heard to name himself, with that voice, Jehovah? How could they think of standing with him for a day, whom they saw to command that heaven, which makes and measures day? How could they think of disobeying his deputies, whom they saw so able to revenge? How could they think of killing, when they were half dead with the fear of him, that could kill both body and soul? How could they think of the flames of lust, that saw such fires of vengeance? How could they think of stealing from others, that saw whose the heaven and earth were to dispose of at his pleasure? How could they think of speaking falsely, that heard God speak in so fearful a tone? How could they think of coveting others goods, that saw how weak and uncertain a right they had to their own? Yea, to us was his law so delivered; to us in them: neither had there been such state in the promulgation of it, if God had not intended it for eternity. We men, that so fear the breach of human laws, for some small mulcts of forfeiture; how should we fear thee, O Lord, that canst cast body and soul into hell! Exod. xix, xx.

THE GOLDEN CALF.

Ir was not much above a month, since Israel made their covenant with God; since they trembled to hear him say, Thou shalt have no other Gods but me; since they saw Moses part from them, and climb up the hill to God and now they say, Make us Gods, we know not what is become of this Moses. Q ye mad Israelites, have ye so soon forgotten that fire and thunder, which you heard and saw? Is that smoke vanished out of your mind, as soon as out of your sight? Could your hearts cease to tremble with the earth? Can ye in the very sight of Sinai, call for other gods? And, for Moses; was it not for your sakes, that he thrust himself into the midst of that smoke and fire, which ye feared to see afar off? Was he not now gone, after so many sudden embassages, to be your leaguer with God? If ye had seen him take to his heels, and run away from you into the wilderness, what could ye have said or done more? Behold, our better Moses was with us awhile upon earth, he is now ascended into the mount of heaven, to mediate for us; shall we now think of another Saviour? Shall we not hold it our happiness, that he is for our sakes above?

And what if your Moses had been gone for ever? Must ye therefore have gods made? If ye had said, "Choose us another governor," it had been a wicked and unthankful motion; ye were too unworthy of a Moses, that could so soon forget him but to say, Make us Gods, was absurdly impious, Moses was not your God, but your governor : neither was the presence of God tied to Moses: You saw God still when he was gone, in his pillar, and in his manna, and yet ye say, Make us Gods.

Every word is full of senseless wickedness. How many gods would you have? or what gods are those that can be made? or, whatever the idolatrous Egyptians did, with what face can ye,

after so many miraculous obligations, speak of another God? Had the voice of God scarce done thundering in your ears? Did you so lately hear and see him to be an infinite God? Did ye quake to hear him say out of the midst of the flames, I am Jehovah thy God: thou shalt have no Gods but Me? Did ye acknowledge God your Maker, and do you now speak of making of Gods? If ye had said, "Make us another man to go before us", it had been an impossible suit. Aaron might help to mar you and himself; he could not make one hair of a man: and do ye say, Make us Gods? And what should those Gods do? Go before you. How could they go before you that cannot stand alone? your help makes them to stand, and yet they must conduct you.

Oh the impatient ingratitude of carnal minds! Oh the sottishness of idolatry! Who would not have said, "Moses is not with us, but he is with God for us? He stays long: he, that called him, withholds him his delay is for our sakes, as well as his ascent. Though we see him not, we will hope for him; his favours to us have deserved not to be rejected: or, if God will keep him from us; he, that withholds him, can supply him; he, that sent him, can lead us without him; his fire and cloud are all-sufficient; God hath said and done enough for us, to make us trust him: we will, we can have no other God; we care not for any other guide." But behold here is none of this: Moses stays but some five-andthirty days, and now he is forgotten, and is become but this Moses: yea, God is forgotten, with him; and, as if God and Moses had been lost at once, they say, Make us Gods. Natural men must have God at their bent; and if he come not at a call, he is cast off, and they take themselves to their own shifts: like as the Chinese whip their gods, when they answer them not; whereas his holy ones wait long, and seek him; and not only in their sinking, but from the bottom of the deeps, 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 doted 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.

The

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. 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; whilst 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 forbad 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 condescension 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 them dance before it. It is a miserable 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 better 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 ear-rings, 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 afterwards 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 consecrated to him, which was dishonoured by the idol, The grossest of al sins cannot prejudice the calling of God; yea, as the light is best seen in darkness, the mercy of God is most magnified in our unworthiness.

What a difference God puts between persons 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 nig-. gards 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 holyday were both to one Deity: Tomorrow is the holyday of the Lord your God. It was the true God they meant to worship in the calf; and yet at best this ido latry is shameful. It is no marvel if this foul sin seek pretences; yet no excuse can hide the shame of such a face. God's jealousy is not stirred only by the rivalry 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 before Moses came up, what İsrael would do before he came down like as he knew the two tables would be broken, before 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?

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 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? As 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 of 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's 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 many endeavour that not, without danger of curses and uproar, which was voluntarily tendered unto Moses! Whence are our depopulations and inclosures, but for that men cannot abide either fellows or neighbours: but how graciously doth Moses strive with God, against his own preferment! If God had threatened, “I will consume thee, and make of them a mighty nation;" I doub whether he could have been more moved. The more a man can leave himself behind him, and aspire to a care of community, the