Exodus 18

Secondly, hence we may learn, that Magistrates which are to govern the people, ought to be men of courage in performing the duties of their calling. When too heavy a burden lay on Moses, in judging all the congregation himself; Jethro his father in law bids him provide among all…

But religion and salvation, and consequently church-membership, according to the domestic way of administration then used, did for a considerable time continue among the children of Abraham by Keturah, as the story of Job intimates; he and his friends being justly conceived to h…

It is sinful to sit down at meat, without thoughts of God. You shall see it is said (Exodus 18:12) that the Elders of Israel did eat bread with Moses his father in law before the Lord; that is, in his presence: when you are eating bread, you are before the Lord; as the eyes of a…

When the enemies of the Church are in combination, like thorns full of prickles folded together, then shall they be consumed like stubble that is dry (Nahum 1:10). God loves to defeat pride (Exodus 18:11): in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them. God waits but…

They may threaten great things to us, but God threatens greater. See (Exodus 18:11): Now I know that God is greater than all gods, for in the thing in which they dealt proudly God was above them. There is a greater being we have to depend upon.

There was a similar reason for these seventy. We know that Moses, finding himself insufficient for the burden, took seventy judges to be associated with him in governing the people, (Exodus 18:22; 24:1.) But when the Jews returned from the Babylonish captivity, they had a counci…

Some knowledge of the true God, was retained as it should seem until now among some of them, being received by tradition from their fathers. Moses' father in law, was a priest of this country (Exodus 2:15, 16), not altogether unacquainted with Jehovah (Exodus 18), and was himsel…

There is the same mistake in the last difference assigned. Moses did not so receive the Spirit of Prophecy, as that he could at his own pleasure reveal those things which were not discoverable but by that Spirit; or speak out the mind of God infallibly in any thing for the use o…

In which also, as the Jews say, he set a pattern to future judges, as determining the lesser causes speedily, but those wherein blood was concerned, not without stay and much deliberation. § 16 In the Wilderness the body of the people was cast into a new distribution, of thousan…

But the name is first expressed (Genesis 8:20), where both the matter and nature also of it is set down; Noah builded an altar, and took of every clean beast (Bullocks, Sheep and Goats) and of every clean fowl (Turtles and Pigeons) (this God had instructed him in) [〈 in non-Lati…

Then further, the word Elohim, is used in Scripture, not only for the true God, for God himself: but it is applied sometimes to Angels, and sometimes to Idols, to Devil gods, to false gods. (Exodus 18:11). Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, namely, than all the I…

For, because kings cannot be omnipresent, nor omniscient, it is therefore necessary that they should hear with other men's ears, and see with other men's eyes, and act with other men's hands; and therefore they ought to make choice of such as are men of known fidelity and wisdom…

Carnal fear is an enemy to Religion. The Fear of God frights it away; it causes Courage, Exodus 18:21. Able men, such as Fear God: some Translations render it, Men of Courage.

The love of the world will make him altogether unfit for magistracy, ministry, the master of a family, or any such relation. In magistracy, who are the men that are qualified for that office (Exodus 18:22)? Such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness.

The greatness of his power is hereby discovered, and that he has laid salvation upon one that is mighty, that when all the power of darkness has proceeded to his highest pitch, when the subtleties of hell and all the venom of the corrupt heart of man furthered by all advantages,…

And by the way least this place may be thought to favor the Priests enquiring by Vrim, for the resolving of the controversie, because tis said, Then both the men between whom the controversie is, shall stand before the Lord, before the Priests and the Iudges, I shall to what I h…

It made Martha forget that one thing necessary, being encumbered with many things (Luke 10:4) — this breeds care which distracts the mind (so the word signifies, as dividing it), and so causes wandering thoughts nothing more, so that the mind is not itself. For this weakens it,…

And that so he might learn to fear the Lord his God, and not to exalt himself above his brothers. Now if kings whose heads and hands are most full of business, continually employed from morning to night (Exodus 18). If they be to read in the word all the days of their lives, how…

For thus Abraham after he had received the Angels into his tent, and prepared meat for them, served himself by them under the tree, giving attendance, while they did eat (Genesis 18:8). In like manner, when Moses sat in judgment, the people are said to have stood about him, from…

(3.) Because God only is true and infallible, and all men are liars (Romans 3:4; Hebrews 6:18). He is of incomprehensible wisdom (Psalm 147:5), of great goodness (Exodus 18:9; Romans 11:12; Psalm 34:8), of absolute power and dominion (Genesis 17:1; Psalm 50:1-2), of infallible t…

(4) Because, there is a particular example of a Synod, which had the power of Jurisdiction, and which consisted, and was made up of members, out of diverse Classical Conventions: For when the question about circumcision, and the keeping of Moses' Law, which troubled the churches…