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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

And, O how bare and uncomely does profession appear, for want of this adorning! When the Israelites had stripped themselves of their ornaments to furnish up a golden calf, it is said, they were made naked to their shame (Exodus 32:25). How naked are we (like Adam when he had sin…

This was Adam's folly, who at his wife's motion did eat of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6). This was Aaron's folly, who to please the people, erected an idol (Exodus 32:1). And this was Saul's folly, who against God's express prohibition suffered his people to take some of the…

Except the like charge can be shown, his example makes nothing to the purpose. 2. For Levi's speech, 1. It was noted by Moses in relation to a particular zealous fact of the Levites in executing the vengeance of the Lord, and so to be reckoned among such extraordinary things as…

Nay, in some cases God's glory is more to be cared for than our own salvation, if they two could come in competition; but that case never falls out with the creature; our salvation is conjoined with the glory of God. But yet in supposition, if it should, as Paul and Moses puts t…

The Lord disclaims the people which were brought out of the land of Egypt, when they rebelled against him. (Exodus 32:7) The Lord said to Moses, Go, get [reconstructed: you] down; for your people which you brought out of [reconstructed: the] land of Egypt, have corrupted themsel…

(Proverbs 11:31) Behold the righteous shall be recompensed upon the earth, much more the wicked and the sinner. (Exodus 32, etc.) 2. That he may go on in ungodliness, injustice, intemperance, because grace has abounded in the Gospel (Titus 2:11-12). For the grace of God that bri…

How earnestly did Abraham pray for mercy in behalf of Sodom, that if possible it might not be destroyed. When Israel had sinned a great sin, and provoked the Lord, Moses mediates and intercedes for them, and offers to die that they may live (Exodus 32). Now if they did not know…

Admits no case of exception, whatever difficulty or danger may be presented or can be conceived in the compass of a man's apprehension; indeed there cannot befall any [illegible] or pretence which carries any reality with it, why the soul should continue any entertainment with a…

As to the first, the less of the creature and self, and the more of God in the end, so much the more denied and spiritual is the doer, when purely for God [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] we do (1 Corinthians 10:13; Colossians 3:23), we are sick for God, and in health for God, and wake…

But there is much of the creature, of self, of gain, of empty glory, in our spiritual actings. God weighs not down the creature nor heaven and union with Christ, as (Exodus 32:32; Romans 9:3). (2.) It's a spiritual soul that misses God, rather than the train of all the graces of…

2nd Commandment: You shall make to yourself no graven image, etc. He breaks this commandment: who represents God in an image (Exodus 32:6-8); who worships God in or at images, as crucifixes and such like (2 Kings 18:4); who kneels down before an image; who is bodily present at M…

Jacob had a princely power over the Angel, and prevailed, he wept, and made supplication to him, [illegible] Is a Prince, or as many render it, Rectus fuit cum Deo, or, Directus fuit, vel prosperum successum habuit, Which may note either a princedom in prayer over God, which is…

So James calls it (chapter 5, verse 16): [reconstructed: prayer possessed with a spirit] — but a good spirit — prayer steeled with fervor of spirit, so fervent that David is like the messenger who lays by three horses as breathless: his heart, his throat, his eyes (Psalm 69:3).…

Now fervency stands in two things; in earnestness of the affection, and strength of persuasion; earnestness of affection, Why do you cry? and so strength of persuasion; he makes choice of such arguments as are most fit to persuade, as from God's former gracious dealing, and so p…

Now both these would have done well together, in a time of solemn humiliation; the one mourning for his own corruptions, and the other, for the sins of the town and country he lives in; and this makes a fit combination in such a duty. Then consider, you may have men that may be…