Genesis 3:9-12 And the LORD God called to Adam, and said to him, Where are you?… We have here the antiquity of apologies: we find them almost as ancient as the world itself. For no sooner had Adam sinned, but he runneth behind the bush. I. First, we will anatomize and dissect this excuse of Adam's. II. Next we will look into ourselves; take some notice of our own hearts, and of those excuses which we commonly frame. III. And then, to make an exact anatomy lecture, we will lay open the danger of the disease, that we may learn to avoid what was fatal to our parents,, and, though we sin with Adam, yet not with Adam to excuse our sin. Of these in their order. I. "And the man said, The woman," etc. I told you this was no answer, but an excuse; for indeed an excuse is no answer. An answer must be fitted to the question which is asked; but this is quite beside it. The question here is, "Hast thou eaten of the forbidden tree?" The answer is wide from the purpose, an accusation of the woman, yea, of God Himself: "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." "I have eaten," by itself, had been a wise answer; but it is, "I did eat," but "the woman gave it," a confession with an extenuation; and such a confession is far worse than a flat denial. His apology upbraideth him, and he condemneth himself with his excuse. 1. For, first, Mulier dedit, "The woman gave it me," weigh it as we please, is an aggravation of his sin. We may measure sin by the temptation: it is always the greatest when the temptation is least. A great sin it would have been to have eaten of the forbidden fruit though an angel had given it: what is it, then, when it is the woman that giveth it? What a shame do we count it for a man of perfect limbs to be beaten by a cripple! for a son of Anak to be chased by a grasshopper! (Numbers 13:33); for Xerxes' army, which drank up the sea, to be beaten out of Greece by three hundred Spartans! Certainly he deserveth not power who betrayeth it to weakness. "The woman gave it me," then, was a deep aggravation of the man's transgression. 2. Again: It is but, "The woman gave it." And a gift, as we commonly say, may be either taken or refused; and so it is in our power whether it shall be a gift or no. Had the man been unwilling to have received, the woman could have given him nothing. "The gods themselves have not strength enough to strive against necessity"; but he is weaker than a man who yieldeth where there is no necessity. "The woman gave it me," then, is but a weak apology. 3. Further yet: What was the gift? Was it of so rich a value as to countervail the loss of paradise? No; it was "the fruit of the tree." We call it "an apple": some would have it to be an Indian fig. The Holy Ghost vouchsafeth not once to name it, or to tell us what it was. Whatever it was, it was but fruit, and of that tree of which man was forbidden to eat upon penalty of death (Genesis 2:17). "An evil bargain is an eyesore, because it always upbraideth him with folly who made it." And such a bargain here had our first father made. He had bought gravel for bread, wind for treasure, "hope for a certainty," a lie for truth, an apple for paradise. The woman, the gift, the gift of an apple — these are brought in for an excuse, but are indeed a libel. 4. Further still: To aggrandize Adam's fault, consider how the reason of his excuse doth render it most unreasonable. Why doth he make so busy a defence? Why doth he shift all the blame from himself upon the woman? Here was no just detestation of the offence, but only fear of punishment. 5. In the last place: That which maketh his apology worse than a lie, and rendereth his excuse inexcusable, is, that he removeth the fault from the woman on God Himself. Not the woman alone is brought in, but "The woman whom Thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Which indeed is a plain sophism: that is made "a cause which is not a cause," but an occasion only. It is a common axiom, "That which produceth the cause, produceth also the effect of that cause"; and it is true in causes and effects essentially co-ordinate. But here it is not so. God, indeed, gave Adam the woman; but He gave him not the woman to give him the apple. "He gave her for a companion, not for a tempter"; and He gave her not to do that which He had so plainly forbidden. II. And now I wish that the leaves of those trees among which Adam hid himself had cast their shadow only upon him. But we may say, as St. doth of the story of Naboth and Ahab, "This history of Adam is as ancient as the world; but is fresh in practice, and still revived by the sons of Adam." We may therefore be as bold to discover our own nakedness as we have been to pluck our first father from behind the bush. We have all sinned "after the similitude of Adam's transgression," and we are as ready to excuse sin as to commit it. Do we only excuse our sin? No; many times we defend it by the gospel, and even sanctify it by the doctrine of Christ Himself. Superstition we commend for reverence, profaneness for Christian liberty, indiscretion for zeal, will worship for obedience. To come close home therefore, we will stay a little, and draw the parallel, and show the similitude that is betwixt Adam and his sons. We shall still find a Mulier dedit to be our plea as well as his. Some "woman," something weaker than ourselves, overthroweth us, and then is taken in for an excuse. "We all favour ourselves, and our vices too; and what we do willingly we account as done out of necessity of nature." If we taste the forbidden fruit, we are ready to say, "The woman gave it us." Again: it is some gift, some proffer, that prevaileth with it, something "pleasant to the eye," something that flattereth the body and tickleth the fancy, something that insinuateth itself through our senses, and so by degrees worketh upward, and at last gaineth power over that which should "command" — our reason and understanding. Whatsoever it is, it is but a gift, and may be refused. Further: As it is something presented in the manner of a gift which overcometh us, so commonly it is but an apple; something that cannot make us better, but may make us worse; something offered to our hope, which we should fear; something that cannot be a gift till we have sold ourselves, nor be dear to us till we are vile and base to ourselves; at the best but a gilded temptation; an apple with an inscription, with an Eritis sicut dii, upon it; with some promise, some show, and but a show and glimpse, of some great blessing; but earthy and fading, yet varnished with some resemblance of heaven and eternity. Lastly. The Tu dedisti will come in too. For, be it the world, God created it; be it wealth, He openeth His hand and giveth it; be it honour, He raiseth the poor out of the dust; be it our flesh, He fashioneth it; be it our soul, He breathed it into us; be it our understanding, it is a spark of His Divinity; be it our will, He gave it us; be it our affections, they are the impressions of His hand. But, be it our infirmities, we are too ready to say that that is a woman too of God's making. But God never gave it. For, suppose the flesh be weak, yet the spirit is strong. "If the spirit be stronger than the flesh," saith , "it is our fault if the weaker side prevail." And therefore let us not flatter ourselves, saith he, because we read in Scripture that "the flesh is weak"; for we read also that "the spirit is ready" (Matthew 26:41); "that we might know that we are to obey, not the flesh, but the spirit." III. And thus ye see what a near resemblance and likeness there is between Adam and his posterity; that we are so like him in this art of apologizing that we cannot easily tell whether had most skill to paint sin with an excuse, the father or the children. Adam behind the bush, Adam with a Mulier dedit, is a fair picture of every sinner; but it is not easy to say that it doth fully express him. But now, to draw towards a conclusion, that we may learn "to cast off the old man," and to avoid that danger that was fatal to him, we must remember that we are not only of the first Adam, but also of the second; not only "of the earth, earthy," but also of "the Lord from heaven: and as we have borne the image of the earthy, so we must also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:47-49). We must remember that we are born with Christ, that we are baptized and buried with Christ, and that we must rise with Christ; that the woman was given to be in subjection, the flesh to be subdued by us, and the world to be trodden under our feet; that we must not count these as enforcements and allurements before sin, lest we take them up as excuses after sin; that we must not yield to them as stronger than ourselves, that we may not need to run and shelter ourselves under them in time of trouble. 1. To conclude: my advice shall be — First, that of Arsenius the hermit: "Command Eve, and beware of the serpent, and thou shalt be safe; but, if thou wilt be out of the reach of danger, do not so much as look towards the forbidden tree." 2. But, if thou hast sinned, if thou hast tasted of the forbidden fruit, if thou hast meddled with the accursed thing, then, as Joshua speaketh to Achan, "My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him" (Joshua 7:19). Run not behind the bush, study not apologies; make not the woman, who should help thee to stand, an excuse of thy fall; nor think that paint nor curtains can hide thy sin from Him whose "eyes are ten thousand times brighter than the sun" (Ecclesiasticus 23:19), and in whose bosom thou art, even when thou runnest into the thicket of excuses. No; "Give glory to God," that God may seal a pardon to thee. Open thy sin by confession to God, and the mercy of God will hide it: condemn it, and judge thyself for it; and thy excuse is made, thou shalt never be judged for it by the Lord: lay it open before the Lord, and He will blot it out forever. (A. Farindon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?WEB: Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" |
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