Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 2 Complete John Calvin (continued)
HARMONY OF THE LAW · VOLUME 2 stupidity, God was willing to anticipate this evil, and set up a monument for posterity, lest the recollection of this memorable judgment should ever be obscured. He commands, therefore, that a covering for the altar should be made of the censers, in order that none should rashly intrude himself to make the sacred offerings. When He calls them "hallowed," some understand that it was sinful to transfer them to profane purposes, because they had once been devoted to the service of God. I am, however, rather of opinion that they were set apart (sacratas) as things accursed (anathemata.) Thus the fire which had been upon them is scattered afar, in order that the altar should be cleansed from its pollution. Although, however, there was the same pollution in the censers, yet God would have them preserved as accursed, so that all posterity might understand that none but the priests were to be admitted to the sacrifices. Nor is it superfluous for Him to speak of the rebels as having acted criminally "against their own souls;" but it was in order that the memory of their punishment might be inn manner engraved upon those brazen enclosures, in order to awaken continued dread.
40. To be a memorial unto the children of Israel. This passage again confirms what I have just said, that God's judgments, which ought to remain in full remembrance in every age, straightway escape, and are blotted out front men's minds, unless they are provided with certain aids to meditate upon them. This, however, does not happen so much from ignorance as neglect. Wherefore we ought to be the more attentive to the aids to memory, which may retain us in the path of duty.
41. But on the morrow all the congregation. There is something more than monstrous in this madness of theirs. The conflagration was yet smoking, wherein God had appeared as the awful avenger of pride: the chasm in which the leaders of the rebellion had been swallowed up, must still have been almost before their eyes. God had commanded the plates to be molten, which might record that severe judgment through many succeeding ages. All had confessed by their alarm and hasty flight that there was danger lest they should themselves also be exposed to similar punishments. Yet, on the next day, am if they desired deliberately to provoke God, who was still, as it were, armed, they accuse God's holy servants of having been the authors of the destruction, though they had never lifted a finger against their enemies. Was it in the power of Moses to command the earth to open? Could he draw down the fire from heaven at his will? Since, then, both the chasm and the fire were manifest tokens of God's wonderful power, why do not these madmen reflect that they are engaging in fatal warfare against Him? For to what purpose was this extraordinary mode of punishment, except that in their terror they might learn to humble themselves beneath God's hand? Yet hence did they only derive greater wildness in their audacity, as if they desired to perish voluntarily with these sinners, whose punishment they had just been shuddering at. In two ways they betray their senselessness; first, by substituting Moses and Aaron as guilty of the murder, in place of God;