sinking, but from the bottom of the deeps, | them dance before it. It is a miserable call upon him; "and though he kill them, will trust in him." Superstition besots the minds of men, and blinds the eye of reason; and first makes them not men, ere it makes them idolaters. How else could he that is the image of God, fall down to the images of creatures? How could our forefathers have so doated upon stocks and stones, if they had been themselves? As the Syrians were first blinded, and then led into the midst of Samaria, so are idolaters first bereaved of their wits and common sense, and afterwards are carried brutishly into all palpable impiety. Who would not have been ashamed to hear this answer from the brother of Moses, "Pluck off your ear-rings?" He should have said, "Pluck this idolatrous thought out of your hearts." And now, instead of chiding, he soothes them. And, as if he had been no kin to Moses, he helps to lead them back again from God to Egypt. The people importuned him, perhaps with threats. He that had waded through all the menaces of Pharaoh, doth he now shrink at the threats of his own? Moses is not afraid of the terrors of God: his faith, that carried him through the water, led him up to the fire of God's presence; while his brother Aaron fears the faces of those men, which he lately saw pale with the fear of their glorious Lawgiver: as if he, that forbade other gods, could not have maintained his own act and agent against men. Sudden fears, when they have possessed weak minds, lead them to shameful errors. Importunity or violence may lessen, but they cannot excuse a fault. Wherefore was he a governor, but to depress their disordered motions? Facility of yielding to a sin, or wooing it with our voluntary suit, is a higher stair of evil; but even at last to be won to sin, is damnable. It is good to resist any onset of sin; but one condescent loses all the thanks of our opposition. What will it avail a man that others are plagued for soliciting him, while he smarteth for yielding? If both be in hell, what ease is it to him that another is deeper in the pit? What now did Aaron? Behold, he that alone was allowed to climb up the trembling and fiery hill of Sinai with Moses, and heard God say, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, for I am a jealous God," as if he meant particularly to prevent this act, within one month calls for their ear-rings, makes the graven image of a calf, erects an altar, consecrates a day to it, calls it their god, and weeps not to see thing, when governors humour the people in their sins, and instead of making up the breach, enlarge it. Sin will take heart by the approbation of the meanest looker on; but if authority once second it, it grows impudent: as contrarily, where the public government opposes evil, though it be under-hand practised, not without fear, there is life in that state. Aaron might have learned counsel of his brother's example. When they came to him with stones in their hands, and said, "Give us water," he ran as roundly to God with prayers in his mouth: so should Aaron have done, when they said, "Give us gods;" but he weakly runs to their earrings, that which should be made their god, not to the true God which they had, and forsook. Who can promise to himself freedom from gross infirmities, when he that went up into the mount comes down, and doth that in the valley which he heard forbidden in the hill? I see yet, and wonder at the mercy of that God which had justly called himself jealous. This very Aaron, whose infirmity had yielded to so foul an idolatry, is after chosen by God to be a priest to himself. He that had set up an altar to the calf, must serve at the altar of God. He that had melted and carved out the calf for a god, must sacrifice calves and rams and bullocks unto the true God. He that consecrated a day to the idol, is himself consesecrated to him which was dishonoured by the idol. The grossest of all sins cannot prejudice the calling of God; yea, as light is best seen in darkness, the mercy of God is most magnified in our unworthiness. What a difference God puts between per.. sons and sins! While so many thousand Israelites were slain, that had stomachfully desired the idol, Aaron, that in weakness condescended, is both pardoned the fact, and afterwards laden with honour from God. Let no man take heart to sin from mercy. He that can purpose to sin upon the knowledge of God's mercy in the remission of infirmities, presumes, and makes himself a wilful offender. It is no comfort to the wilful that there is remission to the weak and penitent. The ear-rings are plucked off. Egyptian jewels are fit for an idolatrous use. This very gold was contagious. It had been better the Israelites had never borrowed these ornaments, than that they should pay them back to the idolatry of their first owners. What cost the superstitious Israelites are content to be at for this lewd devotion! The riches and pride of their | outward habit are they willing to part with to their molten god; as glad to have their ears bare, that they might fill their eyes. No gold is too dear for their idol: each man is content to spoil his wives and children of that whereof they spoiled the Egyptians. Where are those worldlings that cannot abide to be at any cost for their religion? which could be content to do God chargeless service? These very Israelites that were ready to give gold, not out of their purses, but from their very ears, to misdevotion, shall once condemn them. O sacrilege succeeding to superstition! Of old they were ready to give gold to the false service of God; we, to take away gold from the true. How do we see men prodigal to their lusts and ambitions, and we hate not to be niggards to God! This gold is now grown to a calf. Let no man think that form came forth casually, out of the melted ear-rings. This shape was intended by the Israelites, and perfected by Aaron. They brought this god in their hearts with them out of Egypt, and now they set it up in their eyes. Still doth Egypt hurt them. Servitude was the least evil that Israel receives from Egypt; for that sent them still to the true God, but this idolatrous example led them to a false. The very sight of evil is dangerous; and it is hard for the heart not to run into those sins, to which the eye and ear are inured. Not out of love, but custom, we fall into some offences. The Israelites wrought so long in the furnaces of the Egyptians' brick, that they have brought forth a molten calf. The black calf with the white spots, which they saw worshipped in Egypt, hath stolen their hearts; and they which before would have been at the Egyptian flesh-pots, would now be at their devotions. How many have fallen into a fashion of swearing, scoffing, drinking, out of the usual practice of others; as those that live in an ill air are infected with diseases. A man may pass through | Ethiopia unchanged, but he cannot dwell there and not be discoloured. Their sin was bad enough: let not our uncharitableness make it worse. No man may think they have so put off humanity, and sense, with their religion, as to think that calf a god, or that this idol, which they saw yesterday made, did bring them out of Egypt three months ago: this were to make them more beasts than that calf which this image represented. Or, if they should have been so insensate, can we think that Aaron could be thus desperately mad? The image and the holy day were both to one deity: "To-morrow is the holy day of the Lord your God." It was the true God they meant to worship in the calf; and yet at best this idolatry is shameful. It is no marvel if this foul sin seeks pretences; yet no excuse can hide the shame of such a face. God's jealousy is not stirred only by the rivality of a false god, but of a false worship. Nothing is more dangerous than to mint God's services in our own brain. God sends down Moses to remedy this sin. He could as easily have prevented, as redressed it. He knew ere Moses came up what Israel would do ere he came down ; likeas he knew the two tables would be broken, ere he gave them. God most wisely permits and ordinates sin to his own ends, without our excuse: and though he could easily by his own hands remedy evils, yet he will do it by means both ordinary and subordinate. It is not for us to look for any immediate redress from God, when we have a Moses, by whom it may be wrought. Since God himself expects this from man, why should man expect it from God? As Now might Moses have found a time to have been even with Israel for all their unthankfulness, and mutinous insurrections: "Let me alone: I will consume them, and make of thee a mighty nation." Moses should not need to solicit God for revenge: God solicits him, in a sort, for leave to revenge. Who would look for such a word from God to man, "Let me alone?" yet Moses had said nothing: before he opens his mouth, God prevents his importunity, as foreseeing that holy violence which the requests of Moses would offer to him. Moses stood trembling before the majesty of his Maker; and yet hears him say, "Let me alone." The mercy of our God hath, as it were, obliged his power to the faith of men. The fervent prayers or the faithful hold the hands of the Almighty. As I find it said afterwards of Christ, That "he could do no miracles there, because of their unbelief:" so now I hear God (as if he could not do execution upon Israel, because of Moses' faith) say, "Let me alone, that I may consume them." We all naturally affect propriety, and like our own so much better, as it is freer from partners. Every one would be glad to say, with that proud one, "I am, and there is none beside me ."" so much the more sweetly would this message have sounded to nature, "I will consume them and make of thee a mighty nation." How | had wrought, promises not to do that which many endeavour that, not without danger he threatened. But what needs God to of curses and uproar, which was voluntarily care for the speech of the Egyptians-men, tendered unto Moses! Whence are our infidels? And if they had been good, yet depopulations and inclosures, but for that their censure should have been unjust. men cannot abide either fellows or neigh- Shall God care for the tongues of men; bours? But how graciously doth Moses the holy God for the tongues of infidels? strive with God, against his own prefer- The very Israelites, now they were from ment! If God had threatened, "I will under the hands of Egypt, cared not for consume thee, and make of them a mighty | their words; and shall the God of heaven nation," I doubt whether he could have regard that which is not worth the regard been more moved. The more a man can of men? Their tongues could not talk leave himself behind him, and aspire to a against God, but from himself; and if it care of community, the more spiritual he could have been the worse for him, would is. Nothing makes a man so good a patriot he have permitted it? But, O God, how as religion. dainty art thou of thine honour, that thou canst not endure the worst of men should have any colour to taint it! What, do we men stand upon our justice and innocence, with neglect of all unjust censures, when that infinite God, whom no censures can reach, will not abide that the very Egyptians should falsely tax his power and mercy! Wise men must care, not only to deserve well, but to hear well, and to wipe off, not only crimes, but censures. Oh the sweet disposition of Moses, fit for him that should be familiar with God! He saw they could be content to be merry and happy without him: he would not be happy without them. They had professed to have forgotten him: he slacks not to sue for them. He that will ever hope for good himself, must return good for evil unto others. That which he hath dictated to his servants the prophets, challenges just honour from us: how doth that deserve veneration, which his own hand wrote immediately? Yet, it was not Israel so much that Moses respected, as God in Israel. He There was never so precious a monuwas thrifty and jealous for his Maker; and ment as the tables written with God's own would not have him lose the glory of his hand. If we see but the stone which Jamighty deliverances; nor would abide a pre-cob's head rested on, or on which the foot tence for any Egyptian dog to bark against of Christ did once tread, we look upon it the powerful work of God: "Wherefore with more than ordinary respect. With shall the Egyptians say?" If Israel could what eye should we have beheld this stone, have perished without dishonour to God, which was hewed, and written with the perhaps his hatred to their idolatry would very finger of God? Any manuscript scroll, have overcome his natural love, and he had written by the hand of a famous man, is let God alone. Now so tender is he over laid up amongst our jewels: what place the name of God, that he would rather then should we have given to the handhave Israel escape with a sin, than God's writing of the Almighty? glory should be blemished in the opinions of men by a just judgment. He saw that the eyes and tongues of all the world were intent upon Israel, a people so miraculously fetched from Egypt, whom the sea gave way to; whom heaven fed; whom the rock watered; whom the fire and cloud guarded; which heard the audible voice of God. He knew withal, how ready the world would be to misconstrue, and how the heathens would be ready to cast imputations of levity or impotence upon God; and therefore says, "What will the Egyptians say?" Happy is that man which can make God's glory the scope of all his actions and desires; neither cares for his own welfare, nor fears the miseries of others, but with respect to God in both. If God had not given Moses this care of his glory, he could not have had it: and now his goodness takes it so kindly, as if himself had received a favour from his creature; and, for a reward of the grace he Prophecies and evangelical discourses he hath written by others; never did he write any thing himself, but these tables of the law; nor did he ever speak any thing audibly to the whole of mankind, but it. The hand, the stone, the law, were all his. By how much more precious this record was, by so much was the fault greater of defacing it. What king holds it less than rebellion to tear his writing and blemish his seal? At the first, he engraved his image in the table of man's heart; Adam blurred the image, but, through God's mercy, saved the tablet. Now he writes his will in the tables of stone; Moses breaks the tables, and defaces the writing. If they had been given him for himself, the author, the matter had deserved, that Who can but wonder, to see a multitude of so many hundred thousands (when Moses came running down the hill) to turn their eyes from their god, to him; and, on a sudden, instead of worshipping their idol, to batter it in pieces, in the very height of the novelty. Instead of building altars and kindling fires to it, to kindle a hotter fire than that wherewith it was melted, to consume it? instead of dancing before it, to abhor and deface it? instead of singing, to weep before it? there was never a more stiff-necked people: yet I do not hear any one man of them say, He is but one man; we are many: how easily may we destroy him, rather than he our god? If his brother durst not resist our motion in making it, why will we suffer him to dare to resist the keeping of it? It is our act, and we will maintain it. Here was none of this, but an humble obeisance to the basest and bloodiest revenge that Moses shall impose. God hath set such an impression of majesty in the face of lawful authority, that wickedness is confounded in itself to behold it. If from hence visible powers were not more feared than the ir visible God, the world would be overrun with outrage. Sin hath a guiltiness in itself, that, when it is seasonably checked, it pulls in its head, and seeks rather a hiding-place than a fort. as they were written in stone for perma- | next day they might find their god in their nency, so they should be kept for ever; excrements, to the just shame of Israel, and, as they were everlasting in use, so when they should see their new god canthey should be in preservation. Had they not defend himself from being either nothing, been written in clay, they could but have or worse. been broken; but now they were given for all Israel, for all mankind. He was but the messenger, not the owner. Howsoever therefore Israel had deserved, by breaking this covenant with God, to have this monument of God's covenant with them broken by the same hand that wrote it; yet how durst Moses thus carelessly cast away the treasure of all the world, and by his hands undo that which was with such cost and care done by his Creator? How durst he fail the trust of that God, whose pledge he received with awe and reverence? He that expostulated with God, to have Israel live and prosper, why would he deface the rule of their life, in the keeping whereof they should prosper? I see that forty days' talk with God cannot bereave a man of passionate infirmity. He that was the meekest upon earth, in a sudden indignation abandons that, which in cold blood he would have held faster than his life. He forgets the law written, when he saw it broken. His zeal for God hath transported him from himself, and his duty to the charge of God. He more hated the golden calf, wherein he saw engraven the idolatry of Israel, than he honoured tne tables of stone, wherein God had engraven his commandments; and more longed to deface the idol, than he cared to preserve the tables. Yet that God, which so sharply revenged the breach of one law upon the Israelites, checks not Moses for breaking both the tables of the law. The law of God is spiritual. The internal breach of one law is so heinous, that, in comparison of it, God scarce counts the breaking of the outward tables a breach of the law. The goodness of God winks at the errors of honest zeal, and so loves the strength of good affections, that it passeth over their infirmities. How highly God doth esteem a well-governed zeal, when his mercy crowns it with all the faults! The tables had not offended: the calf had, and Israel in it. Moses takes revenge on both; he burns and stamps the calf to powder, and gives it Israel to drink, that they might have it in their belly, instead of their eyes. How he hasteth to destroy the idol, wherein they sinned! that, as an idol is nothing, so it might be brought to nothing; and atoms and dust is nearest to nothing that, instead of going before Israel, it might pass through them, so as the The idol is not capable of a further revenge. It is not enough, unless the idolaters smart. The gold was good, if the Israelites had not been evil: so great a sin cannot be expiated without blood. Behold, that meek spirit which, in his plea with God would rather perish himself, than Israel should perish, arms the Levites against their brethren, and rejoices to see thousands of the Israelites bleed, and blesses their executioners. It was the mercy of Moses that made him cruel. He had been cruel to all, if some had not found him cruel. They are merciless hands which are not sometimes imbrued in blood. There is no less charity than justice, in punishing sinners with death: God delights no less in a killing mercy than in a pitiful justice. Some tender hearts would be ready to censure the rigour of Moses. Might not Israel have repented, and lived? Or, if they must die, must their brethren's hand be upon them? if their throats must be cut by their brethren, shall it be done in the very heat of their sin? But they must learn a difference betwixt pity and fondness, mercy and injustice. Moses had a heart as soft as theirs, but more hot; as pitiful, but wiser. He was a good physician, and saw that Israel could not live, unless he bled; he therefore lets out this corrupt blood, to save the whole body. There cannot be a better sacrifice to God, than the blood of malefactors; and this first sacrifice so pleased God in the hands of the Levites, that he would have none but them sacrifice to him for ever. The blood of the idolatrous Israelites cleared that tribe from the blood of the innocent Shechemites. BOOK VI. CONTEMPLATION I.—THE VEIL OF MOSES. Ir is a wonder that neither Moses nor any Israelite gathered up the shivers of the former tables. Every shred of that stone, and every letter of that writing, had been a relic worthy laying up; but he well saw how headlong the people were to superstition, and how unsafe it were to feed that disposition in them. The same zeal that burnt the calf to ashes, concealed the ruins of this monument. Holy things, besides their use, challenge no further respect. The breaking of the tables did as good as blot out all the writing; and the writing defaced left no virtue in the stone, no reverence to it. If God had not been friends with Israel, he had not renewed his law. As the Israelites were wilfully blind if they did not see God's anger in the tables broken, so could they not but hold it a good sign of grace, that God gave them his testimonies. There was nothing wherein Israel outstripped all the rest of the world more than in this privilege; the pledge of his covenant, the law written with God's own hand. Oh what a favour, then, is it, where God bestows his gospel upon any nation! That was but a killing letter; this is the power of God to salvation. Never is God thoroughly displeased with any people, where that continues. For likeas those which purpose love, when they fall of, call for their tokens back again, so, when God begins once perfectly to mislike, the first thing he withdraws is his gospel. Israel recovers this favour, but with an abatement. "Hew thee two tables." God made the first tables; the matter, the form was his now Moses must hew the next. As God created the first man after his own image; but that once defaced, Adam begat Cain after his own; or as the first temple razed, a second was built: yet so far short, that the Israelites wept at the sight of it. The first works of God are still the purest: those that he secondarily works by us, decline in their perfection. It was reason, that though God had forgiven Israel, they should still find they had sinned. They might see the footsteps of displeasure in the differences of the agent. When God had told Moses before, "I will not go before Israel, but my angel shall lead them," Moses so noted the difference, that he rested not, till God himself undertook their conduct; so might the Israelites have noted some remainders of offence, while, instead of that which his own hand did formerly make, he saith now, "Hew thee." And yet these second tables are kept reverently in the ark, when the other lay mouldered in shivers upon Sinai: likeas the repaired image of God in our regeneration is preserved, perfected, and laid up at last safe in heaven; whereas the first image of our created innocence is quite defaced: so the second temple had the glory of Christ's exhibition, though meaner in frame. The merciful respects of God are not tied to glorious outsides, or the inward worthiness of things or persons: "He hath chosen the weak and simple to confound the wise and mighty." Yet God did this work by Moses. Moses hewed, and God wrote. Our true Moses repairs that law of God, which we, in our nature, had broken; he revives it for us, and it is accepted of God, no less than if the first characters of his law had been still entire. We can give nothing but the table; it is God that must write in it. Our hearts are but a bare board, till God, by his finger, engrave his law in them. Yea, Lord, we are a rough quarry; hew thou us out, and square us fit for thee to write upon. Well may we marvel to see Moses, after this oversight, admitted to this charge again. Who of us would not have said, Your care indeed deserves trust: you did so carefully keep the first tables, that it would do well to trust you with such another burden? It was good for Moses that he had to do with God, not with men. The God of mercy will not impute the slips of our infirmity to the prejudice of our faithfulness. He, that after the mis-answer of the one talent, would not trust the evil servant witha |