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as they were written in stone for permanency, so they should be kept for ever; and, as they were everlasting in use, so they should be in preservation. Had they been written in clay, they could but have 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 the 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

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next day they might find their god in their excrements, to the just shame of Israel, when they should see their new god cannot defend himself from being either nothing, or worse.

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 invisible 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.

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

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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 taient, would not trust the evil servant with

a second, because he saw a wilful neglect, will trust Moses with his second law, because he saw fidelity in the worst error of his zeal. Our charity must learn, as to forgive, so to believe where we have been deceived: not that we should wilfully beguile ourselves in an unjust credulity, but that we should search diligently into the disposition of persons, and grounds of their actions. Perhaps none may be so sure as they that have once disappointed us. Yea, Moses brake the first; therefore he must hew the second. If God had broken them, he would have repaired them. The amends must be where the fault was. Both God and his church look for a satisfaction in that wherein we have offended.

It was not long since Moses' former fast of forty days: when he then came down from the hill, his first question was not for meat; and now going up again to Sinai, he takes not any repast with him. That God, which sent the quails to the host of Israel, and manna from heaven, could have fed him with dainties. He goes up confidently, in a secure trust of God's provision. There is no life to that of faith. "Man lives not by bread only." The vision of God did not only satiate, but feast him. What a blessed satiety shall there be when we shall see him as he is; and he shall be all in all to us; since this very frail mortality of Moses was sustained and comforted but with representations of his presence!

I see Moses the receiver of the law, Elias the restorer of the law, Christ the fulfiller of the old law, and author of the new, all fasting forty days; and these three great fasters I find together glorious in Mount Tabor. Abstinence merits not; for religion consists not in the belly, either full or empty. What are meats or drinks to the kingdom of God, which is, like himself, spiritual? But it prepares best for good duties. Full bellies are fitter for rest. Not the body, so much as the soul, is more active with emptiness. Hence solemn prayer takes ever fasting to attend it, and so much the rather speeds in heaven when it is so accompanied. It is good so to diet the body, that the soul may be fattened.

When Moses came down before, his eyes sparkled with anger, and his face was both interchangeably pale and red with indignation; now it is bright with glory. Before, there were the flames of fury in it; now, the beams of majesty. Moses had before spoken with God: why did not his face shine before? I cannot lay the cause upon the inward trouble of his passions, for this brightness was external. Whither

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shall we impute it, but to his more entireness with God?

The more familiar acquaintance we have with God, the more do we partake of him. He that passes by the fire, may have some gleams of heat; but he that stands by it, hath his colour changed. It is not possible a man should have any long conference with God, and be no whit affected. We are strangers from God,- it is no wonder if our faces be earthly; but he that sets himself apart to God, shall find a kind of majesty and awful respect put upon him in the minds of others.

How did the heart of Moses shine with illumination, when his face was thus lightsome! And if the flesh of Moses, in this base composition, so shined by conversing with God forty days in Sinai, what shall our glory be when clothed with incorruptible bodies? We shall converse with him for ever in the highest heaven.

Now his face only shone; afterwards the three disciples saw all his body shining. The nature of a glorified body, the clearer vision, the immediate presence of that fountain of glory, challenge a far greater resplendence to our faces than his. O God, we are content that our faces be blemished a while with contempt, and blubbered with tears. How can we but shine with Moses, when we shall see thee more than Moses!

The brightness of Moses' face reflected not upon his own eyes; he shone bright, and knew not of it. He saw God's face glorious; he did not think others had so seen his. How many have excellent graces, and perceive them not! Our own sense is an ill judge of God's favours to us⚫ those that stand by, can convince us in that which we deny to ourselves. Here below, it is enough if we can shine in the eyes of others; above, we shall shine and know it.

At this instant, Moses sees himself shine; then he needed not. God meant not that he should more esteem himself, but that he should be more honoured of the Israelites. That other glory shall be for our own happiness, and therefore requires our knowledge.

They that did but stand still to see anger in his face, ran away to see glory in it. Before, they had desired that God would not speak to them any more but by Moses; and now, that God doth but look upon them in Moses, they are afraid: and yet there was not more difference betwixt the voices than the faces of God and Moses. This should have drawn Israel to Moses so much the more, to have seen this im pression of divinity in his face.

That which should have comforted, affrights them yea, Aaron himself, that before went up into the mount to see and speak with God, now is afraid to see him that had seen God. Such a fear there is in guiltiness, such confidence in innocency. When the soul is once cleared from sin, it shall run to that glory with joy, the least glimpse whereof now appals it, and sends it away in terror. How could the Israelites now choose but think, How shall we abide to look God in the face, since our eyes are dazzled with the face of Moses! And well may we still argue, if the image of God, which he hath set in the fleshy forehead of authority, daunt us, how shall we stand before the dreadful tribunal of heaven!

Moses marvels to see Israel run away from their guide, as from their enemy, and ooks back to see if he could discern any new cause of fear; and not conceiving how this mild face could affright them, calls them to stay and return.

O my people, whom do ye fly? It is for your sakes that I ascended, stayed, came down. Behold, here are no armed Levites to strike you, no Amalekites, no Egyptians to pursue you, no fires and thunders to dismay you. I have not that rod of God in my hand, which you have seen to command the elements; or if I had, so far am I from purposing any rigour against you, that I now lately have appeased God towards you; and, lo! here the pledges of his reconciliation. God sends me to you for good; and do you run from your best friend? Whither will ye go from me, or without me? Stay, and hear the charge of that God from whom we cannot fly.

They perceive his voice the same, though his face were changed, and are persuaded to stay, and return and hear him, whom they dare not see; and now, after many doubtful paces, approaching nearer, dare tell him he was grown too glorious.

respects, he modestly hides nis glorified face, and cares not their eyes should pierce so far as to his skin, on condition that his words may pierce into their ears. It is good for a man sometimes to hide his graces; some talents are best improved by being laid up. Moses had more glory by his veil than by his face. Christian modesty teaches a wise man not to expose himself to the fairest show, and to live at the utmost pitch of his strength.

There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl laid up in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor ever shall be. There is many a goodly star, which, because of height, comes not within our account. How did our true Moses, with the veil of his flesh, hide the glory of his deity, and put on vileness, besides the laying aside of majesty, and shut up his great and divine miracles with, "See you tell no man!" How far are those spirits from this, which care only to be seen, and wish only to dazzle others' eyes with admiration, not caring for unknown riches! But those yet more, which desire to seem above themselves, whether in parts or graces, whose veil is fairer than their skin. Modest faces shall shine through their veils, when the vain-glorious shall bewray their shame through their covering.

That God which gave his law in smoke, delivered it again through the veil of Moses. Israel could not look to the end of that which should be abolished: for the same cause had God a veil upon his face, which hid his presence in the holy of holies. Now, as the veil of God did rend when he said, "It is finished;" so the veil of Moses was then pulled off. We clearly see Christ the end of the law. Our Joshua, that succeeded Moses, speaks to us bare-faced. What a shame is it there should be a veil upon our hearts, when there is none on his face!

Good Moses, finding that they durst not When Moses went to speak with God, look upon the sun of his face, clouds it he pulled off his veil: it was good reason with a veil; choosing rather to hide the he should present to God that face which work of God in him, than to want an he had made: there had been more need opportunity of revealing God's will to his of his veil to hide the glorious face of God people. I do not hear him stand upon from him, than to hide his from God: but terms of reputation: if there be glory in his faith and thankfulness serve for both my face, God put it there; he would not these uses. Hypocrites are contrary to have placed it so conspicuously if he had Moses: he showed his worst to men, his meant it should be hid. Hide ye your best to God; they show their best to men, faces rather, which are blemished with your their worst to God: but God sees both sin, and look not that I should wrong God their veil and their face; and I know not and myself, to seem less happy, in favour whether he more hates their veil of dis of your weakness. But without all self-simulation, or their face of wickedness.

CONTEMPLATION II. —OF NADAB AND ABIHU.

THAT God, which showed himself to men in fire when he delivered his law, would have men present their sacrifices to him in fire; and this fire he would have his own, that there might be a just circulation in this creature; as the water sends up those vapours which it receives down again in rain. Hereupon it was, that fire came down from God unto the altar; that as the charge of the sacrifice was delivered in fire and smoke, so God might signify the❘ acceptation of it, in the like fashion wherein it was commanded. The Baalites might lay ready their bullock upon the wood, and water in their trench; but they might sooner fetch the blood out of their bodies, and destroy themselves, than one flash out of heaven to consume the sacrifice.

That devil, which can fetch down fire from heaven, either maliciously or to no purpose (although he abound with fire, and did as fervently desire this fire, in emulation to God, as ever he desired mitigation of his own), yet now he could no more kindle a fire for the idolatrous sacrifice, than quench the flames of his own torment. Herein God approves himself only worthy to be sacrificed unto, that he creates the fire for his own service; whereas the impotent idols of the heathen must fetch fire from their neighbour's kitchen, and themselves are fit matter for their borrowed fire. The Israelites, that were led too much with sense, if they had seen the bullock consumed with a fire fetched from a common hearth, could never have acknowledged what relation the sacrifice had to God; had never perceived that God took notice of the sacrifice: but now they see the fire coming out from the presence of God, they are convinced both of the power and acceptation of the Almighty; they are at once amazed and satisfied to see the same God answer by fire, which before had spoken by fire. God doth not less approve our evangelical sacrifices than theirs under the law: but as our sacrifices are spiritual, so are the signs of his acceptation. Faith is our guide, as sense was theirs. Yea, even still doth God testify his approbation by sensible evidences. When by a lively faith and fervent zeal our hearts are consecrated to God, then doth this heavenly fire come down upon our sacrifices: then are they holy, living, acceptable.

This flame that God kindled, was not as some momentary bonfire, for a sudden and short triumph, nor as a domestic fire, to go

out with the day; but is given for a perpetuity, and neither must die nor be quenched. God, as he is himself eternal, so he loves permanency and constancy of grace in us: if we be but a flash and away, God regards us not. All promises are to perseverance. Sure, it is but an elementary fire that goes out; that which is celestial continues. It was but some presumptuous heat in us that decays upon every occasion.

But he that miraculously sent down this fire at first, will not renew the miracle every day by a like supply: it began immediately from God; it must be nourished by means. Fuel must maintain that fire which came from heaven; God will not work miracles every day: if he hath kindled his Spirit in us, we may not expect he shall every day begin again: we have the fuel of the word and sacraments, prayers and meditations, which must keep it in for ever. It is from God that these helps can nourish his graces in us, likeas every flame of our material fire hath a concourse of providence; but we may not expect new infusions: rather know, that God expects of us an improvement of those habitual graces we have received.

While the people, with fear and joy, see God lighting his own fire, fire from heaven, the two sons of Aaron, in a careless presumption, will be serving him with a common flame; as if he might not have leave to choose the forms of his own worship. If this had been done some ages after, when the memory of the original of this heavenly fire had been worn out, it might have been excused with ignorance; but now, when God had newly sent his fire from above, newly commanded the continuance of it, either to let it go out, or, while it still flamed, to fetch profane coals to God's altar, could savour of no less than presumption and sacrilege. When we bring zeal without knowledge, misconceits of faith, carnal affections, the devices of our will-worship, superstitious devotions, into God's service, we bring common fire to his altar: these flames were never of his kindling; he hates both altar, fire, priest, and sacrifice. And now, behold, the same fire which consumed the sacrifice before, consumes the sacrificers. It was the sign of his acceptation, in consuming the beast, but, while it destroyed men, the fearful sign of his displeasure. By the same means can God bewray both love and hatred. We would have pleaded for Nadab and Abihu; they are but young men, the sons of Aaron, not yet warm in their function: let both age, and blood, and inexperience, excuse them as yet. No pretences, no privileges, can

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