3. Now, in that he saith here were spoons, what is it but that there are also babes in the temple of the Lord. There was broth for babes as well as meat for men, and spoons to eat the broth withal.
4. True, the gospel being more excellent than the law, doth change the term, and instead of broth, saith, There is milk for babes. But in that he saith milk, he insinuates there are spoons for children in the church.
5. 'I could not,' saith Paul to them at Corinth, 'speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able' (1 Cor 3:1,2).
6. See, here were need of spoons, milk is spoon meat; for here were those which could not feed themselves with milk, let them then that are men eat the strong meat. 'For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil' (Heb 5:13,14).
7. Spoons, you know, are to feed us with weak and thin food, even with that which best suiteth with weak stomachs, or with a babyish temper. Hence, as the strong man is opposed to the weak, so the milk is opposed to the strong meat.
8. So then, though the babe in Christ is weaker than the man in Christ, yet is he not by Christ left unprovided for; for here is milk for babes, and spoons to eat it with. All this is taught us by the spoons; for what need is there of spoons where there is nothing to eat but strong meat?
9. Babes, you know, have not only babyish stomachs, but also babyish tricks, and must be dealt withal as babes; their childish talk and frompered carriages must be borne withal.
10. Sometimes they cry for nothing, yea, and count them for their foes which rebuke their childish toys and ways. All which the church must bear, because they are God's babes; yea, they must feed them too: for if he has found them milk and spoons, it is that they may be fed therewith, and live: yea, grown ministers are God's nurses, wherefore they must have a lap to lay them in, and knees to dandle them upon, and spoons to feed them with.[25]
11. Nor are the babes but of use in the church of God; for he commands that they may be brought to cry with the congregation before the Lord for mercy for the land (Joel 2:16).
12. Incense, I told you, was a type of prayers, and the spoons, in the time of Moses, were presented at the temple full of it. Perhaps to show that God will, with the milk which he has provided for them, give it to them as a return of their crying to him, even as the nurse gives the child the teat and milk.