ill use of it. [1.] Christ reproved them for their fondness of the miraculous bread, and bade them not set their hearts uponmeat which perisheth;  "Why," say they, "meat for the belly  was the great good thing that God gave to our fathers in the desert; and why should not we then labour for that meat? If God made much of them, why should not we be for those that will make much of us?" [2.] Christ had fed five thousand men with five loaves, and had given them that as one sign to prove him  sent of God;  but, under colour of  magnifying  the miracles of Moses, they tacitly  undervaluethis miracle of Christ, and  evade  the evidence of it. "Christ fed his thousands; but Moses his hundreds of thousands; Christ fed them but once, and then reproved those who followed him in hope to be still fed, and put them off with a discourse of spiritual food; but Moses fed his followers forty years, and miracles were not their rarities, but their daily bread: Christ fed them with bread out of  the earth,  barley-bread, and fishes out of  the sea;  but Moses fed Israel with bread  from heaven,  angel's food." Thus big did these Jews talk of the  manna  which  their fathers did eat;  but their fathers had slighted it as much as they did now the barley-loaves, and called  light bread,  Numbers 21:5. Thus apt are we to slight and overlook the appearances of God's power and grace in our own times, while we pretend to admire the wonders of which  our fathers told us.  Suppose  this  miracle of Christ was outdone by that of Moses, yet there were other instances in which Christ's miracles outshone his; and, besides, all true miracles prove a divine doctrine, though not equally illustrious in the circumstances, which were ever  diversified  according as the occasion did require. As much as the manna excelled the barley-loaves, so much, and much more, did the doctrine of Christ excel the law of Moses, and his heavenly institutions the carnal ordinances of that dispensation.