25. And Pharaoh called for Moses. Pharaoh imagines that he is granting a great thing, if the Israelites are permitted to offer sacrifice to God in Egypt. He and all his people should have humbly embraced the worship of God, and casting away their superstitions should have sought to Moses as their instructor in sincere piety. He departs from none of their common vices; he does not renounce his idols nor forsake his former errors; but only permits God to be worshipped in one part of his kingdom. But this is customary with the reprobate, to think that they have sufficiently done their duty, when they yield ever so little to God. Hence it arises, that when they are conquered and compelled, still they would not hesitate to detract somewhat from the rights of God; nay, if they might do so with impunity, they would willingly rob Him of all. And in fact as long as fortune (99) is propitious, and they enjoy a state of prosperity and safety, they deprive God, as much as may be, of all His glory; but when the power of resisting fails them, they so descend to submission as to defraud Him of half His due honor. God had commanded a free departure to be conceded to His people; Pharaoh does not obey this command, but endeavors to satisfy God in another way, viz., by not forbidding them to offer sacrifice in Egypt. This sin, which was common in all ages, is now-a-days too clearly manifest. Our Pharaohs would altogether extinguish God’s glory, and this they madly set themselves to compass; but when reduced to extremities, if there be no further use in professedly contending with Him, they maim and mutilate His worship by a fictitious course, which they call a reformation. Hence arose that mixture of light and darkness, which was named “the Interim” (100) Nor do the enemies of the truth cease to obtrude thus ridiculously upon God their empty and unreal expiation’s.
(99) Ils ont vent en pouppe, — Fr.
(100) The document called the Interim, drawn up at the suggestion of Charles V., and published at the Diet of Augsburg in 1548, was professedly a measure of mutual concession, prescribing what was to be believed in the interim, “until all could be established by a general council.” In reality, however, it was opposed to the Reformation on all the main points of dispute; and conceded nothing but that married priests should retain their cures, and that, where the cup had been again given to the laity, it might be continued. It is printed at length in Osiander, Ecc. Hist., cent. 16, lib. 2 c. 72; and a copious summary of its contents is given by F1eury, 54:145. See Robertson’s Charles V., and Stokes’s continuation of Milner. See also Calvin’s Tracts, Calv. Soc., vol. 3, on the Adultero-German Interim.