Commentary on the Pentateuch

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CHAP. I. Verse 1. In the beginning ]

A Beginning there was then; Whatever Aristotle fancied of the Worlds eternity. So true is that of a learned Italian, Philosophy seeks after Truth, Divinity only finds it, Religion improves it. But the Philosopher would be yet better satisfied. He had read (say some) this first of Genesis, and was heard to say thereupon, • rege diei • domine Moses, sed quomodo probas? Well said, Sir Moses; how prove you, what you have so said? An Ancient answereth, I believe it, I need not prove it. Another, We believe the holy Penmen, before Heathen wisemen. A third, The mysteries of Christian. Religion are better understood by believing, then believed by understanding. But best of all, the Apostle, Through Fa ••• 〈◊〉 understand, that the Worlds were framed by the Word of God; so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear, Heb. 11.3. Divinity doth not use to prove her principles (whereof this is one.) No, not Aristotle's own Divinity (his Metaphysics, I mean,) wherein he requires, to be believed upon his bare words Albeit, (if Ramus may be judge) those, fourteen Books of his, are the most idle and impious piece of Sophistry, that ever was set forth by any man. Thus, Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, Rom. 1.22. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them? Jerem. 8.9. God created.] Heb. Dii creavit. The Mystery of the blessed Trinity, called by Elihu, Eloah Gnoscai, God my Makers; and by David, The Makers of Israel; And remember thy Creators, saith Solomon. To the same sense, sweetly sounds the Haphtara or portion of Scripture, which is read by the Jews, together with this of Moses, viz. Isai. 42.5. And that of the Psalmist, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them, by the breath (or Spirit) of his mouth: That is, God the Father, by the Son, through the Holy Ghost, created all. This, Trismegist an ancient Egyptian (for he flourished before Pharaoh ) acknowledged, and thence had his name. The Hebrews also of old, were no strangers to this Mystery, though their posterity understood it not. R. Solomon Jarchi writing on that, Cant. 1.11. We will make, &c. Interprets it, I and my Judgment-hall. Now a Judgment-hall in Israel consisted of three at least, which in their close manner of speech, they applied to God, who is Three in one, and One in three. Created ] Made all things of nothing, in a most marvelous and magnificent manner, as the word signifieth. This Plato doubts of, Aristotle denies; Galen derides, as a thing impossible, because, with Nicodemus, he cannot conceive how these things can be. The natural man (the mere animal, whose Reason is not elevated by Religion) perceiveth not these things of the Spirit of God: They are foolishness unto him. The Cock on the dunghill meddles not with these matters. Well might Saint Paul tell the men of Athens, (and yet Athens was the Greece of Greece, and had in it the most Mercurial wits in the world,) That God, that made all things of nothing, was to them the unknown God: And Lactantius fitly saith of Plato (who yet merited the style of Divine amongst them,) that he dreamt of God, rather then had any true knowledge of him. He nowhere called God the Creator, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Workman; as one that had made the World of a preexistent Matter, coeternal to himself. There were four Errors (saith a late learned man) about the Creation: Some affirmed, that the world was eternal; some, that it had a material beginning, and was made of something; some held two beginners of things: That one beginner made things incorruptible, and another made things corruptible. Lastly, Some said, God made the superior creatures himself, and the inferior by Angels. This very first verse of the Bible confutes all four. In the beginning, shows the world not to be eternal. Created, notes that it was made of nothing. The heaven and the earth, shows, That God was the only beginner of all creatures. God created all: This excludes the Angels. In the government of the World, we grant they have a great stroke, Ezek. 1.5, 6, &c. Dan. 10. & 11. Not so in the making of the World, wherein God was alone, and by himself, Isai. 44.24. And lest any should imagine otherwise; the creation of Angels is not so much as mentioned by Moses, unless it be tacitly intimated in these words, The heaven and the earth. The world and all things that are therein, Acts 17.24. Things visible and invisible, (Colos. 1.16.) Whether they be thrones or dominions, &c. called elsewhere, Angels of heaven; because (probably) created with, and in the highest Heaven; as Christ's soul was created with, and in his body, in the Virgins womb, the self-same moment. The highest Heaven, and the Angels were of necessity (say some) to be created the first instant, that they might have their perfection of matter and form together; otherwise, they should be corruptible. For whatsoever is of a preexistent matter, is resolvable, and subject to corruption. But that which is immediately of nothing, is perfectly composed, hath no other change, but by the same hand to return to nothing again.

But if this were the Heaven, what was the Earth here mentioned?

Not that we now tread upon (for that was not made till the third day.) But the Matter of all, that was afterwards to be created; being all things in power, nothing in act.

Vers. 2. And the earth was without form, and void.] That is, as yet it had neither essential nor accidental perfection. The Lord afterward did form it into Light, the Firmament, the Water, and the Earth: So beginning above, and building downwards (in the new Creature he doth otherwise;) and in three days laying the parts of the World; and in other three days adorning them. The Rabbins tell us, that Tohu and Bohu, do properly import Materia prima and privatio: and others of Tohu, derive Chaos; whence the ancient Latins called the World Chohus, and borrowed their word Incho • , &c. And darkness was upon the face of the deep.] That is, not of Hell, as Origen expounds it, but of the deep waters (see the like, Luke 8.31.) Which, as a garment covered the earth, and stood above the mountains, Psal. 104.6. This darkness God created not, for it was but the want of Light. And to say, That God dwelt in darkness, till he had created Light, was a devilish sarcasm of the Manichees; as if God were not Light itself, and the Father of lights: Or, as if God had not ever been a Heaven to himself, Ere ever he had formed the earth and the heavens, Psal 92.2. What he did, or how he employed himself before the Creation, is a Sea, over which no ship hath sailed; a Mine, into which no spade hath delved; an Abyss, into which no bucket hath dived. Our sight is too tender to behold this Sun. A thousand years (saith a great Divine) are to God but as one day, &c. And who knoweth what the Lord hath done? Indeed, he made but one World to our knowledge; but who knoweth what he did before, and what he will do after: Thus he. As for Saint Augustine,

Excellently another, who wanted no wit: As in the eliament of fire (saith he) there is a faculty of heating and enlightening; whence proceedeth heat and light, unto the external near bodies: And besides this faculty, there is also in it a natural power to go upward; which when it cometh into act, is received into no other subject, but the fire itself: So that if fire could, by abstractive imagination, be conceived of, as wanting those two transient operations, yet could we not justly say it had no action; forasmuch as it might move upward, which is an immanent and inward action: So, and much more so, though we grant that there was no external work of the Godhead, until the making of the World, yet can there be no necessary illation of idleness: Seeing it might have (as indeed it had) actions immanent, included in the circle of the Trinity: This is an answer to such as ask, what God did, before he made the World? God (saith Plotinus the Platonist ) not working at all, but resting in himself, doth, and performeth very great things. And the Spirit of God moved, &c.] Or, hovered over, and hatched out the creature, as the Hen doth her chickens; or, as the Eagle fluttereth over her young, to provoke them to flight, Deut. 32.11. Or, as by a like operation, this same holy Spirit formed the child Jesus in the Virgins womb, in that wonderful over shadowing, Luke 1.35. The Chaldee here hath it, The Spirit breathed: and David saith the same, Psal. 33.6. He became to that rude dead mass, a quickening, comforting Spirit. He kept it together, which else would have shattered. And so he doth still, or else all would soon fall asunder, Heb. 1.3. Psal. 104.29. were not his conserving Mercy, still over (or upon) all his Works.

Verse 3. And God said, Let there, &c.] He commanded the light to shine out of darkness: He spake the word, and it was done. Creation is no motion, but a simple and bare emanation; which is, when without any repugnancy of the Patient, or labor of the Agent, the work or effect, doth voluntarily and freely arise from the action of the working cause, as the shadow from the body. So God's irresistible power made this admirable Work of the world, by his bare word, as the shadow and obscure representation of his unsearchable wisdom, and omnipotency. And there was light.] This first light was not the Angels, as Augustine would have it; nor the Element of fire, as Damascene; nor the Sun, which was not yet created; nor a lightsome cloud, or any such thing; but the first day, which God could make without means, as Galvin well observeth. This light was the first ornament of the visible World, and so is still of the hidden man of the heart, the new Creature, Acts 26.18. The first thing, in Saint Paul's commission there, was to open men's eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, &c. To dart such a saving light into the soul; as might illighten both Organ and Object. In which great work also, Christ's words are operative together with his commands in the mouths of his Ministers. (Know the Lord, understand O ye brutish among the people, &c.) There goes forth a Power to heal, as it did, Luke 5.1 • . Or, as when he bade Lazarus ari • e, he made him to arise: So here, the Word and the Spirit go together; and then what wonder, that the spirit of darkness falls from the heaven of men's hearts, as lightning, Luke 10.18. So as that, they that e • st were darkness, are now light in the Lord, and do preach forth the praises of him, who hath called them out of darkness, into his marvelous light?

Verse 4. And God saw the light that it was good.] Praeviderat autem; so one rendereth it: he saw this long before, but he would have us to see it; he commends the goodness of this work of his to us. Good it is surely, and a goodly creature: Sweet, saith Solomon, Eccles. 11.7. Comfortable, saith David, Psal 97.11. Which when one made question of; That's a blind man's question, said the Philosopher. What is it then to enjoy him, that is Light Essential? The Platonists (who were blind in divinis, and could not see far off, yet they) could say, that he was a blessed man, who enjoyed God, as the eye doth enjoy the light. And God divided the light, &c.] Let not us confound them, and so alter God's order by doing deeds of darkness, in a day of Grace, in a Land of Light. What make Owls at Athens? or such spots among Saints, as count it pleasure to riot in the day time? It was a shame that it should be said, There was never less wisdom in Greece, then in the time of the seven wisemen of Greece. It was a worse shame, that it should be said to the Corinthians, That some of them had not the knowledge of God; and that such Fornication was found among them, as was not heard of among the Heathen. For what fellowship hath light with darkness? Surely none. Our morning shadows fall as far as they can toward the West, Evening toward the East, Noon day toward the North, &c. Alexander having a soldier of his name that was a coward, he bade him either leave off the name of Alexander, or be a soldier.

Verse 5. And God called the light Day, &c.] He taught men to call them so, Day, from the noise and hurry; Night, from the yelling of wild beasts. Darkness he created not, but only by accident; and yet not that, without some notable use. Much less that darkness of affliction which he is said to create, Esa. 45.7. Unto the upright there ariseth light in darkness, yea light by darkness, as to Paul, whose bodily blindness opened the eyes of his mind. Opera Dei sunt in mediis co • trariis, saith Luther, God's works are effected usually by contraries, And the evening and the morning &c.] Thales (one of the seven Sages) had learned this truth, by going to School in Egypt. For being asked whether was first the Day or the Night? he answered, that the Night was sooner by one Day. As who should say, afore God had created the light, it must needs be confessed that out of him, there was nothing but darkness. Evening separates by darkness, morning by light: so the one dis-joins day from night, the other night from day. Only this first evening separated not, because light was then uncreated. Yet was it of God appointed (even then) to stand betwixt light and darkness. In the first Evening was Heaven and Earth created, and in the first Morning the light, both which make the civil day, called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 by the Apostle. And this (which doubtless is the natural order of reckoning the day, from evening to evening) was in use among the Athenians, and is to this day retained by the Jews, Italians, Bohemians, Si esians, and other Nations. Our life likewise is such a day, and begins with the dark evening of misery here; but death is to Saints the daybreak of eternal brightness. Morning lasteth but till morning: Nay, not so long; for, Behold at even-tide trouble, and before the morning he is not, Isaiah 17.14. It is but a moment, yea a very little moment, and the indignation will pertransire be overpast, saith the Prophet; so little a while as you can scarce imagine, saith the Apostle. If it seem otherwise to any of us, consider; 1 That we have some lucida intervalla, some respites, interspiriates, breathing whiles. And it is a mercy that the man is not always sweating out a poor living, the woman ever in pangs of child-birth, &c. 2 That this is nothing to eternity, of extremity which is the just hire of the least sin. 3 That much good accrues unto us hereby, Heb. 12.10. Yea this light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh out unto us that far most excellent and eternal weight of glory. Oh pray, pray, that the eyes of our understanding being enlightened by that Spirit of wisdom, and r • vellation, we may know what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints, &c. Eph. 1.17, 18.

Verse 6. Let there be a firmament.] Yet not so firm, but it shall be dissolved, 2 Pet. 3.11. That it is not presently so; that those windows of heaven are not opened, as once in the deluge, (having no better a bar then the liquid air) and we suddenly buried in one universal grave of waters, see a miracle of God's mercy, and thank him for this powerful word of his, Let there be a firmament.] Bartholinus tells us, that in the year of Christ, 1551. a very great multitude of men and cattle were drowned by a terrible tempest, the clouds suddenly dissolving, and the waters pouring down again, with such a strange stupendous violence, that the massy walls of many Cities, divers Vineyards, and fair houses were utterly destroyed and ruined. Clouds, those bottles of rain, are vessels as thin as the liquor which is contained in them. There they hang and move, though weighty with their burdens. How they are upheld (saith a Reverend Divine) and why they fall here and now, we know not, and wonder, Job 26.8. They water our lands, as we do our gardens, and are therefore called our heavens, Deut. 33.28.

Verse 7. Waters which were above the firmament.] That is, the clouds, and watery meteors above the lower region of the air, where God's pavilion round about him is dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies. These he weighs by measure, not a drop falls in vain, or in a wrong place, Job 28.15. And this is the first heaven: As the second is the starry sky, which is firm and fast, as a molten looking-glass, Job 37.18. To this heaven, some that have calculated curiously, have found it 500 years journey. Others say, that if a stone should fall from from the eight sphere, and should pass every hour an hundredth miles, it would be 65 years or more, before it would come to ground. Beyond this second heaven, Aristotle acknowledgeth none other. Beyond the moveable heavens (saith he) there is neither body, nor time, nor place, nor Vacuum. But we have a more sure word of prophesy. God's blessed book assures us of a third heaven, 2 Cor. 12.2. called elsewhere the heaven of heavens, the Paradise of God, the bosom of Abraham, the Fathers house, the City of the living God, the Country of his pilgrims. A body it is (for bodies are in it) but a subtle, fine, spiritual body: next in purity to the substance of Angels and men's souls. It is also, say some, solid as stone, but clear as crystal, Rev. 21.11. Job 37.18. A true firmament indeed; not penetrable by any (no not by Angels, spirits, and bodies of just men made perfect) but by a miracle, God making way by his power, where there is no natural passage. It opens to the very Angels, Job. 1.51. Gen. 28.12. who yet are able to penetrate all under it. The other two heavens are to be passed through by the grossest bodies.

Verse 8. And the evening, &c.] Here's no mention of God's approbation of this second days work. Not for that hell was then ceated, or the reprobate Angels then ejected (as the Jews give in the reason of it;) but because this days work was left unperfected, till the next; to the which therefore the blessing was reserved, and is then redoubled. God delights to do his works, not all at once, but by degrees, that we may take time to contemplate them piece-meal, and see him in every of them, as in an opticke glass. Consider the lilies of the field, saith our Savior. Go to the Pismire, thou sluggard, saith Solomon. Luther wisht Pontanus, the Chancellor of Saxony, to contemplate the Starchamber of Heaven (that stupendous arch-work) born up by no props or pillars, and yet not falling on our heads: the thick clouds also hanging often over us with great weight, and yet vanishing again, (when they have saluted us but) with their threatening looks. And cannot God as easily uphold his sinking Saints, and blow over any storm, that hangs over their heads? An Artificer takes it ill, if when he hath finished some curious piece of work, and sets it forth to be seen (as Apelles was wont to do) men slight it, and take no notice of his handy-work. And is there not a woe to such stupid persons, as regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands? A sino quispiam narrabat fabulam, at ill movebat aures, is a proverb among the Greeks. Christ was by at the Creation, and rejoiced, Prov. 8.30. Angels also were by at the doing of a great deal, and were wrapped with admiration, Job 38.4, 5, 6. Shall they shout for joy, and we be silent? Oh how should we vex at the vile dullness of our hearts, are no more affected with these indelible ravishments!

Verse 9, 10. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered, &c.] The water, they say, is ten times greater then the earth, as is the air ten times greater then the water, and the fire then the air. Sure it it is, that the proper place of the water is to be above the earth, Psal. 104.6. Sailors tell us, that as they draw nigh to shore, when they enter into the haven, they run as it were down-hill. The waters stood above the mountains, till (at God's rebuke here) they fled, and hasted away at the voice of his thunder, Psal. 104.6, 7. to the place which he had founded for them. This drew from Aristotle, in one place, a testimony of God's providence, which elsewhere he denies. And David in that Psal. 104. (which one calleth his Physicks ) tells us, that till this word of command, Let the waters, &c.] God had covered the earth with the deep, as with a garment; For as the garment in the proper use of it is above the body, so is the sea above the land. And such a garment, (saith the divine Cosmographer) would it have been to the earth, but for God's providence toward us, as the shirt made for the murth • ring of Agamemnon, where he had no issue out. But thou hast set a bound, saith the Psalmist, that they may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth. God hath set the solid earth upon and above the liquid waters, for our conveni • n • y: so that men are said to go down (not up) to the sea in ships, Psal. 107.23. See his mercy herein, as in a mirror, and believe, that God (whose work it is still to appoint us the bounds of our habitations) will not fail to provide us an hospitium, a place to reside in, when cast out of all, as he did David, Psal. 27.10. and David's parents, 1 Sam 22.4 and the Apostles, 2 Cor 6.10. and the English exiles in Queen Mary's days, and before them, Luther, (who being asked where he thought to be safe? answered Sub Coelo ) and yet before him, those persecuted Waldenses; after whom the Romish Dragon cast out so much water as a flood, but the earth swallowed it; and God so provided, that they could travel from Cullen in Germany to Milan in Italy, and every night lodge with hosts of their own profession. The waters of affliction are often gathered together against the godly, but, by God's gracious appointment, ever under the heaven (where our conversation is, though our commoration be a while upon earth) and unto one place, as the Text here hath it. The dry-land will appear, and we shall come safe to shore, be sure of it. The Rock of eternity (whereupon we are set) is above all billows; washed we may be, as Paul was in the shipwreck, drowned we cannot be, because in the same bottom with Christ, and kept by the power of God, through faith, to salvation.

Verse 11.12. Let the earth bring forth, &c. Grass for the cattle, and herb for the use of man,] and both these, before either man or or beast were created. He made meat before mouths. He fills for us two bottles of milk before we come into the world. Herbs and other creatures we have still ad esum & ad usum. Our land flows not with milk only for necessity, but with hone too, for delight. Nature amidst all is content with a little, Grace with less. Sing we merrily with him,

Verse 12. and the earth brought forth &c.] St. Augustine thinks that thorns and thistles, brambles and briars were before the Fall, though not in that abundance that now. Basil thinks otherwise, and that till sin came in, the rose was without prickles. Its likely, there were such shrubs at first created, non ut laederent hominem non pec • antem, sed peccaturum, saith Pareus. Now since the Fall, all creatures are armed against man: as that sword which Hector gave Ajax; which, so long as he used against men (his enemies) served for help and defense: But after he began to abuse it to the hurt of hurtless bea •• s, it turned into his own bowels. yielding fruit after his kind.] So that men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. Luk. 6.44. Can a fig-tree, saith St. James, bear olive-berries; or a vine, figs? that were monstrous. And should not every man, in like manner, bear his own fruit (proper to his kind, to his calling?) do his own work? weed his own garden, walk within his own house with a perfect heart, till God come unto him? Come he will, and look for fruit in its season. When he comes, he will turn up our leaves, and look that, like the tree of life, Rev. 22.21. we bear fruit every month: or that we be like the lemmon-tree, which ever and anon sendeth forth new lemmons, as soon as the former are fallen down with ripeness. Or the Egyptian fig-tree; which, saith Solinus, beareth fruit seven times in a year: pull off a fig, and another breaks forth in the place, shortly after. Now if we be found, like the barren fig-tree Luk. 13. that had leaves onl • : or the Cypress-tree which is said to be fair and tall, but altogether fruitless: Or the Cypar it-tree, of which Pliny affirmeth, that it is natu morosa, fructu supervacanea, baccis parva, foliis amara, odor violenta, ac ne umbrâ quidem gratiosa; what can we expect, but that he should set down his basket, and, taking up his axe, hew us down, as fuel for the fire of hell? Spain is said to have nothing barren in it, or not some way useful; and why should Christ's orchard, the Church? John 15.2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he pares and prunes our leaves and luxuriancies: Yea cuts and slashes where need requires; and all, that we may bear more fruit. Sincerity alone will not comfort a man, unless it grow up to fruitfulness; which, springing from the exercise of grace, hath a sweet reflection on the soul, as in sick Hezekiah; and sweetly seals up our calling to glory and virtue, as the budding of Aaron's rod, did his calling to the pr • esthood: whereupon One well observeth, that not only all the plants of God's setting, but the very boughs cut off from the body of them will flourish.

Here some demand, were the trees so created at first, that if sin had never entered, they had ever flourished, laden with fruit? Answer is made by a worthy Divine, that the allusion▪ Rev. 22.2. seems to intimate some such matter. And perhaps Christ would else never have cursed the fruitless fig-tree, since the time of figs was not yet come, Mark. 11.13.

Verse 14.15. Let there be light ] The Sun, Moon, and Stars, are, as it were, certain vessels, whereinto the Lord did gather the light, which before was scattered in the Heavens. The Sun, that prince of planets, but servant to the Saints of the most High (as his name imports,) cometh out of his chamber, as a bride-groom; and rejoiceth, as a strong man, to run a race. This he doth with such a wonderful swiftness, as exceedeth the Eagles flight, more then it goeth beyond the slow motion of a snail: and with such incomparable sweetness, Eccles. 11.7. that Eudoxus the Philosopher professed, that he would be willing to be burnt up by the Sun presently, so he might be admitted to come so near it, as to learn the nature of it. Aeternùm atri et tetri sunto & habentor, qui non tam cute, quàm cord Aethiopici, Solem, quo magis luceat, eo magis execrentur. Chrysostom cannot but wonder; that whereas all fire tends upwards, the Sun should shoot down his rays to the earth, and send his light abroad all beneath him. This is the Lord's own work, and it ought to be marvelous in our eyes. Deut. 4.19. It illuminates and beautifies all the orbs and heavenly bodies about it, yea it strikes through the firmament, in the transparent parts, and seeks to bestow its beauty and brightness, even beyond the Heavens. It illightens even the Opposite part of Heaven, (gliding by the sides of the earth,) with all those glorious stars we see shining in the night. Yea, it insinuates into every chink and cranny of the earth, and concurs to the making of those precious metals which lie in her bowels, besides those precious fruits brought forth by the Sun, and the precious things thrust forth by the Moon; Deut. 33.14. For as the Sun by warmth, so the Moon by moisture, maketh the earth fruitful: whence also she hath her name in the Hebrew, Jareach, from refreshing the earth with her cool influences. She is here called a light, and a great light: therefore She hath some light of her own, (as the stars also have) besides what she borroweth of the Sun, though not strong enough to rule the night without light from the Sun. Galileus used perspectives to descry mountains in the Moon; and some will needs place hell in the hollow of it. It is easy to discern that her body is not all alike lightsome (some parts being thicker, and some thinner then others) and that the light of the Sun falling on her, is not alike diffused through her. It is sufficient that the Church looketh forth (at first) as the morning or day-dawning, she shall be fair as the Moon at least (in regard of sanctification) and (for justification) clear as the Sun, and therefore to the devil and his angels terrible as an Army with banners. Clouded she may be or eclipsed, but not utterly darkened, or denied of light. Astronomers tell us, that she hath at all times as much light as in the full; but often-times a great part of the bright side is turned to heaven, and a lesser part to the earth. God seems therefore to have set it lowest in the heavens, and nearest the earth, that it might daily put us in mind of the constancy of the one, and inconstancy of the other; her self in some sort partaking of both, though in a different manner; of the one in her substance, of the other in her visage.

Verse 16.17. He made also the stars,] To be receptacles of that first light, (whence they are called, Stars of light, Psal. 148.3.) and to work upon inferior bodies, which they do by their motion, light and influence, efficiendo imbres, ventos, grandines, procellas sudum, &c. by causing foul or fair weather, as God appoints it. Stars are the store-houses of God's good treasure, which he openeth to our profit, Deut. 38.12. By their influence they make a scatter of riches upon the earth, which good men gather, and muck-worms scramble for. Every star is like a purse of gold, out of which God throws down riches and plentiounesse into the earth. The heavens also are garnished by them, Job 26.13. they are, as it were, the spangled curtain of the Bride-groomes chamber, the glorious and glittering rough-cast of his heavenly palace, the utmost court of it at least: from the which they twinckle to us, and teach us to remember our and their Creator, who in them makes himself visible, nay palpable, Act. 17.27. his wisdom, power, justice, and goodness, are lined out unto us in the brows of the firmament; the countenance whereof we are bound to mark, and to discern the face of the heavens, which therefore are somewhere compared to a scroll that is written. The heavens, those Catholic Preachers, declare the glory of God, &c. Their line, saith David, their voice (saith Paul, citing the same text) is gone out throughout all the earth; they are real postills of his Divinity. These (nay far meaner creatures) teach us, as Balaam's Ass did that mad Prophet: to this School are we now put back, as idle truants, to their ABC. Only let us not, as children, look most on the babies on the backside of our books; gaze not, as they do, on the guilded leaves and covers, never looking to our lessons; but as travellers in a foreign Country, observe and make use of everything; not content with the natural use of the creature, as brute beasts; but mark how every creature reads us a Divinity Lecture, from the highest Angel, to the lowest worm.

Verse 21. And God created great Whales,] In creating whereof, creavit Deus vastitatus & stupores. For, as Pliny writeth of them, when they swim and show themselves above water, annare insulas putes, they seem to be so many Islands, and have been so esteemed by sea-faring men, to their great danger and disadvantage. Into the Rivers of Arabia, saith Pliny, there have come Whales 600 foot long, and 360 foot broad. This is that Leviathan that plays in the sea, besides other creeping, or moving, things innumerble, Psal. 104.25. This one word of God's mouth, Fiat, hath made such infinite numbers of fishes, that their names may fill a Dictionary. Philosophers tell us, that whatsoever creature is upon the earth, there is the like thereof in the sea, yea many that are nowhere else to be found; but with this difference, that those things that on the earth are hurtful, the like thereunto in the waters are hurtlesse; as Eels, those water-snakes, are without poison, &c. yea they are wholesome and delicious food. Pis • is comes of Pasco: And in Hebrew the same word signifieth a pond or fish-pool, and blessing. Many Islands are maintained, and people fed by fish; besides the wealth of the Sea. The ill-favored Oyster hath sometimes a bright pearl in it. In allusion whereunto, we have our treasure (that pearl of price, the Gospel) saith S. Paul, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Oyster-shells. And albeit now every creature of God is good, and to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe, yet under the Law, those fish only were reputed clean, that had fins and scales. So, saith St. Bernard, are those only clean in the sight of God, qui squammas & loricam habent patientiae, & pinnulas hilaritatis, that have the scales of patience, and sins of cheerfulness. And every winged foul.] Birds were made of all four clements, yet have more of the earth, Gen. 2.19. And therefore that they are so light, and do so delight in the air, it is so much the more marvelous. They sing not at all till they have taken up a stand to their mind, nor shall we praise God till content with our estate. They use not to sing when they are on the ground, but when got into the air, or on the tops of trees. Nor can we praise God aright, unless weanedly affected to the world. It was a good speech of Heathen Epictetus, Si luscinia essem, facerem quod luscinia. Cum autem, homo rationals sim, quid faciam? Laudabo Deum, nec cessabo unquam, vos vero▪ ut idem faciatis, hortor. But concerning the creation of birds, there is in Macrobius a large dispute and disquisition, whether were first, the egg or the bird? And here Reason cannot resolve it, since neither can the egg be produced without the bird, nor yet the bird without the egg. But now both Scripture and Nature determine it, that all things were at first produced in their essential perfection.

Verse 22. Be fruitful and multiply.] By bidding them do so, he made them do so, for his words are operative. Trismegist saith the self same things in effect that Moses here doth. God, saith he, crieth out to his works by his holy word, saying, Bring ye forth fruit, grow and increase, &c. Note the harmony here (and in twenty more passages) between Mercury and Moses. God hath not left his truth without witness from the mouths of heathen writers. We may profitably read them, but not for ostentation. That were to make a calf of the treasure gotten out of Egypt.

Verse 24.25. Let the earth, &c.] Loe here the earth, in it self a dead element, brings forth, at God's command, living creatures, tame, wild and creeping: Why then should it be thought a thing incredible, that the same earth, at God's command, should bring forth again our dead bodies restored to life, at the last day? Surely if that speech of Christ, Joh. 11.43. Lazarus come forth, had been directed to all the dead, they had all presently risen. If he speak to the rocks, they rent; if to the mountains, they melt; if to the earth, it opens; if to the sea, it yields up her dead; if to the whole host of heaven, they tremble, and stand amazed, waiting his pleasure. And shall he not prevail by his mighty power, the same that he put forth in the raising of his Son Christ, Eph. 1.19. to raise us from the death of sin; and of carnal, to make us a people created again, Psal. 102.18? Doth he not plant the heavens, and lay the foundation of the earth, that he may say to Zion thou art my people? Empty man would be wise (saith Zophar, Job 11.12.) though man be born like a wild asse colt. Mans heart is a mere emptiness, a very Tohu vabohu, as void of matter to ma • e him a new creature of, as the hollow of a tree is of heart of oak. God therefore creates in his people clean hearts; and, as in the first creation, so in the new creature, the first day, as it were, God works light of knowledge; the second day, the firmament of faith; the third day seas and trees, that is, repentant tears, and worthy fruits; the fourth day, the Sun, joining light and heat together, heat of zeal, with light of knowledge; the fifth day, fishes to play, and fowls to fly; so, to live and rejoice in a sea of troubles, and fly heavenward by prayer and contemplation. The sixth day, God makes beasts and man, yea, of a wild asse-colt, a man in Christ, with whom old things are past, all things are become new, 2 Cor. 5.17. And to whom (besides that they are all taught of God) the very beasts, Esa. 1.2. and birds, Jer. 8.7. do read a Divinity Lecture. Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air they shall tell thee, Job 12.8. The whole world is nothing else, saith One, but God expressed, so that we cannot plead ignorance; for all are, or may be book learned in the creature. This is the Shepherds Callender, the Plowmans Alphabet; we may run and read in this great book, which hath three leaves, Heaven, Earth, Sea. A brutish man knows not, neither doth a fool understand this. They stand gazing and gaping on the outside of things only, but asknot, Who is their Father, their Creator? Like little children, which when they find a Picture in their book, they gaze, and make sport with it, but never consider it. Either their minds are like a clock that is over wound above the ordinary pitch, and so stands still; their thoughts are amazed for a time; they are like a block, thinking nothing at all; or else they think Atheistically, that all comes by nature; (but hast thou not known, saith the Prophet? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator? &c.) or at best, as the common passenger looks only at the hand of the Diall to see what of the clock it is, but takes no notice of the clock-work within the wheels, and poises, and various turnings and windings in the work: so it is here with the man that is no more then a mere natural. But he that is spiritual discerneth all things; he entereth into the clock-house, as it were, and views every motion, beginning at the great wheel, and ending in the least and last that is moved. He studies the glory of God revealed in this great book of Nature, and praiseth his power, wisdom▪ goodness. &c. And for that in these things He cannot order his speech, because of darkness▪ Job 37.38, 39. he begs of God a larger heart and better language, and cries out continually with David, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name forever and e • er, and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen.

Verse 26. And God said, Let us make man.] Man is the masterpeece of God's handy-work. Sun, Moon, and Stars, are but the work • of his fingers, Psal. 8.3. but man the work of his hands, Psal. 1 • 9.14. He is cura divini ingenii, made by counsel at first, Let us make, &c. and his body, which is but the souls sheath, Dan. 7.15. is still curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, that is, in the womb, Psal. 139.15. with Eph. 4.9. as curious workmen, when they have some choice piece in hand, they perfect it in private, and then bring it forth to light for men to gaze at. Thine bands have mude me (or took special pains about me) and fashioned me, saith Job. Thou hast formed me by the book, saith David, Psal, 139.16. yea em • roidered me with nerves, veyns, and variety of limbs, miracles enough, saith One, betwixt head and foot to fill a Volume. Man, saith a Heathen, is the bold attempt of daring nature the fair workmanship of a wise Artificer, saith another; The greatest of all miracles, saith a third. And surely should a man be born into the world but once in a hundred years, all the world would run to see the wonder. Sed miracula assiduitate vilescunt. Galen (that profane man) was forced upon the description of man, and the parts of his body only, to sing a hymn to the Creator, whom yet he knew not. I make here, saith he, a true hymn in the honor of our Maker; whose service▪ I believe verily, consisteth not in the sacrificing of Hecatombs, or in burning great heaps of Frankinsence before him, but in acknowledging the greatness of his wisdom, power and goodness; and in making the same known to others &c. And in another place, Now is he, saith Gallen, which looking but only upon the skin of a thing, wondereth not of the cunning at the Creator? Yet notwithstanding, he dissembleth not that he had tried by all means to find some reason of the composing of living creatures; and that he would rather have fathered the doing thereof upon Nature, then upon the very Author of Nature. And in the end concludeth thus; I confess that I know not what the soul is, though I have sought very narrowly for it. Favorinus the Philosopher, was wont to say, The greatest thing in this world is Man, and the greatest thing in man is his soul. It is an abridgement of the invisible world, as the Body is of the visible. Hence man is called by the Hebrews Gnolam haktaton, and by the Greeks Microcosmus, A little world. And it was a witty essay of him, who styled woman, the second Edition of the Epitome of the whole world. The soul is set in the body of them both, as a little god in this little world, as Jehovah is a great God in the great world. Whence Proclus the Philosopher could say, that the mind that is in us, is an image of the first mind, that is, of God. [In our image, after our likeness.] That is, as like us as may be, to come as near us as is possible; for these two expressions signify but one and the same thing, and therefore verse. 27. and chap. 5.1. and 9.6. one of them only is used: Howbeit Basil referreth image to the reasonable soul in man, similitude to a conformity to God in holy actions. Some of the Fathers, had a conceit that Christ made man's body with his own hands according to the form and likeness of that body which himself would afterwards assume and suffer in. We deny not, but that man's body also is God's image, as it is a little world, and so the idea or example of the world, that was in God from all eternity, is, as it were, briefly and summarily expressed by God in man's body. But far be it from us to conceive of God as a bodily substance, to think him like unto us, as we are very apt to do. God made man in his own image, and men of the other side, quasi ad hostimentum, would make God after their image. It was seriously disputed by the Monks of Egypt, Anno Dom. 493. (and much ado there was about it) whether God were not a bodily substance, having hands, eyes, ears, and other parts, as we have? For so the simpler sort among them were clearly of opinion. And in the second Council of Nice under Irene, John one of the Legates of the Eastern Churches proved the making of Images lawful, because God had said in this text, Let us make man after our own Image. And it was there decreed that they should be reverenced and adored in as ample and pious manner as the glorious Trinity. But God is a Spirit, saith our Savior, who best knew, for he came out of his Fathers bosom. And man's soul is a spirit likewise, indivisible, immaterial immortal, distinguished into three powe • s, which all make up one spirit. Spirit signifies breath, which indeed is a body. But because it is the finest body, the most subtle and most invisible, therefore immaterial substances, which we are not able to conceive, are represented unto us under this name. Such is the soul of man, which (for the worth of it) the Stoics called the whole of Man. The body is but the sheath of the soul saith Daniel; the shell of it, said Zoroaster; the servant, yea the sepulcher of it, say others. Compared to the soul, it is but as a clay-wall that encompasseth a treasure, as a wooden box of a Jeweller; as a course case to a rich instrument; or as a mask to a beautiful face. He that alone knew, and went to the worth of souls hath told us that a soul is more worth then all the world besides, because infused by God and stamped with his image and superscription. Now if we must give to Caesar the things that are Caesars, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (three articles, for one in the former clause Matth. 22.21.) Cur non & nos animam nostram, Dei imaginem, soli Deo consignemus, saith Gaspar Ens? Why give we not our souls to God, since they are made in his image?

Verse 27. So God created man in his own image.] There is a double image of God in the soul. One in the substance of it, whereof I have spoken in the former verse. The other in the qualities and supernatural graces, of knowledge in the Understanding, rightness or straightness in the Will, and holiness in the affections: In all these, Man, when he came first out of God's mint, shone most gloriously. But now O! quvntum haec Niobe, &c. Oh think of this burnt Temple, and mourn, as they in Ezra, Eber, candidissimum, adhibito igne, nigrescit.

Verse 28. Subdue the earth, and have dominion.] Make it habitable by driving out the wild beasts, that infest and annoy it. Make it arable also, and useful to yourselves and yours. The creatures are man's servants and household-sluffe. God hath put all things under his feet, that he may raise himself thereby to God his Maker. A wise Philosopher could say, That man is the end of all things in a semicircle; that is, All things in the world are made for him, and he is made for God; to know and acknowledge him, to serve and express him, to say to him as David, and that Son of David. Lord, a body (a soul) hast thou given me; behold I come to do thy will O God. The very Manichees, that denied God to be the Author of the body, fasted on Sundays, and in fasting exercised an humiliation of the body. The Paternians are not worth speaking of, who held this heresy (in the year of Christ, 387) that the lower parts of man's body were not made by God, but by the devil; and therefore allowing liberty of all wickedness to those parts, they lived most impurely. But if superstitious persons must reckon for it, that punish their bodies without commandment from God, where shall those beasts app • ar that defile their bodies, and damn their soul? How shall all the creatures instead of serving them, take up arms for God, and serve against them? yea rise up in judgment and condemn them, for that when all other things keep their fit and proper places in the frame, and observe their peculiar ends and uses whereunto they were created, men only (as so many Heteroclites and Irregulars) should prove unprofitable, unuseful, nay hurtful to the whole frame, causing vanity and misery to the poor creature which groans under it, and so defiling the very visible heavens that they must be purged by the last fire, as those vessels were in the Law that held the sin-offering? As for those that are in Christ, these are restored to the privileges of their first creation, as fellowship with God, dominion over the creatures▪ &c. as appears by comparing Psal. 8.45. with Heb. 2.6, 7. &c. where whatever is spoken of man is applied to Christ, and so is proper to the Church, which is Christ mystical, union being the ground of communion. Christ is married to his people in faithfulness; and as part of a jointure, he hath taken and bound over the best of the creatures to serve them, & bring them in provision, Hos. 2.20, 21, 22.

Verse 29. Behold, I have given you ] By this, Behold, God stirs up them and us to confidence, thankfulness and obedience to so liberal a Lord, so bountiful a Benefactor. And surely as iron put into the fire, seems to be nothing but fire, so Adam, thus beloved of God, was turned into a lump of love, and bethinks himself what to do by way of retribution. All other creatures also willingly submitted to God's ordinance and man's service, well apaid of God's provision, that great house-keeper of the world, that hath continually so many millions at bed and board. This is intimated in that last clause, And it was so. An undoubted argument surely of God's infinite goodness, thus to have provided for so divers natures and appetites divers food, remedies, and armor, Psal. 104. for men especially, filling their hearts with food and gladness, Act. 14.17.

Verse 31. Behold, it was very good ] Or, extreme good, pleasant and profitable, a curious and glorious frame, full of admirable variety and skill, such as caused delight and complacency in God, and commands contemplation and admiration from us; like as a great garden stored with fruits and flowers, calls our eyes on every side: Wherefore else hath God given us a reasonable soul, and a Sabbath day, a countenance bent upward, and, as they say, peculiar nerves in the eyes to pull them up toward the seat of their rest? besides a nature carried with delight after plays, pageants, masks, strange shows and rare sights; which oft are sinful or vain, or at best, imperfect, and unsatisfactory? Surely those that regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, God shall destroy, and not build them up, Psal. 28.4. which to prevent, good is the counsel of the Prophet Amos, & that upon this very ground, Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel: For loe, he that formeth the mountains and createth the wind, &c. Amos 4.12, 13. when he had made man, he made an end of making anything more, because he meant to rest in man, to delight in him, to communicate himself unto him, and to be enjoyed by him throughout all eternity. And notwithstanding the fall, he hath found a ransom, Job 33.24. and creating us in Christ Jesus unto good works, Eph. 2.10. he rejoiceth over his new workmanship with joy, yea he rests in his love, and will seek no further, Zeph. 3.17. But what a mouth of madness did Alfonso the Wise open, when he said openly, that if he had been of God's counsel at the Creation, some things should have been better made and marshalled. Prodigious blasphemy!

CHAP. II. Verse 1. All the host of them.]

HIs upper and nether forces, his horse and foot, as it were, all creatures in heaven, earth or under earth, called God's Host, for their, 1. number, 2. order, 3. obedience. These the Rabbin's call magnleh cheloth and matteh cheloth, the upper and lower troops ready pressed.

Verse 2. He rested ] That is, He ceased to create, which work he had done, without either labor or lassitude, Esa. 4.28. He made all nutu non motu.

Verse 3. God blessed the seventh day ] i. e. made it an effectual means of blessing to him that sanctifieth it, as a rest from bodily labor and spiritual idleness, as Ignatius exhorteth. And sanctified it ] i e. Consecrated and set it apart for holy use, as they sanctified (that is, appointed) Kedesh for a City of refuge, Josh. 20.7.

Verse 4. Jehovah God ] Moses first calls God Jehovah here, when the universal creation had its absolute being. This is the proper name of God. The Jews pronounce it not, we profane it, which is to them a great stumbling block. The first among the Christians that pronounced Jehovah, was Petrus Galatinus. But if ye would pronounce it according to the own letters, it should be Jahuo, of Jarmuth, Jagnak • b.

Verse 5. The Lord God had not caused it to rain ] And none but he can give rain, Jer. 14.22. the means of fruitfulness, which yet he is not tied to, as here. The Egyptians used in mockery to tell the Grecians, that if God should forget to rain, they might chance to starve for it.

Verse 6. But there went up a mist ] The mater of rain: And hereby God tempered the mortar whereof he would make man, as he did the clay with spittle, wherewith he cured the blind, John. 9.

Verse 7. Formed man of the dust ] not of the rocks of the earth, but dust, that is soon dispersed; to note our frailty, vility, and impurity. Lutum enim conspurcat omnia, sic & caro. But why should so glorious a soul (called here Neshamah, of affinity to Shamajim, Heaven, whence it came) dwell in this corruptible and contemptible body? For answer; besides God's will, and for order of the universe. Lombard saith, that by the conjunction of the soul with the body (so far its inferior) man might learn and believe a possibility of the union of man with God in glory, notwithstanding the vast distance of nature, and excellence; the infiniteness of both in God, the finiteness of both in man. And breathed into his nostrils ] Quidam volunt metaphoram sumptam à vitrorum formatione. The greatest man is but a little air and dust tempered together. What is man, saith One, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , soul and soil, Breath and Body, a pile of dust the one, a puff of wind the other, no solidity in either? And man became a living soul ] Dicaearchus doubted of the soul, whether there were such a thing in rerum natura. He could not have doubted of it, without it, as man cannot prove logic to be unnecessary, but by logic.

Verse 8. And the Lord God planted ] Had planted (to wit, on the third day, when he made trees) for man's pleasure, a garden or paradise in Eden (whence 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) in the upper part of Chaldea, whereabout Babel was founded. It was destroyed by the Deluge; the place indeed remained, but not the pleasantness of the place, cecidi • rosa, mansit spina. And yet that Country is still very fruitful, returning (if Herodotus and Pliny may be believed) the seed beyond credulity. He put the man whom he had formed ] And formed him not far from the garden, say the Hebrews; to mind him, that he was not here to set up his rest, but to wait till his change should come.

Verse 9. Every tree, &c.] The Hebrews think, that the world was created in September, because the fruits were then ripe and ready, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The tree of life also ] A symbolical tree; by the eating of the fruit whereof Adam should have had Gaius his prosperity, his body should have been in health, as his soul. prospered. The tree of knowledge of good and evil ] So called not because it self either knew, or could cause man to know; but from the event, God Forewarning our first parents, that they should know by woeful experience, unless they abstained, what was the worth of good, by the want of it; and what the presence of evil, by the sense of it. In like sort the waters of Meribah, and Kibroth Hattaavah, or the graves of lust, received their names from that which fell out in those places.

Verse 10. And a river went out ] Pliny writeth, that in the Province of Babylon, there is burning and smothering a certain lake or bog, about the bigness of an acre. And who knows, whether that be not a piece of Paradise, now drowned and destroyed?

V. 11. Where there is gold ] Which (though never so much admired & studiously acquired) is but the guts & garbage of the earth. Gold is that which the basest element yields, the most savage Indians get, servile Apprentices work, Midianitish Camels carry, miserable muck-worms adore, unthrifty Ruffians spend. It is to be wondered, thatt reading upon the Minerals, we cannot contemn them. They lie furthest from heaven, and the best of them in Havilah, furthest of all from the Church. Adam had them in the first paradise: In the second, we shall not need them. Money is the Monarch of this world, and answers all things: but in the matters of God, money bears no mastery, will fetch in no commodity, Job 28.15. Wisemen esteemed it as the stones of the street, 2 Chron. 1.15. children of wisdom might not possess it in their girdles, Matth. 10.9. Medes cared not for it, Esa. 13.17. and devils were set to keep rich and pleasant Palaces, verse 22. So subject these metals are to ensnare and defile us, that God made a law to have them purified, ere he would have them used, Num. 31.22, 23. and appointed the snuffers and snuff-dishes of the Sanctuary to be made of pure gold, to teach us to make no account of that, that he put to so base offices, and is frequently given to so bad men. The Spaniard found in the mines of America more gold then earth. Hasten we to that Country where God shall be our gold, and we shall have plenty of silver, Job 22.25.

Verse 15. To dress it, and to keep it ] This he did as without necessity, so without pains, without weariness. It was rather his recreation then his occupation. He labored now by an Ordinance, it was after his fall laid upon him as a punishment, Gen. 3.19. to eat his bread in the sweat of his nose. God never made any, as he made Leviathan, to sport himself only; or to do as it is said of the people of Tombutum in Afric, that they spend their whole time in piping and dancing; but to work either with his hands or his head (in the sweat of his brow, or of his brain) the thing that is good; and with how much the more cheerfulness any one goeth about his business, by so much the nearer he cometh to his Paradise.

Verse 16. Commanded the man, saying ] God hath given man dominion over all the sublunary creatures; and lest he should forget that he had a Lord whom to serve and obey, he gave him this command to keep. [Of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat] The less need he had, to have been so licorice after forbidden fruit. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 hic adhibet; quod miserecordiae est. But stolen waters are sweet, Nitimur in vetitum, &c.

Verse 17. But of the tree, &c. ] An exploratory prohibition. God knew well where we are weakest, and worst able to withstand; viz. about moderating the pleasures of our touch and taste, because these befall us not as men, but as living creatures. Here therefore he lays a law upon Adam, for the trial of his love; which, left to his own free-will, he soon transgressed. Thou shalt surely die ] Certissime citissime{que} morieris, saith Zwingli, thou shalt surely and shortly or suddenly die. And without doubt every man should die the same day he is born: the wages of death should be paid him presently. But Christ begs their lives for a season. For which cause he is said to be the Savior of all men, not of eternal preservation, but of temporal reservation. In which respect also, God is said so to have loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, &c. It was a mercy to all mankind, that the Messiah was promised and provided, sealed and sent into the world, that some might be saved, and the rest sustained in life, for their sakes. Symmachus renders it, Thou shalt be mortal.

Verse 18. And the Lord God said ] Had said, to wit, on the sixth day when he made Man, and there was not a meet help found for him. Then God said, It is not good, &c. and so created the woman by deliberate council, as before he had done the man. Only there it was in the plural, Let us make, here, I will make; to show the unity of the Essence in the Trinity of persons. It is not good for man to be alone ] It is neither for his profit, nor his comfort. Optimum solatium sodalatium. I will make him a help meet for him ] or, such another as himself, of the same form for perfection of nature, and for gifts inward and outward; one in whom he may see himself, and that may be to him as an Alter-ego, a second-self, Eph. 5.28. Such an one as may be a help to him both so this life, 1. By continual society and cohabitation. 2. For procreation and education of children. And for the life to come, 1. As a remedy against sin, 1 Cor. 7.2. Secondly, As a companion in God's service, 1 Pet. 3.7. Nazianzen saith, that his mother was not only a meet help to his father in matters of piety, but also a doctresse and a governesse; and yet he was no baby, but an able Minister of the Gospel. Budaeus (that learned French-man) had a great help of his wife in points of learning; she would be as busy in his study, as about her huswifery. Placilla the Empresse was a singular help to her husband Theodosius in things both temporal and spiritual: And so was our King Edward the thirds Queen, a Lady of excellent virtue, the same that built Queens College in Oxford. She drew evenly (saith the Historian) with the King her husband in all the courses of honor, that appertained to her side, and seems a piece so just cut for him, as answered him rightly in every joint.

Verse 19. To see what he would call them ] If he had been permitted to name himself, it should have been probably, the Son of God, as he is called by St. Luke in regard of his creation. But God, to humble him, calls him first Adam, (and after the fall) Enoch, that is, frail, sorry man, a map of mortality, a mass of misery.

Verse 20. Adam gave names ] A sign of his Sovereignty, Num. 32.38, 41. an argument also of his wisdom, in giving them names according to their natures, as Hebricians well know. But for Adam there was not found, &c.] God set all the creatures before him, ere he gave him a wife: 1. That seeing the sexes, he might desire to have a help in his kind, and nature also. Men should not marry, till they find in themselves the need of a wife. 2. That seeing no other fit help, he might the more prize her.

Verse 21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep ] It may be thought that Adam, observing that among all the creatures there was no meet match found for him, prayed in this deep sleep, or ecstacy, that such a help might be given unto him. This is Peter Martyrs note upon the text. Isaac went forth to pray, when he had sent forth for a wife; and it was but reason, For a prudent wife is from the Lord. And he that findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, saith the Wiseman. A wife, that is, a good wife; for every married woman is not a wife, unless she be a help to her husband, in the best things especially. The Heathen well saith, that every man when he marrieth, brings either a good or an evil spirit into his house, and so makes it either a heaven, or a hell. And it is a device of the Rabbin's (but the moral is good) that in the names of Ish and Ishah is included Jah, the name of God; and that, if you take out Jod and He, whereof that name consists, there remains nothing Esch, Esch, fire, fire; the fire of dissention and brawl, which burneth, and consumeth to the fire of hell. It is not evil therefore to marry, but it is good to be wary, to marry in the Lord, as the Apostle hath it. He that marrieth in the Lord, marrieth also with the Lord; and he cannot be absent from his own marriage. A good wife was one of the first real and royal gifts bestowed upon Adam; and God consults not with him, to make him happy. As he was ignorant while himself was made, so shall he not know, while a second-self is made out of him; both that the comfort might be greater then was expected, as also, that he might nor upbraid his wife with any great dependence or obligation; he neither willing the work, nor suffering any pain, to have it done. The rib can challenge no more of her, then the earth can of him. And he took one of his ribs ] The woman was made of a bone (saith a Reverend Writer) and but one bone, Ne esset ossea, lest she should be stiff and stubborn. The species of the bone is expressed to be a rib (a bone that might be best spared because there are many of them) a bone of the side, not of the head; (the wife must not usurp authority over her husband) nor yet of the foot; she is not a slave, but a fellow-helper. A bone, not of any anterior part, she is not praelata, preferred before the man: neither yet of any hinder part, she is not post-posita, set behind the man; but a bone of the side, of the middle and indifferent part; to show, that she is a companion, and the wife of thy covenant, Mal. 2.14. A bone she is from under the arm, to put man in mind of protection and defense to the woman. A bone not far from his heart, to put him in mind of dilection and love to the woman. A bone from the left side (as many think likely) where the heart is, to teach, that hearty love ought to be betwixt married couples:

Vers. 22. And the rib which the Lord God had taken,] Matter, in the beginning of time, was taken from man, to make a woman: And matter, in the fullness of time, was taken from a woman to make a man, even the man Christ Jesus. And as out of the side of sleeping Adam, Eve was formed; so from the blood issuing out of the side and flesh of dying Christ, came his Spouse the Church. His chief care therein was to sanctify and cleanse his Church, and therefore he came by water and blood. So should it be every husbands; then would not the devil so oft break his head with his own rib; or as Saint Gregory hath it, Climbe so oft by h • s rib to his heart, as by a ladder. A good wife doth him good, and not evil, all her days. But this is not every man's happiness. Sylla faelix, si non habuisset uxorem. So Job and Moses, quorum conjugium, conjurgium. There is in most, a propension to the nuptial conjunction. The man misseth his rib (say the Rabbin's; ) the woman would be in her old place again, under the man's arm or wing. Then Naomi her mother in law, said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? Ruth 3.1. [Made he a woman,] Heb. built, That is, created with special care, art, and fit proportion, in the manner of a house. A body hath God given the woman more capacious and roomthy, both for the conceiving and containing of her young babe, which dwells in her womb, as in its house; and hath all its household-stuff, as it were about it, till time produce it into the light of life. Adam was formed, Eve built; her frame consists of rarer rooms, of a more exact composition then his doth. And if place be any privilege, we find, saith one, hers built in Paradise, when his was made out of it. [And brought her unto the man] Marriage then is of divine institution. The Saturnilian heretics sinfully said, that it was of the devil. And the blemish will never be wiped off from some of the Ancients, who to establish their own doll of I know not what Virginity, have written most wickedly and basely against marriage. Three things we have here out of Moses to say for it against whatsoever opposite, viz. God's 1. Dixit. 2. Duxit. 3. Benedixit, Gen. 1.28. God the Father ordained it. God the Son honored it with his first miracle. God the Holy Ghost did the like, by overshadowing the betrothed Virgin, Papists and others that disgrace it, appear herein more like Devils then Divines, if S. Paul may be judge, 1 Tim. 4.2 or Ignatius, who saith, If any call marriage a defilement, he hath the Devil dwelling in him, and speaking by him.

Verse 23. This is now bone of my bone, &c.] This sentence (saith Tertullian, and after him, Beda ) is the first Prophesy that was ever uttered in the world. And it is uttered in a way of admiration, which they that are taken with, do commonly use a concise kind of speech; especially, if overjoyed as Adam here was upon the first sight of the woman; whom he no sooner saw but knew, and thereupon cried out, as wondering at God's goodness to himself, [This now is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.] Luther, the night before he died, was reasonably well, and sat with his friends at table. The matter of their discourse was, whether they should know one another in heaven or no? Luther held it affirmatively, and this was one reason he gave. Adam as soon as he saw Eve, knew what she was, not by discourse, but by divine revelation; so shall we in the life to come. All the Saints shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, having communion with them, not only as godly men, but as Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob. And if with them, why not with others? S. Chrysostom saith we shall point them out, and say, Lo yonder is Peter, and that's Paul, & there are the Prophets, Apostles, &c. [She shall be called Woman] Or Manness, of Man, as Ishah of Ish. He gave her her name, from his own, by taking away one numeral letter that stands for ten, and adding another that stands for five; to note her infirmity, and duty of submitting to her husband, whose very naming of her notes her subjection.

Vers. 24. Therefore shall a man leave, &c.] Whether these are the words of God, Adam or Moses, it is uncertain, and not much material. The husband is bound more to love his wife then his parents, in regard of domestical communion, adh •• sion and cohabitation, not in regard of honor, obedience and recompense. [And they two shall be one flesh.] Two in one flesh, not three or four, as the Patriarchs of old through ignorance, or inobservance of that plain prohibition, Levite. 18.18. It is possible they might mistake the word (sister) for one so by blood, which was spoken of a sister by nation, as those clauses (to vex her) and (during her life) do evince.

Vers. 25. They were both naked, and not ashamed,] Neither needed they. Sin and shame, as Papists say, hops and heresy, came in together. Cloaths are the ensigns of our sin, and covers of our shame: To be proud of them is as great folly, as for a begar to be proud of his rags, or a thief of his halter. As the prisoner looking on his irons, thinketh on his theft; so we, looking on our garments, should think on our sins.

CHAP. III. Verse 1. Now the Serpent was more subtle, &c.]

ANd so a more fit instrument of that old Serpent the Devil, that deceiveth all the world. Good natural parts abused, prove rather as press-money to impiety (as he phraseth it,) and their wisdom Culpae suasoria, as Ambrose speaketh. Wit unsanctified, is a fit tool for the devil to work withal: Neither is there a likelier Anvil in all the shop of Hell, whereon to forge mischief, then one that is learned and lewd, ingeniosê nequam, Wittily wicked. [And he said,] That is, the Devil in the Serpent, as the Angel in Balaam's Ass. Satan istius primae fabulae Poetafuit, serpens histrio. By the ear he brought death into the world: And God, to cross him, brings life in by the same door: For it is, Hear and your souls shall live. The Dragon bites the Elephants ear, and thence sucks his blood: Because he knows that to be the only place, which he cannot reach with his trunk to defend. So here, that great red Dragon dealt with miserable mankind, setting first upon the woman as the weaker vessel (where the hedge is lowest, there the beast leaps over) and so climbing by Adams rib to his heart, as by a ladder; as I said before, out of Saint Gregory. [Yea, hath God said,] In the Chaldee, Is it true that God hath said? A concise expression, implying, That this was not the first of their discourse: Something had been said before. It is not safe parling with the Devil. Satan etsi semel videatur verax, millies est mendax, & semper fallax. Halter him up therefore, and stop his mouth soon, as our Savior did. Or do, as the French say in their Proverb, When the Spaniard comes to parley of peace, then double bolt the door. The Hollanders are said to make no conditions with the Spaniard, but such as are made at Sea, and sealed with great Ordnance, &c. He shoots with Satan in his own bow, that thinks by parling with him to put him off. [Hath God said, Ye shall not eat.] Here, he began his assault upon our first-parents; here, upon Christ, Matth. 4.3. with 3.17. and here, he doth still upon us: Endeavoring to elevate the truth and certainty of God's Word, and to weaken our Faith in his precepts, promises, and menaces. And here, if he take us out of our trenches, if he can but wring this sword of the Spirit out of our hands, he may do what he will with us. Get but the Heretics (said that subtle Sophi • ter) out of the paper-walls of the Scriptures, into the open field of Fathers and Councils, and ye shall soon do well enough with them.

Vers. 3. Neither shall ye touch it ] This is of the woman's own addition, and of a good intention doubtless. For afterwards, when she had drunk in more of the Serpents deadly poison, from gazing upon the fruit, she fell to gaping after it, from touching to tasting. He that would not feed on sins meat, must beware of the broth; keep thee far from an evil matter, saith Moses, Exod. 23.7. A good man dare not come near the train, though he be far off the blow: He dare not venture on the occasion, lest his tinder should take fire. It is ill playing upon the hole of the Asp, or coming too near Hell-mouth: For by so doing, you may beseem to drop in. Watch therefore, and pray too, that ye enter not into temptation, saith our blessed Savior; and mark his reason, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. q. d. Though the Spirit purpose otherwise, the flesh will faulter, and be foiled: Witness the woman here with her left ye die. She held the precept in the utmost extent of it: But that which she failed in, was, That she minced the matter, and opposed not the commination to the temptation; And see how the Devil works upon her weakness, as he watcheth for our haltings, and where to have us on the lip.

Vers. 4. Ye shall not surely die,] He saith not, Dying ye shall not die; or, Surely ye shall not die: This had been too plain a contradiction to that word of God, that had threatened assured death. But, Ye shall not die in dying; That is, It is not certain ye shall die. And this latter is more nice and ambiguous. She seems to doubt of the certainty of what God had said. He plainly, and yet clearly impugnes it: Whereas had God's Word abidden in her, she had overcome that wicked one, 1 John 2.14. The word is compared to mustard seed, which being mixed with vinegar, is (they say) a sovereign medicine against Serpents.

Vers. 5. For God doth know, &c.] Id quod cuns Deum non lateat, sibi cavet. It is remarkable, that the devil here chargeth God with envy, which is his own proper disease: For ever since, he himself fell from Heaven, he cannot abide that any should come there; but of pure spite hindereth them, all that may be. Here he envied that God should be served by man, and that man should be gifted and graced by God. So that he paints out and points out himself, in saying, That God envied man the gift of Wisdom. There is nothing more usual with the wicked, then to muse as they use, and to suppose that evil to be in others, that they • inde to be in themselves. Caligula (that impure beast) would not believe there was any chaste person upon earth. And, I dare say (said Bonner to Hawks the Martyr) that Cranmer would recant, if he might have his living. So judging others by himself: For Papists apply themselves (said our Protomartyr Mr. Rogers ) to the present state; yea, if the state should change ten times in the year, they would ever be ready at hand to change with it, and so follow the cry, and rather utterly forsake God, and be of no Religion, then that they would forgo lust, or Living for God or Religion. [Then your eyes shall be opened.] There is an opening of the eyes of the mind to contemplation and joy: There is also an opening of the eyes of the body to confusion and shame. He promiseth them the former, but intends the latter, and so cheats them, as he doth thousands nowadays, by the cogging of a Dye, (as Saint Paul hath it) giving them an apple in exchange for paradise. Thus of old he cozened A • ab and Croesus with promises of victory; which when it fell out otherwise, he had a hole to creep out, and save his credit by an equivocation. Thus of latter time be gulled Pope Silvester the second, assuring him that he shou • d never die till he came to say Mass in Jerusalem; He, resolving never to come there, made no reckonin • but to live a long time. But it f • ll out somewhat otherwise: For as he was saying Mass in a certain Church in Rome called Jerusalem, fearing nothing, the Devil claimed his due, and had it. For he was there, and then taken with a strong fever, and lying on his death bed, he sent for all his Cardinais, and declaring before them what a wretched bargain he had made with the devil (selling his soul for the Popedom, and deceived • by him with promise of long •• lfe) he bitterly bewailed his own folly, and advised them to beware by his example. And was not Leoline the second, Prince of North-Wales, as finely cheated? For consulting with a Witch he was told, that it was his destiny to ride through London with a crown on his head. Hereupon he growing burdensome to the English borders was in a battle overthrown. His head fixed upon a stake, and adorned with a paper-crown was by a horseman triumphantly carried through London: and so the prophesy was fulfilled, Anno Dom. 1282. [And ye shall be as God's] The Serpents Grammar first taught (saith Damianus ) Deum pluraliter declinare, eritis sicut Dii This the woman understood of the Trinity, as appears, verse. 22. but the Devil might mean it of the Angels, (so our Chaldee Paraphrast translates it) which had sinned, and now had woeful experience of the good which they had lost, and the evil wherein they lay.

Verse 6. And when the woman saw ] At this Cinque-port the devil entered. How many thousand souls have died of the wound of the eye, and cried out, as Eve might here, ut vidi, ut perii! If we do not let in sin at the window of the eye, or the door of the ear, it cannot enter into our hearts. Vitiis nobis in animum per oculos est via, saith Quintilian. Wherefore if thine eye offend thee, pull it out. In Barbary, 'tis death for any man to see one of the Xoriffes concubines; and for them too, if when they see a man (though but through a casement) they do not suddenly screek out. [She took of the fruit thereof] Whatever it were, whether an apple (as Bernard, and others; gather out of Cant. 2.3.) or a fig, as Theodorot; or a pomegranate, as Mahomet in his Quran; or a peach) (malum persicum) or Pomum Paradisi, as the Syrians call a kind of fruit common amongst them: God created us of nothing, and we offended him for a matter of nothing. All the legions of the reprobate devils, saith one, entered into one beast, and, by the Pitho and Suada of that viperous tongue, crept into the bosom of •• ve, as it were by all the Topic places in Logic, figures in Rhetoric, and other engines of guile and deceit, till they had brought her into a fools paradise, with the loss of the earthly, and hazard of the heavenly. [And gave it also to her husband ] It is probable (saith the same Author) that Adam stood by all the time of the disputation, therefore his sin was the greater, that he rebuked not the Serpent, &c. And again, I cannot believe, saith he, but that the devils in the Serpent did as well tempt Adam as Eve, though first they began with her, as a further means of enticing him. Others are of another mind, as that the tempter set upon the woman alone and apart from her husband, as she was curiously prying into the pleasures of the garden. That the Serpent crept into Paradise unseen of Adam, who was to keep beasts out of it; that he remained there without being espied of him, and crept out again when he had done his feat: That when she gave him the fruit, she gave him also a relation of the Serpents promise, concerning the force of that fruit, that it would make them wise as God, knowing good and evil, &c. whence he is said to have hearkened to her voice, verse. 17. And surely, every Adam hath still his Eve, every David his Bathsheba, a tempter in his own bosom (his own flesh) whereby he is eftsoons drawn away, and enticed as a fish by the bait, (beauty is a hook without a bait, as one saith) till when lust hath conceived (as here it did in Eve ) it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Satan hath only a persuading sleight, not an enforcing might. It is our own concupiscence that carrieth the greatest stroke.

Vers. 7. They knew that they were naked ] Bereft of God's blessed Image; no more of it left, then, as of one of Jobs messengers, to bear witness of our great loss. I call it ours, because we were all in Adam, as Levi was in Abraham, or as the whole Country is in a Parliament man. He was our head; and if the head plot treason, all the body is guilty. Hence the Prophet Hosea; O Israel, One hath destroyed thee, but in me is thy help. So some read it. Had we been by when this wretched One destroyed us all: had we seen him stand staggering betwixt God's Commandment, and Eves allurement, not yet resolved which way to incline, and could have foreseen the danger hanging over him and ourselves, we would surely have cried out to him Cave miser, Take heed thou wretch. And why do we not the same to ourselves, when solicited to sin? Alterius perditio tua sit cautio, saith Ifidore: and cavebis si pavebis, saith Another. There is a practical judgment still practiced in our hearts. On the one side, is propounded the commodity of sin; on the other, the offense, whereby we provoke God. So that in the one end of the balance, is laid God, in the other sin, and man stands in the midst, rejecting the command of God, and accepting the pleasure of sin. What is this, but to prefer Paris before Paradise with Cardinal Bourbon, Barabbas, before Christ, a thing of naught before Heavens happiness? Our first parents were born with the royal Robe of Righteousness (as those Porphyrog • niti in Constantinople, ) but the devil soon stripped them of it (the same day, as some think) and so they became fore ashamed of their bodily nakedness, which therefore they fought to cover, by making themselves Aprons, to cover their Privities.

But why did they (and do we still) so studiously hide those parts, rather then their eyes and ears, which they had abused to sin with?

Because sin is become natural, and derived by generation. Therefore circumcision was also on that part of man's body; to show, That that which was begotten thereby, deserved in like manner, as execrable and accursed to be cut off, and thrown away by God. Here some ground their opinion, That it is a sin against nature, to look on the nakedness of another. A foul shame it was for old Noah to lie so uncovered in the midst of his Tent: but far fouler for those worshipers of Priapus, (which Jerome and Isidore make to be that Baal-Peor, Num. 25.5.) that shamed not to say, Nos, puabre pulso, stamus sub Jove, coleis apertis, &c. But in man's soul is now a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the seed of all sin, though never so heinous or hideous: Neither by nature is there ever a better of us; but as in Water face answereth to face, so doth the heart of a man to a man, Prov. 27.19. And as there were many Marii in one Caesar, so are there many Cain's and Caiaphasses in the best of us all. Totus homo est inversus decalogus. The whole man is in evil, and whole evil is in man. As the Chaos had the seeds of all Creatures, and wanted only the Spirits motion to produce them: So our corrupt nature hath all sins in it, and wants but the warmth of Satan's temptation to bring them into act, if God restrain not. Sure it is, we can stay no more from sinning, then the heart can from panting, and the pulse from beating. The first man defiled the nature, and ever since the nature defiles the man. As poison put into a cup of wine disperseth itself, and makes it deadly: so Original sin polluteth and p •• soneth our whole man. And as the whitest ivory turns with the fire, into the deep • st black, the sweetest wine becomes the sourest vinegar: So here. The more unnatural any quality is, the more extreme will it be, as a cold wind from the south is intolerable, &c. So Adam, being in honor, was without understanding, and is now in worse case then the very beasts that perish: Pecoribus morticiuis, saith Tremel: The beasts that die of the murrain, and so become carrion, and are good for nothing.

Vers. 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord.] Either speaking something by himself of that which Adam had done against his command; as who should say, Hath he served me so indeed? or else, calling to Adam in a mighty thunder, as to Pharaoh, Exod. 9.28. or in a terrible whirlwind, as to Job, Chap. 38.1. the better to humble him, and prepare him for a Sermon of mercy and forgiveness. God poureth not the oil of his grace, save only into broken vessels. Christ came to cure not the sound, but the sick with sin: The Holy Ghost is poured out upon thirsty souls only, that are scorched and parched with the sense of sin, and fear of wrath. As the way to Zion was by Sinai, so, unless we desire rather to be carnally secured, then soundly comforted, we must pass by Baca to Berachah, by a sight of our sin and misery, to a sense of God's grace and mercy. [Walking in the Garden in the cool of the day.] God did not meet the man angerly, as he did Moses in the Inn, when he had much ado to forbear killing him; nor as the Angel did Balaam, with a drawn sword in his hand to destroy him: Neither did he rush upon him, as David ran upon Goliath, and cut off his head. But with a soft and slow pace, (as if he had no mind to it) he comes walking toward them, to do this his work, his strange work, of sentencing sinners; and that in the cool of the day too, or towards the evening, as Saint Ambrose hath it after the Septuagint. Whereas to show mercy, behold, he comes leaping upon the Mountains, skipping upon the Hills. Lo, this is the voice, and the pace of my beloved. God was but six days in making the whole world, yet seven days in destroying one city Jericho, as Chrysostom long since observed. He scourgeth not his people, till there be no remedy, 2 Chron. 36.16. He forbears us, though he cry like a travelling woman, to be delivered of his judgments. [And Adam and his wife, hid themselves.] Their covering of figleaves then, was too short; for, here they run with their aprons, into the thicket, to hide from God. A poor shift, God wot, but such as is still too much in use. If I have covered my transgressions as Adam, or after the manner of men, saith Job, then let this and this evil befall me. The bad heart runs from God, and would run from its own terrors, as the wounded Deer from the deadly Arrow that sticks in his side; but refusing ordinary trial, it is in danger to be pressed to death inevitably. We have no better refuge, then to run from God to God. Blood-letting is a cure of bleeding, a Burn of a burn: To close and get in, avoyds the blow, &c.

Vers. 9. Where art thou,] Not, as if God knew not; for he searcheth Jerusalem with lights; yea, himself is the father of lights, the great eye of the world, to whom the Sun itself, is but a snuff. He hath seven eyes upon one stone; yea, his eyes run to and fro through the earth, and all things are naked and open: Naked (for the outside,) and open (for the inside) before the eyes of him, with whom we have to deal. Simple men hide God from themselves, and then think they have hid themselves from God; like the Struthiocamelus they thrust their heads into a hole, when hunted, and then think none seeth them. But he searcheth (so one may do, yet not find) and knoweth, Psal. 139.1. He seeth (so one may do, yet not observe) and pondereth, Prov. 5.21. Though men hide their sins, as close as Rachel did her idols, or Rahab the spies: Though they dig deep to hide their counsels, God can and will detect them, with a woe to boot, Isai. 29.15. For hell and destruction are before him; how then can Saul think to be hid behind the stuff, or Adam behind the bush? At the voice of the Lord he must appear, will he nill he, to give account of his fear, of his flight. This he doth, (but untowardly) in the words following.

Vers. 10. I heard thy voice,] So he had done before his fall, and feared not. Are not my words good to the upright? Micah 2.7. Excellently Saint Austin, Adversarius est nobis, quamdiú sumus & ipsi nobis: Quamdiú tu tibi inimicus es, inimitum habebis Sermonem Dei. Yea, but I was naked, and therefore hid myself. This also was non-causa pro causa. There was another pad in the straw, which he studiously conceals; viz. The conscience of his sin. Hic vero non factum suum, sed Dei factum in semetipso reprehendit, saith Rupertus. He blames not himself but God, for making him naked; and so verifies that of Solomon, The foolishness of man perverteth his way; and then (to mend the matter) his heart fretteth against the Lord. O silly simple!

Vers. 11. Who told thee.] His own conscience awakened and cited by God's voice, told him (as the woman of Samaria said of our Savior) all that ever he did. Before and in the acting of sin, we will hear nothing; but afterwards, Conscience will send forth a shrill and sharp voice, that shall be heard all the soul over; such as was that of Reuben to his brethren. Did not I warn you, saying, Sin not against the child, &c. The Books of our Consciences are now sealed up, and the woeful contents are not read by the Law: They remain as Letters written with the juice of Oringes or Onions, which are only to be made legible by the fire of God's wrath. Then shall the wicked run away (but all in vain) with those words in their mouths, Who amongst us shall dwell with this devouring fire? Who shall abide by these everlasting burnings? Then shall they tire the Mountains with their hideous out-cries, Fall upon us, hide us, crush us in pieces, grind us to powder. But how can that be, when the Mountains melt, and the Rocks rent asunder at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob?

Vers. 12. The woman whom thou gavest.] Here he rejects the fault upon the woman, and thorough her, upon God, who gave her to be with him, or before him; or such another as himself, (with reference to that Lenegdo, Chap. 2.20.) or a help meet for him. This she might have been to him, had he been (that he ought to her) a manly guide in the way to Heaven. He should have rebuked her, as Job did his wicked wife, for transgressing God's Law, and tempting him to the like. Then had her sin been personal, rested upon herself, and gone no further, had not he hearkened to her voice. But he not only not did thus, but instead of agnizing his fault, seeks to transfer it upon God: That since he could not be like unto God in the divinity, which he aimed at, he might make God like unto himself in iniquity, which was to fill up the measure of his sin, that wrath might have come upon him to the utmost; but that God's mercy was then, and is still over all his own good, and our bad works.

Vers. 13. And the woman said, The Serpent.] Thus the Flesh never wants excuses: Nature need not be taught to tell her own tale. Sin and shifting came into the world together; never yet any came to Hell, but had some pretence for coming thither. It is a very course Wool that will take no Dye: Sin and Satan are alike in this; they cannot abide to appear in their own color. Men wrap themselves in excuses, as they do their hands, to defend them from pricks. This is still the vile poison of our hearts; that they will needs be naught, and yet will not yield, but that there is reason to be mad, and great sense in sinning.

Vers. 14. And the Lord God said to the Serpent.] The Serpent was not examined, because God would show no mercy to him: But presently doemed, because of mere malice, he had offended. The Heathens called certain Devils 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 quasi 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

Evil befell him, that evil bethought him: As Balaam that advised evil against Israel, was slain by the sword of Israel. The Serpent also hath his part in the punishment, because instrumental to the Devil. Both Authors, Actors, and Abettors of evil, shall rue it together. The Serpent here, is, first cut shorter by the feet, and made to wriggle upon his belly; secondly, confined to the dust for his dict; which is also, saith an Ancient 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Devils diet: For your Adversary the Devil (that Ruler of the darkness of this world) as he dwells in dark hearts, as so many holes and caverns. So, Behemoth -like, he cats grass as an Ox; yea, dust as a Serpent, continually seeking whom he may devour, 1 Pat. 5.7. And is therefore cursed above all Creatures. He hath swallowed down souls, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly, Job 20.15. He sinneth every day the sin against the Holy Ghost, and shall lie lowest in Hell. Every foul that he drew thither by his temptation, shall be as a millstone hanged about his neck, to hold him down in the bottomless lake.

Vers. 15. And I will put enmity,] Instead of that amity and familiarity, thou hast lately had with the woman. And here begins the Book of the Lord's wars: His hand is here upon his Throne, he hath solemnly sworn, That he will have war (not with Amalek only, but) with the whole Serpentine seed, from generation to generation. There is also a capital antipathy (saith Bodinus ) between the woman and the Serpent: So that in a great multitude of men, if there be but one woman amongst them, he makes at her, and stings her about the heel. Pliny also tells us, That the fasting-spittle of a man, is deadly to Serpents; and that if a Serpent wound a man, he is no more entertained by the earth, or admitted thereinto. Others tell us, That a Snake fears and flies from a naked man, but pursues him when clothed or covered. Put on Christ, and thou art safe. His blood, as Polium, is a preservative against Serpents, Revel. 12.9. [It shall bruise thy head.] And so kill thee quite; as a Serpent is not killed dead, till knocked on the head; which he therefore carefully saves with the hazard of his whole body. To elude, or elevate at least, this sweet promise (this grand Charter of our Salvation) the Devil, no doubt, devised, and by his Factors, the Poets divulged that frivolous fable of Hercules his clubbing down the Lernaan Serpent, and cutting off his many heads. But Christ alone is that stronger man, that, drawing the Dragon out of his Den, hath cracked his crown, destroyed his works, made him to fall as lightning from the heaven of men's hearts, and will tread him also under our feet shortly, as he hath already done under his own, when spoiling these principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them on his cross, Colos. 2.15. As in the mean while, till this be fully done, nibble he may at our heel, but cannot come at our head. Achilles is said to have taken his death, by a wound in his heel. But he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one (the Devil) toucheth him not, 1 John 5.18. That is, Tactu qualitative, saith Cajeta • , with a deadly touch; he thrusteth not his sting so far into him, as to do him to death. For Christ (who is our life, Colos. 3.4) can as soon die at the right hand of his heavenly Father, as in the heart of a faithful Christian; since our life is hid with Christ in God; his life is bound up in his Childes life. He shall make the broken horns of Satan to be the Trumpets of his glory, and the Cornets of our joy. [Thou shalt bruise his heel.] Not both his heels, but one only: So that he shall stand upon one, though hurt in the other; or if overthrown, yet he shall rise again, and be more then a conqueror, or over overcome him that overturned him. He is the Victor, that breaketh the head: When as he that bruiseth the heel (though he be an enemy) yet he lies along, and can do no great mischief there. And hereto the Prophet seems to refer, when he saith, Why should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels (that is, when the punishment of mine iniquity that reacheth but to the heels) shall compass me about? God will redeem my soul from the hand of hell, Psal. 49.6, 16. I conclude with that memorable saying of a holy Martyr: If we had a lively feeling of the Serpents poison, we could not but rejoice in our Captain, who hath bruised his head. What though the Serpent shoot his sting into our heel, and make us halt, yet let us go on, though halting to Heaven; Yea, run with patience the race that is set before us; looking at Jesus, the Author and finisher of our Faith, &c.

Vers. 16. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow,] The greatest of sorrows this is, as we are given to understand, both out of divine, and human Writings. I had rather die in battle ten times over, then bring forth but once only, said Medea in the Tragedy. But we have a better example in the Ecclesiastical History, of a Roman Lady, called Sabina; Who being great with child, was cast in prison for the Profession of Christ's Truth. Now when the time came, that she should be delivered, and she cried out for extremity of pain; the Keeper of the prison asked her, Why she made such a stir now? And how she would, two or three days hence endure to die at a stake, or by the sword? She answered, Now I suffer as a woman, the punishment of my sin; but then, I shall not suffer, but Christ shall suffer in me. In peace-offerings there might be oil mixed, not so in sin-offerings. In our sufferings for Christ, there is joy, not so, when we suffer for our sins. [In sorrow thou shalt bring forth.] And in sorrow shalt thou bring up, after the birth, as Gen. 50.23. Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts. Eve had a great catch of it, when she had got a manchild of the Lord, she called him Cain, a possession, as David did Absalom, his Fathers peace. But

Excellently Saint Gregory, Ante partum liberi sunt onerosi, in partu dolorosi, post partum laboriosi. [And he shall rule over thee.] Yet not with rigor. She must (though to her grief and regret) be subject to all her husbands lawful, both commands and restraints. But he must carry himself as a man of knowledge towards her; and make her yoke as easy as may be. It is remarkable, That when the Apostle had bid Wives submit to your own husbands, &c. He doth not say, Husbands, rule over your wives, (for that they will do fast enough without biding,) but husbands love your wives, and be not bitter unto them.

Vers. 17. Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife.] Our English Historian, relating the deadly difference that fell out betwixt those two noble Seymours (the Lord Protector, and the Admiral his Brother, in Edward the sixth time) thorough the instigation of their ambitious wives, passionately cries out, O wives! The most sweet poison, the most desired evil in the world, &c. Woman was first given to man for a Comforter, saith he, not for a Counselor, much less a controller and director. And therefore in the first sentence against man, this cause is expressed, Because thou hast obeyed the voice of thy wife, &c. [Cursed is the ground for thy sake.] Hence the Greeks and Latins borrow their words for ground of the Hebrew word that signifieth cursed. The curse of emptiness and unsatisfyingness lies upon it, that no man hath enough, though never so much of it. The curse also of barrenness, or unprofitable fruits, whose end is to be burned, Heb. 6.8. The whole earth and the works therein, shall be burnt up. It was never beautiful, nor cheerful, since Adams fall. At this day it lies bed-rid, waiting for the coming of the Son of God, that it may be delivered from the bondage of corruption, Rom. 8.20.

Vers. 18. Thorns also and thisties,] Ubi veritas dixit, quod terra homini spinas & tribulos germinaret subintelligendum fuit, ait Petrareha, & rusticos tribulis omnibus asperiores. The Clowns of Midian drove Jethroes daughters from the water they had drawn. Rudeness hath no respect, either to sex or condition. Those Churls of Succoth, were worthily threshed with thorns of the Wilderness, and with briars, and thereby taught better manners. [Thou shalt eat the herb of the field.] And no longer feed on these pleasant fruits of Paradise, which by thy sin thou hast forfeited. Thus man is driven from his dainty and delicate diet, to eat husks with hogs, as the Prodigal, or at least, grass with the Ox, as Nebuchadnezzar, and be glad of it too; as our Ancestors, who though they fed not at first on acorns, as the Poets fable, yet if they could get a dish of good green herbs, they held themselves as well provided for, as if they had all.

Verse 19. In the sweat of thy face ] Or, of thy nose, as One rendereth it, that sweat that beginning in thy brow runs down by thy nose, through thy hard labor. This is a law laid upon all sorts to sweat out a poor living, to humble themselves by just labor, to sweat either their brows or their brains (for this latter also is a sore occupation, Eccles. 1.13. and the Ministers toil is compared to that of those that cleave wood, or work hard in harvest, 1 Thess. 3.5. Math. 10.1 • 1 Cor. 9.14. &c. ) [Shalt thou eat bread] Not herbs only as verse. 18. And here take notice of an elegant gradation, together with a merciful mitigation of man's misery. Thou shalt▪ eat earth, ver. 17. herbs, verse. 18. and now here, Thou shalt eat bread, that stay and staff of man's life under his hard labor. [Untill thou return unto the ground] O earth, earth, earth, bear • the word of the Lord, i.e. Earth by creation, Earth by corruption, Earth by resolution. This is the end of all men, and the living should lay it to heart. In this third of Genesis we find Mans Exodus. This is the first text of mortality, and all comments, yea all dead corpses concur to the exposition of it. [For dust thou art] Think on this, and be proud, if thou canst. We were created 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but now we live 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 saith Agapetus. Had we so sweet a generation as that little creature Scaliger speaks of, that is bred in sugar, we might have had some ground of boasting; but now we may sprinkle the dust of humility on our heads, as the Ancients used to do, in token that they had deserved to be as far under, as now they were above ground. [And to dust thou shalt return] By this limitation God restrains man's death here threatened, to that earthy part of him, his body. The forest death is when a man dies in his sins, as those Jews did, Joh. 8.21. (better die in a ditch a fair deal) when he is killed with death, as Jesabels children, Rev. 2.23. this is the second death. The condemned person comes out of a dark prison, and goes to the place of execution; so do many from the womb to the tomb, nay to that tormenting Tophet, to the which death is but a trap-door, to give them entrance.

Verse 20. And Adam ca •• ed his wives name Eve ] That is, Life, or Living. Not, per antiphraesim, as some would have it, much less out of pride and stomach, in contempt of the divine sentence denounced against them both, that they should surely die, as Rupertus would have it; but because she was to be mother of all living, whether a natural or a spiritual life; and likewise for a testimony of his faith in, and thankfulness for that lively and lifegiving oracle, verse. 15. [The mother of all living] Have we not all, as one father, Mal. 3.10. so, one mother? did we not all tumble in a belly? why, do we then deal treacherously every man against his brother? ib. This one consideration should charm down our rising and boiling spirits one against another, as it did Abraham's, Gen. 13 8.

Verse 21. Coats of skins and clothed them ] God put them in leather, when yet there was better means of clothing, to humble them doubtless, and draw them to repentance. Whether God created these skins anew, or took them off the backs of sheep and goats killed for sacrifice, to mind man of his mortality and mortification, it much matters not. Our first parents, who even after the fall were the goodliest creatures that ever lived, went no better clothed: no more did those Worthies of whom the world was not worthy, Heb. 11.37. And surely, howsoever our condition and calling afford us better array, and the vulgar like a Bohemian cur fawn upon every good suit. (purpuram magis quam Deum colunt,) yet we must take heed that pride creep not into our clothes, those ensigns of our sin and shame, since our fineness is our filthiness, our neatness our nastiness. It is a sure sign of a base mind, though in high place, to think he can make himself great with anything that is less then himself, and win more credit by his garments, then his graces. St. Peter teacheth women, (who many of them are too much addicted to over much fineness) to garnish themselves not with gay clothes, but with a meek and quiet spirit as Sarah did, and not as those mincing dames, whose pride the Prophet inveighs against, as punctually as if he had viewed the Ladies wardrobes in Jerusalem. Rich apparel are but fine covers of the foulest shame. The worst is Natures garment, the best but follies garnish. How blessed a Nation were we, if every silken suit did cover a sanctified soul: or if we would look upon out clothes, as our first parents did, as love-tokens from God;

How could they but see it to be a singular favor that God with own hands should clothe them, (though he had cast them out of Paradise for their nurture) a visible Sacrament of his invisible love and grace concerning their souls, in covering their sins, and so interresting them into true blessedness, Psal. 32 1, 2.

Verse 22. The man is b • come as one of us ] A holy irrisionof man's vain affectation of the Deity. Quod Deus loquitur cum risu, tu l • gas cum flee • u. Howbeit St. Aug. is of opinion that God speaks thus, not by way of insulting over Adam, but deterring others from such proud attempts. Discite justitiam moniti, &c. [And take also of the tree of life] And so think to elude the sentence of death pronounced upon him by God; which yet he could not have done, had he eaten up tree and all. He should but have added to his sin and judgment by abuse of this Sacrament; which would have sealed up life unto him, had he held his integrity. Multi etiam hodie propter arborem scientiae amittunt arborem vitae: In terris manducant quod apudinferos digerunt.

Verse 23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth ] He gently dismissed him, as the word signifies, placed him over against Paradise in the sight thereof (as Stella observeth out of the Septuagint) that, by often beholding, the sorrow of his sin might be increased, that his eye might affect his heart. Yet lest he should be swallowed up of over much sorrow, and so Satan get an advantage of him (for God is not ignorant of his devices) Christ the promised seed, was by his voluntary banishment, to bring back all believers to their heavenly home; to bear them by his Angels into Abraham's bosom, and to give them to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God, Rev. 2.7. Our whole life here is nothing else but a banishment. That we like it no worse is, because we never knew better. They that were born in hell, saith the Proverb, think there's no other heaven. The poor posterity of a banished Prince take their mean condition well-aworth; Moses counts Egypt (where yet he was but a sojourner) his home; and in reference to it calls his son, (born in Midian ) Gershom, that is, a stranger there. Oh how should we breath after our heavenly home, groaning within ourselves like those birds of Paradise, Naturalists speak of! stretching forth the neck, as the Apostles word importeth, waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of our bodies, Rom. 8.23. glorifying God. (mean-while) with our spirits and bodies, devouring all difficulties, donec à spe ad speciem transeamus, till Christ, who is gone to prepare a place for us, return and say, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.

Verse 24. So he drove out the man ] The Hebrews say, God led Adam gently by the hand, till he came to the porch of Paradise, and then thrust him out violently, who hungback, and plaid loath to depart. That he went out unwillingly, as I wonder not, so that he should strive with God about his going out, I believe not. This garden planted merely for his pleasure, and all the benefits created for his use and service in six days, he lost in six hours say some; in nine, say others; the same day he was made, say All, almost: What cause then have all his sinful posterity to distrust themselves? And how little cause had that blasphemous Pope to set his mouth against heaven, when being in a great rage at his Steward for a cold Peacock not brought to table according to his appointment; and desired by one of his Cardinals, not to be so much moved at a matter of so small moment, he answered: If God were so angry for an apple, that he cast our first parents out of Paradise for the same; why may not I, being his Vicar, be angry then for a Peacock, since it is a greater matter then an apple? Is not this that mouth of the Beast that speaketh great things and blasphemies? Rev. 13.5.

CHAP. IV. Verse 1. I have gotten a man from the Lord ]

OR, that famous Man the Lord, as if she had brought forth the Man Christ Jesus. These were verba spei, non rei; for Cain was of that wicked one, the Devil, 1 Joh. 3.12. as all reprobates are, 1 Joh. 3.10. Cain the Author of the City of the World, saith Augustine, is born first, and called Cain, that is, a possession, because he buildeth a City, is given to the cares and pomp of the world, and persecutes his brother that was chosen out of the world. But Abel, the Author of the City of God, is born second; called Vanity, because he saw the worlds vanity, and is therefore driven out of the world by an untimely death; so early came martyrdom into the world: the first man that died, died for Religion. In a witty sense (saith Hugh Broughton) Cain and Abel contain in their names advertisements for matter of true continuance and corruption. Cain betokeneth possession in this world: And Abel betokeneth one humbled in mind, and holding such possession vain. Such was his offering, sheep-kind, the gentlest of all living beasts, and therefore the favor of God followed him. And the offering of Cain was of the fruit of the earth; as he loved the possession of this world, and the service of the body (which yet can have no continuance) and followed after bodily lusts; therefore the blessed God favored him not. Thus far he out of the Rabbin's. Another English Divine hath this note upon these words, I have gotten a man from the Lord; Jehovah. Adam and Eve were all about the composition of Cain. His soul was inspired pure and holy; yet as soon as the vital spirits laid hold of it, it was in the compound, a son of Adam. A skillful Artificer makes a clock of all his essential parts most accurately; only he leaves the putting of all parts together to his unskillful apprentice; who so jumbles together the several joints, that all falls to jaring, and can keep no time at all, every wheel running backwardway. So God most artificially still perfects both body and soul: but our accursed parents put all out of frame, and set every part in a contrary course to God's will. Sin is propagated and proceeds from the union of body and soul into one man. That phrase, Warmed in sin, Psal. 51.5. is meant of the preparation of the body, as an instrument of evil, which is not so actually, till the soul come.

Vers. 3. In process of time ] That distance of time between the Creation, and the general Flood, Varro the most learned of the Romans calleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 obscure or unknown, because the Heathen had no Records of that, which we now clearly understand, to have been then done, out of the holy Scriptures. [Cain brought of the fruit.] They brought their sacrifices to Adam, the high Priest of the family, who offered them to God in their name. So in the Levitical Law, though a man's offering were never so good, he might not offer it himself, upon pain of death: But the Priest must offer it. And the Priest was to offer as well the poor man's Turtle, as the rich man's Ox: To teach, that none may present his service to God, how good soever he may conceit it, but in the hand of the high Priest of the New Testament Jesus Christ, the just one, who will not only present, but perfume the poorest performances of an upright heart, with his odors.

Vers. 4. Of the firstlings of his flock.] He brought the best of the best, not anything that came next to hand, as Cain seems to have done holding anything good enough, as did those rich wretches that cast brass-money into the treasury. But cursed be that couzener, that hath a male in his flock, and offereth to God a corrupt thing. Offer it now to thy Prince, will he be content with thy refuse stuff? Behold, I am a great King, saith God; he stands upon his seniority, and looks to be honored with the best of our sub • tance. Mary that loved much, thought nothing too much for her sweet Savior. She brought an Alabaster box of ointment of great price, and poured it upon him, and he defends her in it against those that held it waste. Among the Papists, their Lady of Loretto hath her Churches so stuffed with vowed presents of the best, as they are fain to hang their Cloisters and Church-yards with them. Shall not their supe • stition rise up and condemn our irreligion, our slubbering services, and dough-baked duties? The Turks build their private houses, low and homely, but their Moschces or Temples stately and magnificent. [Had respect to Abel and his offering.] The eye of the Lord is still upon the righteous, and his ears are in their prayers: He looks upon such with singular delight, with special intimation of his love; he is ravished with one of their eyes lifted up in prayer, with one chain of their graces; when as he was no whit affected with the offer of all the worlds glory, Matth. 4. He saith of such to the wicked, as the Prophet said of Jehoshaphat to the King of Israel. Surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat King of Judah, I would not look toward th • e, nor see thee: Cain here for instance.

Vers. 5. But to Cain and his offering, &c.] Because he brought non personam sed opus personae, as Luther hath it; who also calls those Cainists, that offer to God the work done, but do not offer themselves to God. Works materially good, may never prove so, formally and eventually. That which is fair to men, is abomination to God. He rejected the Swan for sacrifice, because under a white feather, it hath black skin. Sordet in conspectu Judicis quod fulget in conspectu operantis, saith Gregory. A thing may shine in the night from its rottenness.

Vers. 6. Why is thy countenance f •• n?] Why dost lowre and look so like a dog under a door? Vultu saepe laeditur pietas: Difficile est animum non prodere vult • . He was discontented at God, and displeased at his brother. He looks but sour and suffen upon him, and • od takes him up for it. He so loves his little ones, that he cannot abide the cold wind should blow upon them. The Sun must not sm • te them by day, nor the Moon by night. The North and South must both blow good to them. Better, a millstone, &c. then offend one of these little ones, be it but by a frown or a frump. Better anger all the witches in the world, then one of God's zealous witnesses: For there goeth a fire out of their mouths to devour their enemies.

Vers. 7. Sin lies at the door.] Like a great ban-dog ready to pull out the throat of thy soul, if thou but look over the hatch. Say this dog lie asleep for a while, yet the door is for continual pass and repass, and so no fit place for any long sleep. Your sin will surely find you out (saith Moses ) as a blood-hound, and haunt you like a hell-hag, as the Heathen could say, Nemo crimen gerit in pectore, qui non idem Nemesin in tergo.

Vers. 8. And Cain talked with Abel.] What talk they had, is not set down. The Septuagint and vulgar Versions tell us Cain said, Let us go out into the field. The Chaldee addeth that he should say, There was no judgment, nor judge, nor world to come, nor reward for justice, nor vengeance for wickedness, &c. Certain it is, That those that are set to go on in sin, do lay hold upon all the principles in their heads, and imprison them in unrighteousness, that they may sin more freely; they muzzle the mouths of their consciences, that they may satisfy their lusts without control. But had Zimri peace that slew his master? or Cain that slew his brother? hath any ever waxed fierce against God and prospered? Job 9.4. [Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew.] So, Cain was the devils Patriarch, and Abel the Churches Protomartyr. It is not long since Alphonsus Diazius a Spaniard, an Advocate in the Court of Rome, came from Rome to Neoberg in Germany, to kill his own brother John Diazius, a faithful Professor of the Reformed Religion, and a familiar friend to Bu • er, who gives him an excellent commendation. But it is worth the observing, saith One, That the first quarrel about Religion arose propemodùm inter media sacrificia, in the midst of the sacrifices almost. These Theological hatreds (as I may call them) are most bitter hatreds, and are carried on for most part, with Cain -like rage, and bloody opposition. No fire sooner breaks forth, none goes out more slowly, then that which is kindled about matters of Religion: and the nearer any come to other, the more deadly are their differences, and the more desperate their designs one 'gainst another. The Persians and Turks are both Mohammedans, and yet disagreeing about some small points in the Interpretation of their Quran; the Persians burn whatsoever Books they find of the Turkish Sect. And the Turks hold it more meritorious to kill one Persian, then seventy Christians. The Jew can better brook a Heathen then a Christian; they curse us in their daily devotions, concluding them with a Maledic Domine Nazaraeis. The Pope will dispense with Jews, but not with Protestants. Lutherans will sooner join hands with a Papist then a Calvinist. And what a spirit had he, that in a Sermon at Norwich, not long since, inveighing against Puritans, said, If a cup of cold water had a reward, much more a cup of such men's blood? Mort ••• est Cain, sed utinam ill non viveret in suis filiis, qui clavam ejus. sanguine Abelis rubent • m, ut rem sacram, circumferunt, adorant & venerantur. The place where Cain slew Abel, is by some thought to be Damascus in Syria, called therefore Damesec, that is, a bag of blood.

Vers. 9. I know not: Am I my brothers keeper? ] As if he had bid God, go look. Let not us think much to receive dogged answers and disdainful speeches, from profane persons. When they have learned to think better, they will speak better. As till then, pity and pray for them. These churlish dogs will be barking.

Vers. 10. What hast thou done?] Here God appeals to the murderers conscience, which is instead of a thousand witnesses. As oft as we feel the secret smitings of our own hearts for sin, think we hear him that is greater then our hearts, saying to us as here, What hast thou done? And that there is no good to be done by denying or daubing, for he knoweth all things, 1 John 3.20. and requireth that we should see our sins to confession, or we shall see them to our confusion. [The voice of thy brothers bloods ] The blood of one Abel had so many tongues as drops; and every drop, a voice to cry for vengeance. Give them blood to drink, for they are worthy. Charles the ninth of France, Author of that bloody massacre of Paris, died of exceeding bleeding. Richard the third of this Kingdom, and Q. Mary, had the shortest reigns of any since the Conquest; according to that, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days. Anno 1586. Walsh Bishop of Ossery in Ireland, a man of honest life, with his two servants, were stabbed to death by one Dulland, an Irish old Soldier, whilst he gravely admonished him of his foul adulteries; and the wicked murderer escaped away, who had now committed forty five murders with his own hand. At length, revenge pursuing him, he was by another bloody fellow Donald Spaniah shortly after slain himself, and his head presented to the Lord Deputy of Ireland.

Vers. 11. And now thou art c • rsed.] The Pope contrarily blesseth and sainteth Traitors to their Country, and murderers of their natural Sovereigns; as Ravilliac, and other his Assasines, those sworn sword men of the Devil. Alphonsus Diarius, who killed his own brother for the cause of Religion, as above said, fled to Rome, and was there highly commended for his zeal, and largely rewarded, as Bucer reporteth. But, driven thereto by the terrors of his own guilty conscience, like another Judas, he afterwards hanged himself upon the neck of his own Mule, for want of a better Gallows.

Vers. 12. A fugitive and a vagabond, &c.] The Patriarchs were Pilgrims, and staid not long in a place. The Apostles also were hurried about, Rom. 15.19. and had no certain dwelling place. But first, God numbered their flittings, Psal. 56.8. He kept just reckoning of them in his Count-book. Secondly, Their hearts were fixed, trusting in the Lord, Psal. 112.7. They could call their souls to rest, when they had no rest in their bones: And fly up to Heaven with the wings of a Dove, when hunted on Earth as so many Patridges. So could not Cain the caytiff. He was not more a fugitive in the Earth, then in his own conscience: Fain he would have fled from the terrors of it, but could not, he was langold to it, and must abide by it. Hence the Greek translates this Text, Sighing and trembling shalt thou be on the earth; and so the word here used is applied elsewhere, to the trembling of the heart, Isa. 7.2. to the walking of the lips, 1 Sam. 1.13. to the shaking of the Forest by a violent wind, Isa. 7.2. to the leaping of the Lintel at the presence of the Lord, Isai. 6.4, &c. And this (in all probability) was that mark, that God set upon him, v. 15. Not a horn in his forehead, as the Jews fain, but a hornet in his conscience, such as God vexed the Hivites with, Exod. 23.28. stinging them with unquestionable conviction and horror. For assuredly a body is not so tormented with stings, or torn with stripes, as a mind with remembrance of wicked actions.

Vers. 13. My punishment is greater then I can bear.] Or, Mine iniquity is greater then can be forgiven. In either sense he sins exceedingly, and worse perhaps then in slaying his brother, whether he murmur against God's justice, or despair of his mercy. Mine iniquity is greater, &c. Mentiris Cain, saith a Father, Cain did not say so, because it was so: But it was so, because he said so. Despair is Satan's master-piece; it carries men head-long to hell, as the Devils did the herd of Swine into the deep; witness Guarlacus, Bomelius, Latomus of Lovain, Johannes de Canis, our English Hubertus, a covetous Oppressor, who made this will, I yield my goods to the King, my body to the grave, my soul to the devil.

Vers. 14. From the face of the earth ] That is, of this earth, this country, my Fathers family; which in the next words, he calls God's face, the place of his public worship, from the which Cain was here justly excommunicated. And surely, Saint Jude's woe will light heavy upon all such, as going in the way of Cain, and not willing to hear of their wicked ways, do willfully absent themselves from the powerful preaching of the Word. They that will not hear the Word, shall hear the Rod, Mic. 6.9. Yea, a sword shall pierce thorough their souls, as it did Cain's here; in whom was fulfiled that of Eliphaz, Job 15.21, 22. A dreadful sound was in his ears, lest in his prosperity the destroyer should come upon him. He believed not that he should return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. [Everyone that finds me, shall slay me] Quàm male est extra legem viventibus: quicquid meruerunt semper expectant: Fat Swine cry hideously, if but touched or meddled with, as knowing they ow their life, to them that will take it. Tiberius felt the remorse of conscience so violent, that he protested to the Senate, that he suffered death daily: Whereupon Tacitus makes this good note, Tandem facinora & flagitia in supplicium vertuntur. As everybody hath its shadow appertaining to it, so hath every sin its punishment. And although they escape the lash of the Law, yet vengeance will not suffer them to live, (as the Barbari ••• rashly censured Saint Paul ) to live quietly at least. Richard the third, after the murder of his two innocent Nephews, had fearful dreams and visions; insomuch, that he did often leap out of his bed in the dark, and catching his sword (which always naked, stuck by his side) he would go distractedly about the chamber, everywhere seeking to find out the cause of his own occasioned disquiet. Polydor Virgil thus writes of his dream that night before Bosworth -field, where he was slain, that he thought that all the devils in hell, pulled and hailed him in most hideous and ugly shapes; and concludes of it at last; I do not think it was so much his dream, as his evil conscience, that bred those terrors. It is as proper for sin to raise fears in the soul, as for rotten flesh and wood to breed worms. That worm that never dies is bred here in the froth of filthy lusts and slagitious courses, and lies gnawing and grubbing upon men's inwards, many times in the ruffe of all their jollity. This makes Saul call for aminstrell, Belshazzar for his carrousing cups, Cain for his workmen to build him a City, others for other of the Devils anodynes, to put by the pangs of their wounded spirits, and throbbing consciences. Charles the ninth, after the massacre of France, could never endure to be awakened in the night without music, or some like diversion; he became as terrible to himself, as formerly he had been to others. But above all, I pity the loss of their souls, who serve themselves as the Jesuit in Lancashire, followed by one that found his glove, with a desire to restore it him. But pursued inwardly with a guilty conscience, he leaps over a hedge, plunges into a Marle-pit behind it, unseen and unthought of, wherein he was drowned.

Vers. 15. The Lord set a mark, &c.] Some say it was the letter Tau; others, some letter of Jehovah: probably, it was the perpetual trembling of his hands, and whole body; the very sight whereof, made people pity him, till at length he was slain, say some, by his nephew Lamech. Cedrenus tells us (if we may believe him) that Cain took his death by the fall of a house in the year of the world, 931. the next year after the death of his father Adam. But however he died, sure it is, he had but an ill life of it. He was marked, saith Philo, but to his misery; he might not be killed by any, that he might every day be dying; having a hell in his conscience, and standing in fear of every man he met with. He that would not hearken to God, so sweetly inciting and enticing him to do well, verse. 7. hath now Pavor and Pallor for his gods, as Lactantius reporteth of Tullius Hostilius, who had profanely derided the devotions of his predecessor Numa, as here Cain had done his brother Abel's.

Vers. 16. And Cain went out from the presence, &c.] But whiter could he go from God's Spirit? or whither could he fly from his presence? From the presence of his power he could not: for,

God is not very far from any one of us, saith St. Paul. Not so far surely as the bark is from the tree, for all things consist in him: so that a wicked man cannot wag hand or foot, without his privity. But it was the presence of his grace, and use of his Ordinances that this wretch fled from; as did likewise Jonas (in that, as wise as he) so going out of the grace of God into the warm sun, as we say. God fetched Jonas home again by weeping cross, and made him feelingly acknowledge (for it had like to have cost him a choking) that they that observe lying vanities, as he had done, forsake their own mercies. But Cain seated himself in the land of Nod, and there fell to building and planting in contempt, as it is thought, of the divine doom denounced against him; or rather to drown the noise of his conscience, as the old Italians were wont to do the noise of the heavens in time of thunder, by ringing their greatest Bels, and letting off their greatest Ordnance.

Vers. 17. And he built a City ] So, many drown themselves either in secular businesses, or sensull pleasures, and all to put by their melancholy dumps, and heart-qualms, as they call them; indeed, to muffle up the mouths of their horribly guilty consciences: So Nicephorus Phocas, when Zimri like, he had killed his master, he labored like Cain, to secure himself with building high walls: After which, he heard a voice telling him, that though he built his walls never so high, yet sin within the walls would undermine all. Besides that, one small drop of an evil conscience troubleth a whole sea of outward comforts and contentments: a confluence whereof would no more ease conscience, then a silken stocking would do a broken leg. Silly are they that think to glide away their groans with games, and their cares with cards, &c. [Called the City after the name of his son Enoch] That he might be styled, Lord Enoch of Enoch. This is the ambition of worldly men; their names are not written in heaven; they will propagate them therefore upon earth, as Nimrod by his tower, Absalom by his pillar, Cain by his city, Enoch (which St. Augustine fitly maketh a figure of Rome, because both of them were built by a parricide.) Their inward thought is, saith the Psalmist, that their houses shall continue forever, and their dwelling places to all generations; and therefore, they call their lands after their own names. They seek to immortalize themselves upon their possessions; but the third heir seldom ever owns them. Hence houses and lands, shift masters so oft; ( Olim eram Menipi, nunc Speusippi, &c. said that house in the Apology.) God justly crosseth these inhabitants of the earth, as they are called, in opposition to the Saints, whose conversation is in heaven, whereof they are Fellow-citizens. These know that they have here no abiding City, they look for one therefore above, not Henochta, but Heaven, Whose builder and maker is God, Heb. 11.10.

Vers. 19. And unto Enoch was born Irad. &c.] Cain had a numerous offspring. Seven generations of his are here reckoned: Se • h is not yet born, that we hear of. The wicked are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes, Psal. 17.14. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They dance to the timbrell and harp (as here Jabal and Jubul did) but they suddenly turn into hell, and so their merry dance ends in a miserable downfall.

Vers. 19. Lamech took unto himself ] As his own lust led him, not caring for consent of parents: And two wives; as little caring for the come • and of God▪ that two, and no more, should be one flesh, Gen. 2.24. yea though he had the residue of the spirit, and so could have made many wives for Adam, yet made he but one, saith the Prophet. And wherefore one? but that he might seek a godly seed. Solomon's polygamy was punished with barrenness. We read not of any son he had but one, (and, he none of the wisest neither) Rehoboam. This great King hath but one son by many house-fulls of wives, when many a poor man hath an house Full of children by one wife. Erasmus tells astory of a certain poor English cripple, lame on both legs, that married a blind woman, and gave this reason, We shall the better agree, when neither can hit other in the teeth with our several defects and deformities. Nec f • fellit hominem judicium, saith he, It proved a happy match. They lived lovingly and cheerfully together, and God Almighty blessed them with a dozen lusty boys, that had not the least deformity about them. Sardus tells us, that the old Britain's would, ten or twelve of them take one woman to wife: Belike women were scarce amongst them. But yet that was better then the old Scots, of whom St. Jerome reports, that they took no wives; but satisfied their lusts up and down as they listed, and wheresoever they liked, after the manner of brute creatures. I have somewhere read, that not many hundreds of years since, they had a custom kept up amongst them, that the Landlord might demand the first night of his Tenants wife, as a chie • e rent. And Mr. Fox relates, that the Friars in Germany were grown to that height of impudency, as to require the tenth night of every man's wife, as a tithe due to them. Which to prevent, the Helvetians, when they received any new Priest into their Churches, they bargained with him before, to take his Concubine, lest he should attempt any misuse of their wives and daughters. How much better were it, for the avoiding of fornication, if every man of them had his own wife, saith Paul. Not so, saith Cardinal Campeius: for if comparison should be made, much greater offense it is, a Priest to have a wife, then to have and keep at home many harlots. For they that keep harlots, (saith he) as it is naught that they do, so do they acknowledge their sin. The other persuade themselves they do well, and so continue without repentance, or conscience of their fact. A fit reason for a carnal Cardinal. Such another was his brother, Cardinalis Cremonensis, who after his stout replying in the Council of London, against the married estate of Priests; exclaiming what a shameful thing it was, to rise from the sides of a whore, to make Christ's body, the night following was shamefully taken with a notable Whore. This was bad enough: but that was worse in Johannes a Cassa, Dean of the Popes chamber, who so far forgot humanity and honesty, that he set forth a book in Italian meeter, in commendation of Sodomitry, saying, that he never used any other. This might better have become a Turk, then a Bishop. Sodomy in the Levant is not held a vice, so debauched they are grown. The Turkish Bashaws, besides their wives, whereof they have ton at least, each Bashaw hath as many, or likely more Catamites, which are their serious loves. For their wives are used but to dress their meat, to Laundress, and for reputation. Only when the great Turk gives his daughter or sister to any Bashaw to wife, 'tis somewhat otherwise: For he giveth her at the same time a dagger, saying, I give thee this man to be thy slave and bedfellow. If he be not loving, obedient, and dutiful to thee, I give thee here this cun • hare or dagger to out off his head. Yet can she not forbid him to marry more wives to vex her, ( Levite. 18.18.) and to fret her, as Peninnah did Hannah, yea to make her to thunder, as the word there signifies: For Turks may take as many wives, as they are able to maintain. Hence it is that in jealousy they •• cend Italians; making their women go mo •• ed all but the eyes; and not suffe • ing them to go to Church, or so much as look out at their own windows.

Vers. 20. Adah b •• a Jaba • ] Jabal a good husband, I •• all a merry Greek, whence the word Iubilo in Latin, and our English Jo • iall. Jaball that dwelt in tents and tended the herds, had Juball to his brother, the father of ha • d • nd wind music. Jaball and Juball, frugality and mirth, good h • sbandry and sweet content dwell together. Virgil makes mention of a happy husbandman in his time, who

Vers. 22. And Zillah bare Tubalcam ] Perhaps the same that the Poets call Vulcan. He was a cunning Artificer in brass and iron. To oles they had before, and instruments of iron: how else could they have plowed the accursed earth? But this man, artem jam inventam excoluit ornavitque, saith Junius; and is therefore called, A whetter or polisher of every Artificer in brass and iron. They had the art of it before: but he added to their skill by his invention, he sharply and wittily taught Smiths-craft; and is therefore by the heathens feigned to be the god of Smiths, saith another Interpreter.

Vers. 23. And Lamech said unto his wives ] Who it seems were troublesome to him with their domestical discords, and led him a discontented life. He therefore gives them to understand in this set speech, what a man he is, if molested by them or any other; and what slaughters he can make, if provoked by an adversary. I would slay a man, if but wounded, &c. This revenge he counts man-hood, which indeed is dog-hood rather. So Alexander Phereus consecrated his javelin, wherewith he slew his uncle Polyphron (as a monument of his man-hood) and called it his god Tychon. So Sylla caused it to be registered in the public Records, that he had prescribed, and put to death four thousand and seven hundred Romans. So Stokesly Bishop of London, comforted himself upon his death bed with this, that in his time he had burned fifty Heretics as he called them. Is not this to glory in their shame, and to have damnation for their end? Is it not the Devil that sets men a work to do thus, as he did Saul to seek David's life, and Lamech to domineer in this sort over his wives, seeking so to repress their strife? A certain Indian coming into a house of the New-English, where a man and his wife were brawling, and they bidding him sit down, he was welcome: he answered, he would not stay there; Hobomack, that is the Devil, was there; and so departed.

Vers. 24. If Cain shall • e avenged sevenfold, &c.] Thrasonicall Lamech brags, and goes on to out-dare God himself. For it is as if he should say, If God will take vengeance on them that contemn him, why may not I on those that contemn me, wives or other? Nay, though God will forgive evils against him, yet will not I evils against me. I will have the odds of him, seventy to seven; so Junius interprets it. A desperate expression, and somewhat like that of Pope Julius the third, above-mentioned in the last note upon the former Chapter; whereunto may here be added, that the same Pope being forbidden by his Ph • sitian to eat Swine flesh, as being noisome and naught for his gout, he called to h • s Steward in a great rage, and said, Bring me my pork-flesh, all despito di dio, In despite of God. O wretch!

Vers. 25. She bare a son, and called, &c.] Sic uno avulso non deficit alter Aureus. Dead bones may revive, and out of the ashes of a Phoenix, another Phoenix spring. Jana jacet Phoenix nato Phoenicia, &c. The two witnesses that were killed, received the spirit of life from God again, Rev. 11.11. Iobn Baptist revivet • in our Savior, (qui huic succentu • iatus est) and Steven in Paul: John Hus in Luther (the Goose in the Swan) and the suppressed Waldenses in the Protestants. The Papists gave out that when Luther died, all his sect would die with him: and when Queen Elisabeths head was laid, we should have strange work in England. A false Jesuit in a scandalous libel published it, that she wished that she might after her death, hang a while in the air, to see what striving would be for her Kingdom. But she both lived and died with glory: her rightful successor came in peaceably, not a dog moving his tongue at him: The true Reformed Religion was established, and is hitherto maintained amongst us, maugre the malice of Rome and Hell. It was the Legacy left us by our Ancestors: the blood of those blessed Martyrs was the seed of our Church, of which I may say, as he of his City,

When the Devil and his Imps had got Abel into his grave, and saw Adam without another in his room for an hundred and thirty years space, or near upon, what a deal of joy was there, think we, amongst them, and sending of gifts? But God in due time sets up a Seth, instead of Abel, and so cuts the devils comb, confutes his confidence. He will have a Church, when all's done. The Pope could tell the Turk so much in a message,

Vers. 26. Then began men to call upon, &c.] Publikely, and in solemn assemblies to serve the Lord; and to make a bold and wise profession of his name: shining as Lamps amidst that perverse generation of irreligious Ca • nites, who said unto God, Depart from us, &c. Job 22.17. This Job speaks there of these wicked, which were cut down out of time, their foundation was overflown with the flood, Vers. 16.

CHAP. V. Verse 1. This is the Book of the generations.

SEpher, a ciphering up of their names, acts, and accidents; that we might know, first, who were Christ's Progenitors; secondly, by whom the Church was continued; thirdly, how long the old World lasted, viz. one thousand six hundred fifty and six years. Whence some have grounded a conjecture, that the year of Christ one thousand six hundred fifty and six, will bring forth some strange alteration in the world. Others, think the world will be then at an end, and they ground upon this Chron • gramme, MUnDI Conf Lagrat Io. [In the likeness of God made he him.] This is much inculcated, that it may be much observed, and we much humbled, that have parted with so fair a patrimony; striving as much as may be, to recover it in Christ, who being the express Image of his Fathers Person, is both apt and able to renew that lost Image of God in us, by his Merit and Spirit, by his Value and Virtue.

Vers. 2. Male and female, created he them.] The Jews at this day have base conceits of women: as that they have not so divine a soul, as men; that they are of a lower creation, made only for the propagation and pleasure of man, &c. And therefore, they suffer them not to enter the Synagogue, but appoint them a gallery without. Thus they err, not knowing the Scriptures. See the Notes on Chap. 2. v. 22.

Vers. 3. Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begat ] This was a great trial to his faith, to wait so long for a better issue, when the Cainites spread amain, erected cities, and perhaps meditated Monarchies. [After his own image] Corruptus corruptum: For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean, saith Job? That which is of the flesh is flesh, saith our Savior, and we can say no better of it. This is hard to persuade men to; for each one is apt to think his own penny good silver: And a dead woman will have four to carry her forth, as the Proverb hath it. The Pharisee, bad enough, though he be, yet is very brag of his good estate to Godward: And Novatus cries out, Non habeo, Domine, quod mihi ignoscas. How much better Saint Augustine, Ego admisi, Domine, unde tu damnare potes me; sed non amisisti, unde tu • salv • re potes me. One hath destroyed me, but of thee is my help; my safety here, and salvation hereafter. Lord I am Hell, but thou art Heaven, as that Martyr once said, &c. One depth calleth upon another; the depth of my misery, the depth of thy mercy. Heaven denies me, earth groans under me, Hell gapes for me: Help Lord, or thy servant perisheth, Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and purge me from my sin; whether that imputed to me, inherent in me, or issuing from me.

V. 4. He begat sons and daughters.] Philo and Epiphanius give him twelve sons, Beda thirty sons, and as many daughters.

Vers. 5. Nine hundred and thirty years,] Till the fifty sixth year of the Patriarch Lamech. In all which time, he (doubtless) instructed his good nephews, in all those great things, which himself had learned from God's mouth, and proved in his own experience, what that good, and holy, and acceptable Will of God was. Moreover, out of his mouth, as out of a Fountain, flowed whatsoever profitable Doctrine, Discipline, Skill and Wisdom, is in the world. [And he died.] This is not in vain so often iterated in this Chapter; for there is in us by nature, a secret conceit of immortality, and we can hardly be beaten out of it. That all must die, every man will yield; but that he may live yet, a day longer at least, there is none but hopeth. We can see death in other men's brows, but not in our own bosoms. It must make forcible entry, and break in violently: God must cut men in twain, and tear their souls from their bodies, ere they will yield to die. The best are too backward, and would not be unclothed, but clothed upon, if they might have their will. Moses himself prays, Lord teach us so to number our days, that we may apply, (or, as the Hebrew hath it,) that we may cause our hearts to come to wisdom: Cause them to come, wh • there they will or no; for naturally they hang off, and would not come to any such bargain. How needful is it therefore to be told us, that Adam died, that Seth, Enos and C • inan died, &c. That this may be, as a handwriting on the Wall, to tell us, That we must also die, and come to judgment.

Vers. 9. Enos begat Cainan.] Enoch, that is, Sorry man begat Cainan; i. e. A man of sorrows. Thus the Fathers, though long-lived, were not unmindful of their mortality and misery.

Vers. 20. Nine hundred sixty and two years.] Rabbi Levi, citante Genebrardo, long aevitatem patriarcharum opus providentiae, non naturae appellate. Their children also, that they waited so long for, were not more the issue of their bodies, then of their faith.

Vers. 23. All the days of Enoch, were three hundred sixty and five years.] So many years only lived Enoch, as there be days in the year. But what he wanted in the shortening of his time, was made up in his son Methuselah the longest liver: Besides that, God took him to a better place, transplanted him, as it were out of the Kitchen-garden into his heavenly Paradise; which was not more to his own benefit, then to the comfort of the other Patriarchs, that survived him, against the fear of death, and the crosses of life: Since in Enoch (what discouragement soever they had in Abel's death) they had an ocular demonstration, that there is a reward for the righteous, and that it is not altogether in vain to walk with God.

Vers. 24. And Enoch walked with God. ] And so condemned the World: First, by his life; secondly, at his death. By his life, in that he kept a constant counter-motion to the corrupt courses of the times; not only not swimming down the stream with the wicked, but denouncing God's severe judgment against them, even to the extreme curse of Anathema Maranatha, as Saint Jude tells us. Secondly, By his death he condemned them: In that so strange a Testimony of God's grace and glory, in his wonderful translation, did not affect and move them to amend their evil manners. The Heathens had heard somewhat afar off, concerning this Candidate of Immortality, as the Ancients call him, and thence grounded their Apotheôses. Eupolemon saith, That their Atlas was Enoch, as their Janus was N • ah. And how fitly are the Papists called Heathens by Saint John, Revel. 11.2. Since besides their Atlas of Rome, on whose shoulders the whole Church (that new heaven) must rest; there was at Ruremund in Gilderland a play acted by the Jesuits, Anno 1622, under the title of the Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius.

Vers. 27. And all the days of Methuselah.] He lived longest of any, yet wanted thirty one years of a thousand. Oecolampadius thinks there was a mystery in this, that they all died short of a thousand, which is a type of perfection; To teach us, saith he, that live we never so long here, and grow we never so fast in Grace, we cannot possibly be perfect, till we get to Heaven. Enoch lived long in a little time; and foreseeing the flood, named his son Methuselah; that is to say, He dieth, and the dart (or flood) cometh. And so it fell out; for no sooner was his head laid, but in came the flood. The righteous are taken away from the evil to come: And their death is a sad presage of an imminent calamity. Hippo could not be taken, whiles Augustine lived, nor Heidelburg while Pareus. Semen sanctum statumen terrae, Isai. 6.13. The holy Seed upholdeth the State. Absque stationibus non staret mundus. The innocent shall deliver the Island, and it is delivered by the pureness of thy hands alone, Job 22.30. When, one sinner destroyeth much good, Eccles 9.18. Ambrose is said to have been the Walls of Italy. Stilico the Earl said, That his death did threaten destruction to that Country.

Vers. 29. This same shall comfort us.] Herein a figure of Christ. And Peter Martyr thinks that Lamech was in hope, that this son of his would have been the Christ: A pardonable error, proceeding from an earnest desire of seeing his day, whom their souls loved, and longed for: Saluting the promise afar off, Heb. 11. and waiting for the consolation of Israel, Luke 2.25.

Vers. 32. And N • ah begat Sem, Ham, and Japheth.] Twenty years he had heard from God, That the world should be destroyed, before he had any child. Here was the Faith and patience of this Saint. At length he hath Japheth first; though Shem be first named, because he was in dignity preferred, before his brother, to be grandfather to the Messiah. Now any relation to Christ, ennobleth either place or person. If it were an honor to Mark to have been Barnabas his sisters son, what is it then to be allied to the son of God? Bethlehem where he was born, though it were least, saith Micah; yet it was not the least, saith Matthew, among all the cities of Judah, because out of it should come Christ the Governor.

CHAP. VI. Verse 1. When men began to multiply.]

NOt good men only, but bad men too; who therefore took them more wives then one, that they might multiply amain. A numerous offspring is no sure sign of God's special favor. It is well observed, That when God promised children as a blessing, he said, The wife should be as the vine, and the children as olive plants: Two of the best fruits, the one for cheering the heart, the other for clearing the face; the one for sweetness, the other for fatness. Blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of such, as are as the arrows of a strong man. Whence it follows, That they must have more in them th • n nature; for arrows are not arrows by growth, but by art: So they must be such children, the knottiness of whose nature is refined and reformed, and made smooth by Grace. This workmanship of God in the hearts and lives of children, is like the graving of a Kings Palace, or the polished corners of the temple. Psal. 144.12. This preserves Jacob from confusion, and his face from waxing pale. This makes religious parents to sanctify God's name, even to sanctify the holy One, and with singular encouragement from the God of Israel, Isai. 29.22, 23. It never goes well with the Church, but when the Son marries the Mother, Isai. 62.5.

Vers. 2. That the sons of God saw the daughters.] Sons of God, such as had called themselves by his name, Chap. 4.26. his peculiar professant people, called Sons of Jehovah, Deut. 14.1. yea, his first-born, and so higher then the Kings of the earth, Psal. 89.27. Hence Dan. 7. after mention made of the four Monarchies, a greater then them all succeedeth; and that is the Kingdom of the Saints of the most high. Saints at large he meaneth; all that have made a covenant with him by sacrifice, Psal. 50.5. Now we read of sacrificing Sodomites, Isai. 1, 10. sinners in Zion, Isai. 33.14. profligate professors, Matth. 7.23. That, though called Israel yet, are to God as Ethiopians, Amos 9.7. Such were these Sons of God. [Saw the daughters of men, that they were fair.] Beauty is a dangerous bait, and lust is sharp-sighted. It is not safe gazing on a fair woman: How many have died of the wound in the eye? No one means hath so enriched hell, as beautiful faces. Take heed our eyes be not windows of wickedness, and loop-holes of lust. Make a covenant with them as Joh: Pray against the abuse of them with David, and curb them from forbidden objects, as Nazianzen, who had learned 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to nurture his eyes, as himself tells us. See the Note on Chap. 3.6. [They took them wives.] Of their own heads without God's license, or parents consent, as Esau did: And of all which they chose, that is, That they liked and loved. Thus,