Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

²⁴ So cried Moses and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Let us see then if they acted thus, if they left the people of God, and betook themselves to other nations. How many and vehement rebukes did Jeremiah utter against the sinners, and wicked ones of his people. Yet he lived among them, he entered into the same temple with them, celebrated the same mysteries; he lived in that congregation of wicked men, but by his crying out “he went out from them.” This is “to go out from them;” this is not “to touch the unclean thing,” the not consenting to them in will, and the not sparing them in word.

What shall I say of Jeremiah, of Isaiah, of Daniel, and Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets, who did not retire from the wicked people, lest they should desert the good who were mingled with that people, among whom themselves were able to be such as they were? When Moses himself, Brethren, was receiving the law in the mount, the people below made an idol. The people of God, the people who had been led through the waves of the Red Sea which gave way to them, and overwhelmed their enemies who followed after, after so many signs and miracles displayed in plagues upon the Egyptians even unto death, and for “their” protection unto deliverance, yet demanded an idol, obtained an idol by force, made an idol, adored an idol, sacrificed unto an idol.

God shows His servant what the people had done, and says that He will destroy them from before His Face. Moses makes intercession for them as he was about to return to this people; yet had he a good opportunity of retiring and “going out from them,” as these persons understand it, that he might “not touch the unclean thing,” might not live among them; but he did not so. And that he might not seem to have acted thus from necessity rather than from love, God offered him another people; so that He might destroy these: “I will make of you,” He said, “a great nation.” But he did not accept it; he cleaves to the sinners, he prays for the sinners.

And how does he pray? O signal proof of love, my Brethren! How does he pray? Mark that, as it were, mother's fondness, of which I have often spoken. When God threatened the sacrilegious people, Moses' tender heart trembled, and on their behalf he opposed himself to the wrath of God. “Lord,” he says, “if You will forgive their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” With what a father's and mother's fondness, yet with what assurance said he this, as he considered at once the justice and the mercy of God; that in that He is just, He would not destroy the righteous man; and that in that He is merciful, He would pardon the sinners.