Exodus 32

Christ's intercession must needs be effectual, if you consider, (1.) The excellency of his person; if the prayer of a saint be so prevalent with God: Moses's prayer did bind God's hands (Exodus 32:10): Let me alone; and Jacob as a prince prevailed with God (Genesis 32:28); and E…

2. There is but one omnipotent power. If there be two omnipotents, then we must always suppose a contest between these two; that which one would do, the other power being equal would oppose, and so all things would be brought into a confusion. If a ship should have two pilots of…

Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife. And (Exodus 32:7) Your people have corrupted themselves; no more my people, but your people. God calls idolatry blasphemy (Ezekiel 20:27, 31).

When God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel. Image worship enrages God (Proverbs 6:34). Jealousy is the rage of a man: It makes God divorce a people (Exodus 32:7). Your people, lo-ammi (Hosea 2:2). Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife (Song of…

11. We hallow and sanctify God's name when we sympathize with him: we grieve when his name suffers. 1. We lay to heart his dishonors: how was Moses affected with God's dishonor, he breaks the tables (Exodus 32:19). We grieve to see God's sabbaths profaned, his worship adulterate…

Prayer vincit invincibilem, it overcomes the Omnipotent (Hosea 12:4). The [reconstructed: Tyrians] tied fast their god Hercules with a golden chain that he should not remove: the Lord was held by Moses' prayer as with a golden chain (Exodus 32:10). Let me alone: why what did Mos…

Abraham prayed for Abimelech, Genesis 20:17-18, and, God healed him and his family of barrenness. At Moses' prayer, God's judgments were taken from Egypt: Exodus 7:12, 13, 30, and his wrath appeased toward his people, Exodus 32:11, 14. And some think that Stephen's prayer at his…

And this fell out so suddenly after the making of the Covenant, that the Apostle expresseth it by, they continued not in it; they made haste to break it. He expresseth the sense of the words of God hereon (Exodus 32:7, 8): Go get you down, for your people which you broughtest ou…

Respect also is had herein to the framing of the fabric of the Old Tabernacle by Bezaliel. For although the pattern of it was shown to Moses in the Mount from Heaven, yet the actual framing and erection of it, was by the hands of workmen, skilful to work in all kind of earthly m…

Whereby we are taught, that before God should want any part of his glory, we must let body and soul and all go, that God may have all his glory. This affection had Moses (Exodus 32:32) when he said, Either forgive them, or if you will not, blot my name out of your book. In this…

First the diligence of ungodly men and the quickness of their nature to practice sin and wickedness: as it was said of the old Jews (Isaiah 59:7), their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. When the Israelites would sacrifice to the golden calf which they had mad…

No cause, but that he might stir us up to be more earnest to cry to the Lord. Exodus 32:10. When Moses prayed to God in the behalf of the Israelites, the Lord answers, Let me alone: as though his prayers did bind the Lord, and hinder him from executing his judgments. Therefore t…

See the vanity of other things. 1. Outward profession is nothing, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision; God disclaims interest in a sinful people; Your people which you have brought out of the land of Egypt (says God to Moses) when they had corrupted themselves (Exodus 32:7)…

Objection 2. Exodus 32:13: Moses prays that God would respect his people for Abraham's sake, and for Isaac and Israel his servants, who were not then living. Answer: Moses prays God to be merciful to the people not for the intercession of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but for his c…

But we hold it unlawful to worship God in, by, or at any image, for this is what the second commandment forbids. And the fact of the Israelites in Exodus 32, in worshipping the golden calf, is condemned as flat idolatry — albeit they worshipped not the calf but God in the calf.…

Though indeed it is but a vain pretence to say, they do it in honor of Christ, for it is not good intentions that will excuse bad actions. Jeroboam pretended very good intentions; the Israelites pretended a holy day to Jehovah (Exodus 32:5), though they kept it in a rude manner,…

And why should there not be dancing in the worship of God as well as piping? For those old idolaters in Exodus 32 did not only shout, but also danced and played before their idol. Erasmus, though in many things a Papist, yet he saw the evil of this, that whole flocks of boys sho…

The idolatry against which the Prophets are so frequently, and almost continually thundring forth the wrath of God throughout the Old Testament, and which is so much condemned also in the New, and which the people were chiefly guilty of, is for the most part this latter. For whe…

They cannot direct themselves without his wisdom, nor preserve themselves without his power. God has a book of providence wherein he writes down who shall be preserved, and this book Moses understands (Exodus 32:33): Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book…

No cause, but that he might stir us up to be more fervent, and more earnestly to cry to the Lord. When Moses prays to God in the behalf of the Israelites, the Lord answers, Let me alone, as though his prayers did bind the Lord, and hinder him from executing his judgments (Exodus…

Where by we are taught, that before God should want any part of his glory, we are to let soule and all go, and let God have all his glory. This affection had Moses (Exodus 32:32). When he said, Either forgiue them, or if you wilt not, blot my name out of your booke.

From where observe, God visits men's sins when they think they are most neglected by God; God has his time to make diligent enquiry for all their sins, in Exodus 32:34. In the day when I visit, I will visit their sins upon them, then all their sins shall come up together, and th…

"Hail, son of Neptune, the most powerful of gods, and of Venus: other gods are indeed either far away, or lack ears, or do not exist, or do not turn their attention to caring for our affairs; but you we perceive as present, not a stony or wooden deity, but a true divinity." This…

And the one calf of Aaro- nic's calf is called "gods of gold," Exodus 32:31. XIII. They are also variously called with respect to their outward form.

I. There follow those things in which they sinned in the manner and means of religious worship, substituting arbitrary worship in place of what was instituted. And here the Aaronic calf first presents itself (Exodus 32:1-5). Moses having been absent on the mountain for some days…

Christ gave himself a ransom for all capable of a ransom; Arminians say that the finally obdurate, those that sin against the Holy Ghost, and infants of heathens, or any dying infants, cannot be ransomed by Christ. (Exodus 32:26) "All the sons of Levi came to Moses" — not all wi…

He prays like a king, who is in joint commission with God. If God puts that honor upon our prayers, that we are said to have power with God, as Jacob (Hosea 12:3) — that if God be never so angry, yet by taking hold of his strength, we hold his hands (Isaiah 27:5) — that God crie…

He under God had been the deliverer of the people of Israel out of Egypt, with the hazard of his own life, & had led them in the wildernesse, and given them that good Law that was their wisdom in the sight of all the Nations, and by his prayers kept off God's wrath from them. An…

If any man see his brother sin, let him ask. So did holy Moses (Exodus 32:31-33). This was the first work he had to do upon their sin, and he spent forty days and forty nights about that work; when he saw it was a sin, and punished it as a magistrate, he satisfies not himself in…

We ought to shame ourselves for this breach of covenant, else we cannot say, that we make a true covenant with God, and charge ourselves for being so false to God, and then some good may come of it. When the people had broken covenant with God, and God was very angry, and would…

And this is a notable sign of a man's integrity and uprightness of heart: he would not have anything by which God might have dishonor; he would not have the ordinances with the church's loss, but rather sit out, and shift for himself as well as he could, and would venture the lo…

The drift of the Psalmist in this place, is to show by eminent instances of holy men that were most notable for prayer, how they have stopped judgments when they began to be executed. Moses, at his prayer God was propitiated, after the provocation of the Golden Calf; for it is s…

This suggestion entrenched upon the glory of God, the other upon his love to mankind, and Christ could endure neither; Satan is commanded out of his presence with indignation. The same zeal we see in his servants, in Moses in case of idolatry (Exodus 32:19): He broke the tables.…

And none with them, yea Moses only must come near, and the rest must worship afar off: And what business have these familiar friends one with another? Why, sometimes the Lord speaks to Moses, sometimes Moses speaks to God in secret prayer: See both together in (Exodus 32:9-11).…

It was not the will and counsel of God to destroy the Israelites for their idolatry. And he does not speak to Moses anything contrary to his will, but something that is beside, or different to it, when he says: let me alone, that my wrath [reconstructed: may wax hot] and I may d…

Now that inward nakednes of heart is noted as a speciall euill, Gen 3:7. Exod 32:25. Prou. 29. 18.

Aarons calfe was an Image of the true God. Exod 32:5. And it must be obserued, that Iehu destroied the Idols of Baal, 2.

For believers, in pouring out their prayers, do not always ascend to the contemplation of the secrets of God, or deliberately inquire what is possible to be done, but are sometimes carried away hastily by the earnestness of their wishes. Thus Moses prays that he may be blotted o…

God has his certain days, or appointed seasons of the exercise both of mercy and judgment. There are some seasons that are remarkable times of wrath, that are laid out by God for that purpose, for his awful visitation, and the executions of his anger; which times are called days…

Doth Communion with God set the keenest edge upon the soul against sin? You see it does: and have a pregnant Instance of it in Moses, when he had been with God in the Mount for forty days, and had there enjoyed communion with him; when he came down and saw the Calf the people ha…

He that is more frequent in the Pulpit to his people, then he is in his closet for his people, is but a sorry watchman. Moses did not so (Exodus 32:31), neither did Samuel so (1 Samuel 12:23), neither was it the guize of Jeremiah in his days (Cap. 14:17). If the beginning of the…

Now it is true, that a man may be chosen to some peculiar office in the Church of God, and yet be a perishing and damned man; but this phrase has no relation to the decree of God from eternity, only to a temporal electing of twelve men to a temporal office, to the office of an A…

And to the verb where it respecteth the offence to be atoned for, they usually annex [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] to it. Exodus 32:30. You have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up to the Lord, [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], that I may atone for your sins.

As when it is said in the Scripture, they went down into the midst of the Sea, the word is, they went down into the heart of the Sea; and in the midst of the earth, it is the heart of the earth; And so when it is said that Absalom was hanging in the midst of the Oak, the Origina…

2. We may observe here the power of lively faith (to which nothing is impossible) love and faith will stick to Christ against his own seeming entreaties, till they gain their point, and will prevail (Genesis 32:28). 3. See here the condescending, the wonderful condescending of t…

2. This phrase, Turn away your eyes, is not so to be taken, as if Christ approved not her looking to him, or her faith in him; but, to show the exceeding great delight he had in her placing her faith and love on him, which was such, that her loving and believing looks ravished h…

First, upon the same account the Israelites were not idolaters in worshipping the golden calf: for they were not so brutish as to believe that calf itself to be their God: in fact, it is most evident, that they intended to worship the true God under that representation. See (Exo…

The magistrate receives his commission from God and does it as his minister and servant; yes, and in doing it is so far from doing a cruel and unjust act — an act that will either pollute his hands or stain his conscience — that it makes him the more holy and pure. And therefore…

In wrestling Jacob, when the Lord says, Let me go (Genesis 32:26). In Moses interceding (Exodus 32:10, 11, 12). Yes, when Christ commands the disciples to watch, and in order to watching cites the prophecy of Zechariah, c. 13, who foretold that the flock should be scattered, and…

Psalm 79:5. How long Lord, will you be angry, for ever? And especially a gracious heart is saddened most at the outgoings of wrath against prayer (Psalm 80:4), in which the Mediator, and the precious name of God, in a manner, seem to suffer (Psalm 42:3, 10; Psalm 83:1, 2, 3; Isa…