ty, and
yet he is very loath to separate even for that. He makes many shows of
departing, that so we may hold him fast, and indeed he is not difficult to
be holden. He threatens often to remove his presence from a person or
nation, and he threatens, that he may not indeed remove, but that they may
entreat him to stay, and he is not hard to be entreated. Who is a God like
unto him, slow to anger, and of great mercy? He is long of being provoked,
and not long provoked, for it is like the anger of a parent's love. Love
takes on anger as the last remedy, and if it prevail, it is as glad to put
it off as it was unwilling to take it on. You may see a lively picture of
this in God's dealing with Moses and this people in the preceding chapter.
He had long endured this rebellious and obstinate people,--had often
threatened to cut them off,--and yet, as it were, loath to do it, and
repenting of it, he suffers himself to be entreated for them, but all in
vain to them,--they corrupted their way still more, and in the 32d chapter
fall into gross idolatry, the great trespass that he had given them so
solemn warning of often, whereupon great wrath is conceived. And the Lord
(chap. xxxiii. 2) threatens to depart from them,--Go your way, saith he to
Canaan, but I will not go with you, take your venture of any judgments,
and the people of the land's cruelty. Here is a sad farewell to Israel,
and who would think he could be detained after all that? Who would think
that he could be entreated? And yet he is not entreated, he is not
requested, before he gives some ground of it, and before he first
condescends; go, saith he, and put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may
know what to do unto thee. Will he then accept a repenting people, and is
there yet hope of mercy? Should he that is going away show us the way to
keep him still? And he that flees from us, will he strengthen us to pursue
and follow after him? This is not after the manner of men, it is true,
whose compassions fail when their passion ariseth, but this is the manner
and method of grace, or of him who waits to be gracious. He flees so as he
would have a follower. Yea, while he seems to go away, he draws the soul
that he might ran after him. Hence is that word, Psal. lxiii. 8, "My soul
followeth hard after thee, thy light hand upholdeth me." Well, the people
mourn, and put off their ornaments in sign of humiliation and abasement,
but all this doth not pacify and quench the flame th