(1)the universal fact of sin everywhere existing;

(2)the sorrow which is stamped upon the whole race;

(3)the toil that is a condition of humanity.

II. The text supplies a solution by which these mysteries are brought into reconciliation with right views of the nature and character of the Eternal. Out of man's evil and man's transgression God contrives blessing. Sorrow in itself is an apparent evil; as God manages it, it is the harbinger of joy. It was the curse, but it also brings the blessing. There is hardness and difficulty in toil, but in occupation God has given us enjoyment. It keeps the mind and heart in active and energetic power. Even the curse of sin becomes in God's hands a blessing. There is no brighter happiness for man than the sense of being forgiven.

(A. Boyd.)

1. The earth is to bring forth the thorn and the thistle. Whether these existed before we do not undertake to say, nor whether they are given here merely as the representatives of all noxious plants or weeds, nor whether the object of the curse, in so far as they were concerned, was to turn them into abortions, which they really are. Taking the words as they lie before us, we find that the essence of the curse Was the multiplication of these prickly abortions till they should become noxious to man and beast and herb of the field; mere nuisances on the face of the ground. Elsewhere in Scripture they are referred to as calamities. As the effects of judgments Job refers to them (Job 31:40), and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 12:13). As the true offspring of a barren soil the apostle speaks of them (Hebrews 6:8). As injurious to all around our Lord Himself alludes to them (Matthew 13:7-22). And it is evident that all these passages connect themselves with the original curse, and are to be interpreted by a reference to it. They are tokens of God's original displeasure against man's sin, so that the sight of them should recall us to this awful scene in Eden, and make us feel how truly God hates sin, and how impossible it is for Him to change in His hatred of it.

2. Man is to eat the herb of the field. Originally, the fruit of the various trees was to have been man's food; the "herb" was for the lower creation, if not exclusively, at least chiefly. But now he is degraded. He is still, of course, to eat fruit, but in this he is to be restricted. Whether it were that, the earth being less productive in fruit, he must betake himself to inferior sustenance; or whether it might also be from a change in bodily constitution, requiring something else than fruit, we cannot say. The sentence is, "Thou shalt eat the herb of the field, not the pleasant fruits of paradise."

3. He is to eat in sorrow. There. was to be no glad feasting, but a bitter eating, or, if there might be feasting, it should be like Israel's, "with bitter herbs" — the sweet and the bitter mingling.

4. He is to eat in toil — to wring a stinted subsistence out of the reluctant earth with sore labour and weariness. He cannot live but in a way which reminds him of his primal sin. Each day he hears the original sentence ringing in his ears. And yet all this hard toil serves barely to sustain a "dying life; " and even that only for a little, until he return to the dust. This is the end of his earthly toil!

5. He is to die. Grace does not remit the whole penalty. It leaves a fragment behind it in pain, weakness, sickness, death, though at the same time it extracts blessing out of all these relics of the curse. Besides, in thus leaving men subject to death, it leaves open the door by which the great Deliverer was to go in and rob the spoiler of his prey. By death is death to be destroyed. Man must die! He came from the dust, and he must return to it.

(H. Bonar, D. D.)

1. His listening and yielding to temptation.

2. His neglect of God's Word.

3. His open, positive transgression of a known law.

II. THE SENTENCE PRONOUNCED.

1. Deprivation of all the fruits and pleasures of Eden.

2. Toil.

3. Disappointment.

4. Sorrow.

5. Increasing infirmity.

6. Death.

7. Justice is tempered with mercy.Let the subject teach us —

1. A lesson of humility. We are the degenerate children of such a parent.

2. A lesson of caution.(1) Mark the process of falling. Satan presents some suitable object. We appear, desire, covet, throw off restraint, and transgress, in intention, and in fact.(2) Mark the danger of falling. Our first parents fell from their paradisiacal state, and by a small temptation. Wherefore, "watch," etc. (Matthew 26:41).(3) For, mark the consequences of falling. All the evils we feel or fear.

3. A lesson of encouragement. Respited, we may recover our Eden, by means of "the second Adam, the Lord from heaven." Contrast — the first involving himself and us in guilt, pollution, and misery — the second the reverse of this (Romans 5:12-21).

(Sketches of Sermons.)

1. It can be no otherwise, seeing in Him all things consist (Colossians 1:17), and have their being (Acts 17:28).

2. And it is fit it should be so, that all men might fear before Him (Jeremiah 5:24), depend on Him (Jeremiah 14:22), and praise Him alone (Psalm 107:32-34).

3. And it is every way best for us, who know that God judgeth righteously (Psalm 67:4), and that those that fear Him shall want no good thing (Psalm 84:1).

II. IT IS OUR OWN SIN THAT BRINGS THE CURSE OF GOD UPON ALL THAT WE ENJOY.

1. God's mercies are over all His works (Psalm 145:9), and His hand in itself is not shortened (Isaiah 59:1), neither is there anything that He hates but sin, or for sin (Psalm 5:4, 5).

2. And it is fit that God should so show His detestation of sin, by manifesting His wrath every way against such as provoke Him thereby, as He did in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and upon His own land (Deuteronomy 29:23, 25).

III. THE GREATEST OF ALL CREATURES ARE UNDER GOD'S COMMAND

1. They are all creatures (Jeremiah 14:22), even the work of His hand (Job 34:19).

2. He could not otherwise be an absolute Lord over all (Psalm 103:19) if any creature were out of His command.

IV. THE CURSE OF GOD UPON THE CREATURES IS A PART OF MAN'S PUNISHMENT.

1. We have interest in them, so that their destruction is our loss.

2. Our subsistence is by them, so that to lose them, is to lose the means by which our lives should be supported.

V. MAN'S LIFE IN THIS WORLD IS A LIFE OF PAIN AND SORROW.

1. To make us the more sensible of sin, by our daily tasting the bitter fruits of it.

2. To move to a holy delight, and earnest seeking after things that are spiritual, the ways whereof are pleasant and the paths peace (Proverbs 3:17; Psalm 119:165).

VI. THE SHORT PLEASURE OF SIN DRAWS AFTER IT A LONG AND LASTING PUNISHMENT.

VII. MAN'S FOOD IS OUT OF THE EARTH.

(J. White, M. A.)

(H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

(W. Arnot.)

(T. Guthrie, D. D.)

(J. Howe.)

1. And first we argue, that nature is ever presenting to us evidences of the Fall, and that those evidences discover themselves to us in the present aspect of our world. It is very true, that as the eye wanders throughout all the departments of nature, it can trace the evidences of the love and the benevolence of the great Creator. In the language of the apostle, "He gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." And not only this, but we find that the smallest flower of the field has all that is required for its existence and its loveliness, as much as the stateliest tree of the forest; and the minutest insect of creation has all that enables it to fulfil the ends of its being, as much as the mightiest and the noblest in the animal world. But in the midst of all this living and breathing evidence, he will discover evidences of an opposite character; he will discover evidences of the going forth of wrath — that some evil has befallen our world; and he will discover that the evidences of Divine benevolence are not more palpable than these evidences of Divine wrath. We allude not now to the poverty, the wretchedness, the helplessness, the diseases, the deaths, that press and crush the family of man; but we allude to those physical phenomena, that are everywhere discoverable throughout all the fields of creation. If there be lands where all is beauty and fertility, there are also lands whore all is waste and sterility. If there be climates where all is balmy and delicious and calm, there are also climates where all is darkened with clouds and disturbed by storms. There are wide regions of our globe, so enwrapped in the mantle of eternal snows, and so defended by vast icy barriers, that like the very battlements of nature, they resist the foot of man. There are wide regions of our globe, even in the most delicious climes, where the stateliest trees of the forest and the loveliest flowers of the field and the richest fruits of the ground grow spontaneously with a strange luxuriance, where yet at the same time the fatal vapours and the envenomed atmosphere preclude the presence of man, as effectually as the angel with the flaming sword precluded him at the gate of paradise. And while these characteristics are discernible throughout the face of creation, there are at the same time mighty and tremendous agents of evil, called into existence by the Creator and sent abroad into our world; agents more destructive than the angel of the Passover that slew the firstborn of Egypt; and more terrible than the angel of destruction that smote the host of Sennacherib. If the going forth of these angels from heaven is to be regarded as a going forth of wrath from the Creator, what shall we think of the spirit of the simeon, that from time to time has lifted the sands of the African deserts, and has borne them onward like the waves of the sea, till the stateliest cities of Egypt and the most gigantic architecture the world has ever seen, lie even to this hour buried deep, deep, within their bosom? What shall we think of the spirit of the volcano, pouring forth rivers of burning lava and clouds of smoking dust, enwrapping whole regions in terrific conflagration, and, as in Italy, beautiful Italy, burying cities with all their miserable inhabitants? What shall we think of the spirit of the earthquake by which whole districts have been wasted, mighty nations submerged beneath the waves, stately cities sunk into ruins, and whole continents "frighted from their propriety"? But where nature is thus silent, revelation speaks. Where the volume of nature closes, the volume of revelation opens. Nature reveals to us the fact that our world is a fallen and a ruined world; revelation gives the explanation of that fact: that in consequence of sin our world has fallen under the curse of its Creator, that it has been a bright and a beautiful and a happy world, but that in consequence of sin a curse was uttered, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life," and that from henceforth a darkening destiny has been enchained to our planet. Wrath has gone forth against it; and our once beautiful world has become a fallen world.

2. But, as we intimated at the commencement, this argument may be carried further, and may be applied to the moral condition of man, quite as conclusively as to his physical condition. Or perhaps, to speak more correctly, it may be applied to the present condition of man, quite as conclusively as to the present condition of the world in which he lives. The destiny of man is a destiny of trouble. The experience of every man justifies the statement of the patriarch, that "man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward." It is the belief of the heathen; it is the creed of the Christian; it is the record of the historian; it is the maxim of the philosopher; it is the song of the poet. We will not believe — we cannot believe, that a God of benevolence and love, a God who must delight Himself in the comforts and not in the sorrows, in the happiness and not in the miseries of His creatures, originally created man for so melancholy a doom. And the same remark will apply to his moral condition. There are in the heart of every man the workings of evil passions, the strugglings of carnal tendencies, the violence of feelings that are not good: licentiousness of thought, the constant resistance to the empire of holiness, the striving of the flesh against the spirit. There are the anger, the malice, the hatred, the revenge, the covetousness, the ambition, the wars, the bloodshed, that characterize the whole history of man, so that it is little else than a history of the wars and the bloodshed that ambition and pride and revenge and every foul and hateful passion have called into existence. We will not believe — we cannot believe — that a God of benevolence and love, a God of holiness and of peace, could have originally created man in this state, or planted in his heart unholy passions like these. This sad condition of man is a fact that may be read in the pages of natural religion; but the explanation of the fact, and the causes of this sad condition, are a mystery in natural religion. But it is here that revelation interposes and resolves the mystery, Natural religion, like the astrologers of Chaldea, could not read the mysterious handwriting on the wall: but revealed religion, like the prophet of the Lord, reads and interprets the writing. The words of the Creator, as addressed to Adam, were — "In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life"; and again — "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"; and again, to the woman — "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children."

(M. H. Seymour, M. A.)

II. A second consequence of the Fall, as it stands in the words of the text is, Sorrow to man in the eating of the fruit of the ground. And here it may be useful to observe how the punishment of man is suited to the nature of his crime. His first and great act of disobedience was eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree; and it was surely just and proper that he who had eaten in sin should thenceforth eat in sorrow. We are indeed upon terms with our Creator quite different from the lilies of the field, or the fowls of the air: they are now as He made them at first, but we are not so; and hence it comes to pass that labour and travel is a law of universal obligation, and that "If any man will not work neither should he eat."

III. The third part of the sentence pronounced upon man's disobedience, is the prevailing of thorns and thistles upon the ground. If the powers and properties of these two sorts of vegetables be well considered, it will soon appear how well they are fitted to propagate a curse, by increasing the trouble and labour we are obliged to bestow in the cultivation of the earth. For these are much more strong and fruitful than such herbs and grain as are of the greatest use; and they are more apt to disperse themselves abroad and overrun the ground. With respect to thistles in particular, we shall discover a very plain reason for this, if we compare their seeds with the seeds of wheat. For the grain of wheat ought to be lodged at some little depth in the earth, to which it cannot easily reach without human assistance. It can only be shed, and fall down from the ear upon the surface of the ground, where it would be exposed, and ready to be devoured by the birds of the air, or the vermin of the earth, or perhaps lie till it rotted and perished with rain and frost for want of being covered with earth. But the seeds of thistles presently strike down roots in the earth wherever they happen to light, and need no such care and assistance. Then again the grains of wheat are naked and heavy, and can fall only as a dead weight at the foot of the plant which bore them, without being able to stir any farther, and shift themselves to a place fit for their reception and growth. But the case is much otherwise with the seeds of thistles. These are small and light, and are furnished with a fine downy plume, which serves them as wings, by means of which they are borne up and wafted about from place to place by every breath of wind, till they are transplanted to every corner of the field where the parent thistle grew, insomuch that when this plant is ripe, and its seeds hanging loose and disposed to fall off, it is common to see large fields covered all over with them, after any little wind. Nor ought it to be passed over that there is a great difference in the multiplication of these two kinds of seed. Some sorts of thistles bear thirty, some fifty, and some upwards of a hundred heads, with a hundred (and in some kinds several hundred) seeds in each of the heads. And if a moderate reckoning be made, and we suppose all the seeds to take rightly, grow up and fructify, then one single plant would produce at the first crop above twenty thousand: which succeeding in like manner, would bring a second crop of several hundreds of millions; an increase so enormous as can hardly be imagined: and it is plain that a few crops more, if not hindered by some means, but carried regularly on, would in a very short time stock the whole globe of the earth in such a manner as scarcely to leave room for anything else. But some thistles have other ways of planting and spreading themselves, besides that of propagating by their seeds. The common way-thistle, as it is called, besides its innumerable seeds, all winged and prepared for flight, hath its roots spreading to great lengths, and sending up suckers or new plants on every side of it. In a little while these, if suffered to continue, send up others, and they more, without tale or end. So that by this method only, one plant will overrun a vast tract of land in a very short time, suppressing, stifling, and destroying all other good and useful herbage. Besides, it is not every soil that is fit for the nourishment of wheat, and scarcely any will produce it for more than two or three years together, without great expense being bestowed on its cultivation: whereas there is hardly any ground or soil whatsoever, high or low, hill, valley, or plain, where thistles will not take and flourish for ages together. Having said so much upon thistles, I may be shorter in my remarks upon thorns; the rather because a great deal of what has been offered concerning the former is as true of the latter; which grow in almost every kind of soil, running on and increasing of themselves, and endued with the same worthless nature and mischievous qualities. For a proof of this we need only look upon the bramble, which occurs everywhere, and throws itself about without measure. The berries it bears are innumerable, and each of them contains a large mass of seeds. The roots push forward under ground, and the branches and suckers running on to great lengths, trail upon the ground, and send down fresh roots out of their sides; by which means they are diffused about, and multiplied without bounds. But as to thorns, the chief example we have is in that species which is known by the name of the gorse or furze. This is the vilest and most mischievous shrub upon the face of the earth. It will let nothing thrive or prosper, or so much as grow near it. It is so beset with prickles, that it is hardly possible to approach it in any way without hurt: and so fruitful withal, that for almost half the year it is covered or rather loaded with flowers, all of which go off into pods, charged with seeds. It shoots forth stubborn roots far and near, from which other young plants are growing up: these send up others as fast as the mother plant, so that we need the less wonder to see this noxious thorn so plentifully abounding, and such large tracts of land wholly covered and overrun by it. Other thorns are of so hard and stubborn a nature as to render it exceedingly difficult, and always impracticable without great labour and expense and patience, ever wholly to extirpate and clear the ground of them. If these things are duly reflected upon, it must be allowed that the sentence upon Adam, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it, thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee," was effectually put in execution; and that not only upon him, but more especially upon us, his posterity to the end of the world. When we think of this curse upon the ground, we should also remember that it extends to our own heart, which, since the Fall, is by nature barren and unprofitable. It is a soil in which every ill weed will take root and spread itself. There the thorns of worldly care, and the thistles of worldly vanity, will grow and flourish. As the husbandman watches his land, so should the Christian search and examine his heart, that he may cast out of it all those unprofitable weeds and roots of bitterness which will naturally get possession of it. If this work is rightly performed, the soil will be ready for the good seed of the word of God, which will spring up and prosper under the influence of Divine grace, as the corn groweth by a blessing of rain and sunshine from the heaven above.

(W. Jones. M. A.)

1. Labour is one of the thorns of the curse. "All things," says the wise man, "are full of labour." Without it life cannot be maintained. Unremitting labour from day to day and from year to year — except in the case of a few races into whose lap nature pours, almost unsolicited, her prodigal stores, and who therefore continue children in body and mind all their lives — is the condition upon which we receive our daily bread. Much of this labour is indeed healthy. In work alone is health and life; and it is for work that God has created faculties. But how much of it, nevertheless, is terrible drudgery, effectually hindering the development of the higher faculties of the mind and soul, wearisome effort, vanity, and vexation of spirit! How much of failure is there in it, of disproportion between desires and results! How much of it is like rolling the fabled stone of Sisyphus up the steep hill only to roll down again immediately — like weaving ropes of sand! How often does the heart despair amid the unprofitableness of all its labour under the sun! We plough our fields and sow our seed; but instead of a bountiful harvest to reward us, too often comes up a crop of thorns and thistles, to wound the toiling hand and pierce the aching brow.

2. Then there is the thorn of pain — the darkest mystery of life. Some maintain that pain exists by necessity, that it has its root in the essential order of the world. It is the thorn that guards the rose of pleasure — the sting that protects the honey of life. But ask any martyr to physical suffering if that explanation satisfies him. Why, if the purpose of pain is a purely benevolent one, should it be so excessive? Why should it rend and rack the frame with agony? Why should it last so long? Methinks, if pain were meant merely to warn us of the presence of evil, and guard us against it, that a much less degree and a shorter duration of it would suffice. The Bible, and the Bible alone, tells us the cause and the origin of it. It tells us that it is nothing else than a witness for sin — the thorn which man's body, weakened and palsied by sin, produces. Man feels in his body the physical consequences of the death which his soul has died. He has the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him, that he may be reminded continually of his sin and mortality, and be induced to walk softly all the days of his life.

3. Then there is the thorn of sorrow. Every branch of the human tree may be arrested and transformed by some casualty into a thorn of sorrow. The staff of friendship upon which we lean may break and pierce the hand. The bud of love which we cherish in our heart, and feed with the life blood of our affections, may be blighted by the chill of death, and become a thorn to wound us grievously. That civilization which has lessened physical troubles, has rendered us more susceptible to mental ones; and side by side with its manifold sources of enjoyment, are opened up manifold sources of suffering. And why is all this? Why is man, so highly cultivated, the possessor of such vast resources of science and art, still born to trouble as the sparks fly upward? There is no possible way of accounting for it save by the primeval curse: "In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."

4. And lastly, as the climax of all life's evils, is death, the prospect and the endurance of it, from both of which our whole nature, originally made in the image of God, and destined to live forever, revolts with the utmost abhorrence. Such are the thorns which man's nature, under the withering, distorting curse of sin, produces. Cursed is the ground within, as well as the ground without, for man's sake; and in labour, in pain, in sorrow, and in death, does he eat of its fruit. From all these thorns Jesus came to deliver us. The second Adam in the poverty of His condition has recovered for us all that the first Adam in the plenitude of his blessings lost. The Roman soldiers platted a crown of thorns and put it upon the head of Jesus; but they little knew the significance of the act. Upon the august brow of man's Surety and Substitute was thus placed in symbol, what was done in spiritual reality, a chaplet woven of those very thorns which the ground, cursed for man's sake, produced. None of these thorns grew in the sacred soil of Jesus' heart. But He who knew no sin was made sin for us. He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. He could, no doubt, by the exercise of His almighty power, remove the thorns of man's life. He who created the world by a word, had only to command, and it should be done. But not in this way could the necessities of the case be met. It was no mere arbitrary power that called the thorns into existence; it was justice and judgment: and, therefore, mere arbitrary power could not eradicate them; it required mercy and truth. And mercy and truth could be reconciled with justice and judgment only by the obedience and sacrifice of the Son of God. Jesus had, therefore, to wear the thorns which man's sin had developed, in order that man might enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness which Christ's atonement had produced. And what is the result? By wearing these thorns He has blunted them, plucked them out of our path, out of our heart, out of our life. By enduring them He conquered them. The crown of pain became the crown of triumph; and the submission to ignominy and suffering became the assertion and establishment of a sovereignty over every form of suffering. Evil is now a vanquished power. Every woe bears upon it the inscription "overcome." He bore the thorny crown of labour, and labour is now a sacred thing, a precious discipline, a merciful education. It is the lowest step of the ladder by which man ascends the Edenic height from which he fell. He wore the thorny crown of pain, and pain is now robbed of the element that exasperates our nature against it. By His own example He teaches us that we must be made perfect through suffering; and knowing this, we do not feel pain to be less, but we feel a strength and a patience which enable us to rise superior to it. As the Prince of sufferers, He wore the thorny crown of sorrow, and He has made, in the experience of His afflicted ones, that abortive thorn to produce the blossom of holiness and the fruit of righteousness. Sorrow is no more to the Christian the curse of Adam, but the cross of Christ. It is the crown and badge of his royal dignity, the proof of Divine sonship. And, lastly, He wore the thorny crown of death; and therefore He says, "If a man keep My sayings, he shall not see death." He has indeed to pass through the state, but the bitterness of death for him is past. He has only to finish his course with joy; to fall asleep in Jesus; to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.

(H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

(J. Parker, D. D.)

(J. Parker, D. D.)

1. Seeing all creatures are His servants, as David calls them (Psalm 119:91), He can bring them up, and plant them where He pleaseth, who doth whatsoever He will in heaven and earth (Psalm 135:6).

2. Neither can God in respect to His own honour, do less injustice than to withhold His blessing from the creatures, that should be for our service, as we withhold from Him our service of obedience, which we owe Him by our covenant.

II. AS WE ARE MORE OR LESS SERVICEABLE UNTO GOD, SO WE MAY EXPECT THAT THE CREATURE SHALL BE MORE OR LESS SERVICEABLE UNTO US.

1. God's blessing upon the creatures, is that only by which they are made useful unto us. Now God in justice can do no less than recompense all men according to their deeds (Isaiah 59:17-18; Psalm 62:12), and that not only in that great day of judgment, but even at present, and in outward things, that men may see and acknowledge it, as Psalm 58:11.

2. Neither is there a means more effectual to prevail with men in general, to walk in a course of obedience, than when they find all the creatures against them in a course of rebellion.

III. GOD MAKES GOOD HIS PROMISES, BY WHICH HE HATH ENGAGED HIMSELF UNTO US, THOUGH WE FAIL IN OUR COVENANT BY WHICH WE ARE ENGAGED UNTO HIM. See Psalm 78:37, 38, and Psalms 89:32,33,34; 2 Timothy 2:13. Reason —

1. God's promises are founded upon His own goodness and truth which cannot fail (Psalm 119:89, 90, 160).

2. God knew beforehand what we are, even before He engaged Himself unto us (see Psalm 103:13, 14).

3. And if He should take advantage of every forfeiture, He must necessarily undo His children, who trespass daily against Him.

4. And hath therefore given His Son Christ to take away our sins; if we hold fast the covenant, and do not wickedly depart from it though we fail many ways (1 John 2:1, 2).

IV. THOUGH GOD WHEN HE PARDONS OUR SIN, RESTORES US HIS BLESSINGS WHICH WE FORFEITED THEREBY, YET WE ENJOY THEM WITH SOME DIMINUTION AND ABATEMENT.

(J. White, M. A.)

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. —

II. CONSIDER WHAT IS THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THIS ORDINANCE OF TOIL.

1. Toil is ordained to restore man to a true and living relation with the whole system of things around him. On this sentence of labour God bases all His culture of our spirits; by this He keeps alive the desire and the hope of deliverance.

2. Toil is ordained to draw forth the full unfolding of the whole power and possibility of man's being, with a view to the system of things before him, the world of his eternal citizenship, his perfect and developed life. Be sure that it is the last strain that drags out the most precious fibre of faculty, or trains the organs to the keenest perception, the most complete expansion, the most perfect preparation for the higher work and joy of life.

(J. B. Brown, B. A.)

1. It cannot revoke the sentence of death.

2. It is degrading because of its necessarily sordid aims and occupations.

3. It is itself a living, lingering death.

II. THINE OF THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF THIS SORROW, SUFFERING, AND HOPELESSNESS.

1. To convince men of the fruitlessness of the life he had chosen.

2. To show him his need of the mercy of God, and prepare him to receive it.

(St. J. A. Frere.)

1. The curse that is laid upon the earth for sin, by which without hard labour it yields no fruits for the sustaining of man's life.

2. The Lord hath so appointed it for man's good.

(1)To humble him by leaving him that remembrance of sin.

(2)To make him long for heaven (Romans 8:22, 23).

(3)To preserve the body in health (see Ecclesiastes 5:12), and to keep the mind in frame (2 Thessalonians 2:11), which unless it be exercised in useful and profitable things, is filled with vain and evil thoughts.First, this reproves all idle slothful persons living without callings, or idle in their callings, or in unprofitable callings. Secondly, and should stir us up to diligence in such employments as we are called unto.

1. In obedience to God's command.

2. And as therein serving God, and not men (Ephesians 6:7).

3. And being profitable (Proverbs 14:23) to ourselves (Proverbs 10:4) and others (Proverbs 21:5).

4. And thereby procuring us a just title to what we possess (2 Thessalonians 3:12). Only —(1) Labour that which is good (Ephesians 4:28).(2) And with a desire to be profitable to community (Psalm 112:5, 9; 1 Timothy 6:18).(3) In a way of justice (1 Thessalonians 4:6).(4) Depending on God for His blessing on our labours, which only makes them prosperous (Psalm 127:2). Thirdly, long for heaven, where we shall cease from all our labours (Revelation 14:13).

II. THERE IS PROFIT IN ALL THE DUTIES WHICH GOD ENJOINS US.

1. God who is in Himself all-sufficient and perfectly blessed, neither needs, nor can be profited by any creature.

2. Neither is it for His honour that His service should be unprofitable, as wicked men unjustly slander Him (Job 21:15).

3. Neither could His servants have otherwise any encouragement to go on in His service with cheerfulness, which God requires (Deuteronomy 28:47) and delights in (2 Corinthians 9:7).

III. WHATSOEVER WE UNDERTAKE IN OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S COMMANDMENT SHALL NOT WANT EFFECT.

1. That God is able to give success, and by His blessing to prosper men's endeavours, no man can deny.

2. That it concerns Him in point of honour to prosper that which He commands, is as clear as the former.

3. It is needful to be so, lest otherwise men should be discouraged in His service, if they should labour therein without bringing anything to effect.

IV. GOD'S SANCTIONS ARE CERTAIN, AS WELL OF JUDGMENT AS OF MERCY.

1. Both the threats of judgment, as well as the promises of mercy, are founded on the same grounds of God's truth, and immutability, and power.

2. And have the same scope, the honouring of God in the manifestation as well of His justice as of His mercy, giving to every man according to his deeds (see Psalm 58:11; Isaiah 59:18, 19).

V. THOUGH GOD HATH FREED HIS CHILDREN FROM ETERNAL DEATH, YET HE HATH LEFT THEM AS WELL AS OTHERS, UNDER THE SENTENCE OF TEMPORAL DEATH.

1. That by it they might be put in mind of sin that brought death upon them (Romans 5:12).

2. They have no harm by death, which is at present but a sleep, wherein they rest from their labours (Isaiah 53:2), and which severs them not from Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:14), through whom it is sanctified to them (see 1 Corinthians 15:55), and is made an entrance into life (Revelation 14:13), and hurts not the body, which shall be raised up in glory (1 Corinthians 15:42, 43).

VI. MEN'S BODIES ARE BASE EVERY WAY, BOTH IN THEIR ORIGINAL, IN THEIR PRESENT CONDITION, AND IN THEIR DISSOLUTION.

1. To humble us (Genesis 18:27).

2. To magnify God's mercy, in abasing Himself to look on such vile wretches (see Psalm 113:6, 7, 8), to give His Son for them, to advance dust and ashes to such a glorious condition, as the apostle describes (Corinthians 1 Corinthians 15:42,43,49).

3. To move us to long for heaven (see 2 Corinthians 5:1, 2).

VII. THE DISPOSING OF MAN'S LIFE IS IN GOD'S HAND. Which God challengeth to Himself (Deuteronomy 32:39). David acknowledgeth (Psalm 31:15). Daniel testifies to Belshazzar (Daniel 5:23), and is clearly manifested by all experience (Psalm 104:29); so that it is not in the power of men to cut it off at their pleasure (1 Kings 19; Daniel 3:27, and Daniel 6:22), though God use them to that end sometimes as His executioners (Psalm 17:13, 14).

VIII. THOUGH DEATH BE CERTAIN TO ALL MEN, YET THE TIME OF DEATH IS UNCERTAIN.

1. That men might not be hardened in sin, as usually they are when judgment is deferred (Ecclesiastes 8:11), but walk in fear, as being not assured of life for one moment of an hour.

2. To be assured of the term of life would not profit us any way.

IX. THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD ARE JUST AND EQUAL, ALL OF THEM IN ALL THINGS.

1. He cannot wrong His own creatures, no more than the potter can the clay; nay, much less.

2. His nature will not suffer Him to do otherwise; He that is God must necessarily do good (Psalm 119:68); out of the Lord's mouth proceed not good and evil (Lamentations 3:38).

3. Nor the respect to His own honour, magnified as well in His justice (Psalm 64:8, 9), as in His mercy and truth.

4. It would otherwise discourage His own servants (see Matthew 25:24, 25), as the opinion of God's favouring of the wicked and afflicting His own servants, had almost discouraged David (Psalm 73:13, 14).

(J. White, M. A.)

II. The fact, asserted in the text, that labour is a curse. It is part of our punishment for the Fall that it should be so.

III. The manner in which we may lighten this curse, and cause it to be borne. We may not escape from it; but it may be lightened by —

1. Religion — personal, practical, and real.

2. The cultivation of knowledge.

3. The maintenance of good health.

4. The practice of economy.

(J. Maskell.)

(J. Parker, D. D.)

(J. Cunningham, D. D.)

(L. Bonnet.)

(Everett.)

(Homiletic Magazine.)

(Timothy Rogers.)

(T. Guthrie, D. D.)

(Dr. Cumming.)

(Hepworth.)

I. Now there is, perhaps, an universal consent upon one proposition — that idleness is the fruitful source of every kind of vice; and it follows from this that the placing it in a man's power to be idle — supplying him, that is, with the means of subsistence without extracting from him any labour — is simply to expose him to the greatest possible peril, and almost ensuring his moral degeneracy. We know that there are fine and frequent exceptions to this statement, and that many whose circumstances preclude all necessity of toiling for a livelihood carve out for them. selves paths of honourable industry, and are as assiduous in labour as if compelled to it by their wants. There is evidently a repressing power in abundance, and a stimulating power in penury; the one tending to produce dwarfishness of intellect and mental feebleness, the other to elicit every energy and intellectual greatness. We will not say that the battle for subsistence has not borne hard on genius, and kept down the loftiness of its aspirings; but we are assured that the cases are of immeasurably more frequent occurrence in which the man has been indebted to the straitness of his circumstances for the expansion of his mental powers. I wish no son of mine to be exempt from the sentence, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." And the family which we regard as left in the best condition when death removes its head is, not the family for whom there is a fine landed estate or an ample funded property, but the family which has been thoroughly educated in the principles of religion, and trained to habits of piety and industry, and in which there is just as much wealth as may preserve from want those members who cannot labour for themselves, and start the others in professions which open a broad field for unwearied diligence. We would yet further observe, before quitting this portion of our subject, that after all God did not so much remove fruitfulness from the soil as make the development of that fruitfulness dependent on industry. The earth has yielded sufficiency for its ever-multiplying population, as though the power of supply grew with the demand; nor has it only yielded a bare sufficiency, but has been so generous in its productions, that one man by his tillage may raise bread for hundreds. This is amongst the most beautiful and wonderful of the arrangements of Providence. Why can one amongst us be a clergyman, a second a lawyer, a third a merchant, a fourth a tradesman? Only because, notwithstanding the curse, there is still such fertility in the ground, that more corn is produced than suffices for those by whom the ground is cultivated. The whole advance of civilization is dependent on a power in the earth of furnishing more food than those who till it can consume. A people who are always on the border of starvation must be manifestly a people always on the border of barbarism; and just as manifestly a people must be always on the border of starvation if every individual can only wrench from the ground enough for himself. Thus, when we come to examine into and trace the actual facts of the case, the mercy of the dispensation exceeds immeasurably the judgement.

II. We propose, in the second place, to examine WHETHER THERE BE ANY INTIMATION IN SCRIPTURE THAT THE SENTENCE ON ADAM WAS DESIGNED TO BREATHE MERCY AS WELL AS JUDGMENT. We are disposed to agree with those who consider that the revelation of the great scheme of redemption was contemporaneous with human transgression. We believe that, as soon as man fell, notices were graciously given of a deliverance to be effected in the fulness of time. It is hardly to be supposed that Adam would be left in ignorance of what he was so much concerned to know; and the early institution of sacrifices seem sufficient to show that he was taught a religion adapted to his circumstances. But the question now before us is, whether any intimations of redemption were contained in the sentence under review, and whether our common father, as he listened to the words which declared the earth cursed for his sake, might have gathered consolation from the disastrous announcement. There is one reason why we think this probable, though we may not be able to give distinct proof. Our reason is drawn from the prophecy which Lamech uttered on the birth of his son Noah: "This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed." And therefore did he call his son Noah, which signifies rest, to mark that he connected him with deliverance and respite from that curse which sin had brought on the ground. But in what way was Noah thus connected? How could Noah comfort Lamech in reference to the ground which God had cursed? Some suppose the reference to be to instruments of agriculture which Noah would invent after the flood, and which would much diminish human labour; but this could hardly be said to be a comfort to Lamech, who died before the flood: and we may fairly doubt whether a prediction, having reference only to the invention of a few tools, would have been recorded for the instruction of all after-generations. But Noah, as the builder of the ark, and the raiser of the new world, when the old had pertained in the deluge, was eminently a type of Christ Jesus, in whose Church alone is safety, and at whose bidding new heavens and a new earth will succeed to those scathed by the baptism of fire. And as an illustrious type of the Redeemer, though we knew not in what other capacity, Noah might console Lamech and his cotemporaries; for the restoration after the deluge, in which they had no personal interest, might be a figure to them of the restitution of all things, when the curse was to be finally removed, and those who had rode out the deluge receive an everlasting benediction. Thus it would seem highly probable, from the tenour of Lamech's prediction, that he had been made acquainted with the respects in which his son Noah would typify Christ, and that therefore he had been taught to regard the curse on the ground as only temporary, imposed for wise ends, till the manifestation of the Redeemer, under whose sceptre "the desert should rejoice and blossom as the rose." And if so much were revealed to Lamech, it cannot be an over-bold supposition that the same information was imparted to Adam. Thus may our first parent, compelled to till the earth on which rested the curse of its Creator, have known that there were blessings in store, and that, though he and his children must dig the ground in the sweat of their face, there would fall on it sweat "like great drops of blood," having virtue to remove the oppressive malediction. It must have been bitter for him to hear of the thorn and the thistle; but he may have learnt how thorns would be woven into a crown, and placed round the forehead of One who should be as the lost tree of life to a dying creation. The curse upon the ground may have been regarded by him as a perpetual memorial of the fatal transgression and the promised salvation, reminding him of the sterility of his own heart, and what toil it would cost the Redeemer to reclaim that heart, and make it bring forth the fruits of righteousness; telling him while pursuing his daily task what internal husbandry was needful, and whose arm alone could break up the fallow ground. And thus Adam may have been comforted, as Lamech was comforted, by the Noah who was to bring rest to wearied humanity; and it may have been in hope as well as in contrition, in thankfulness as well as in sorrow, that he carried with him this sentence on his banishment from paradise — "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. —

1. Its origin. However glorious our Maker, however exquisite the human body, God made that body of the dust of the earth.

2. Its liability to injury. No sooner born than fierce diseases wait to attack us. If not destroyed — injured — accidents. All the elements attack us.

3. Its tendency to dissolution. Behold the ravages of time. Human life has its spring, summer, autumn, and winter (Psalm 103:14, 15; Psalm 90:5, 6; Psalm 39:4, 5).

II. THE CERTAINTY OF OUR END.

1. We are born to die. Our first breath is so much of nature exhausted. The first hour we live is an approach to death.

2. The perpetual exit of mortals confirms it.

3. God hath decreed it.

4. Learn rightly to estimate life.

(Sketches of Sermons.)

1. How wonderful.

2. How humbling.

II. MAN'S DOOM.

1. Inevitable.

2. Just.

3. Partial.

4. Temporary.

(W. Wythe.)

II. Death is a fearful thing, because of the great change that it implies in all our being. Life is that power by which we act, and think, and love, and intend, and hope. And suppose that all our energies have been wasted on things that cannot follow us into the grave, then how can we conceive of any life at all beyond this? When we know that we must die, we feel about for something in us that shall not perish, some thread of continuity to knit our present and future life into one; and if we have never lived for God, never realized the difference between treasures of earth and treasures of heaven, we find nothing that shall assure us of that other life. We start back in horror from a grave so dark and so profound.

III. If these two terrors were all, some at least would not fear to die, would even court death as a repose. But there is yet another terror. Death means judgment. To die is to meet God. You tremble because you stand before a Judge of infinite power, whose wrath no man can resist; before a Judge of infinite wisdom, who shall call back your acts out of the distant past and lay bare the secret thoughts of your spirit.

IV. Accept the salvation purchased for you with Christ's passion; then death cannot come suddenly upon you, for the thought of it will have sobered all your days. The day of account will still be terrible, but the belief that you are reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus will sustain you.

(Archbishop Thomson.)

1. They are declaratory and convictive. What! thou that art but dust, that so lately received thy being from God, not to listen to Him, but to follow thy own will, and rebel against the law of thy Sovereign? So they are declaratory and convictive.

2. They are minatory, and consequently instructive. For when God threatens, His meaning is, that we should repent, and turn to Him (Jeremiah 18:7). But to come to the words them. selves, "Dust thou art." Of this I shall give you an account in two particulars.

1. The meanness of it. For dust is a thing of little or no perfection, nor of any esteem, account, and value. Dust we are, every day sweeping away, as the refuse, as that of which there is no use. Dust, the ultimate term of all corruption and putrefaction. Dust — you cannot resolve a thing into anything of less entity and being. Yet all of man is not here to be understood, but only his worser part.

2. "Dust thou art," which respects the weakness of this bodily estate. For dust can make no resistance. It may offend us, but it is of itself so light and empty that it is scattered up and down of every wind, as it is said (Psalm 18:42). Who can defend himself against the arrow that flieth by day, or the pestilence that walketh in darkness, or the plague that destroyeth by noonday? Neither is this all, but we have a principle that tends to corruption and putrefaction within us. To which also let us add the violence that we are exposed to from abroad, either by the contagion of others or from the force and violence of those that can overpower us. For we are so weak, that if any man despise God and the laws, he may soon be master of our lives. For all that they can do is but to inflict punishment upon the transgressor. But that will make us no satisfaction nor restitution. When we are assaulted by any sickness, then we are sensible of this our weakness; and we cry out with Job, "What is my strength, the strength of a stone, or my flesh of brass" (Job 21:23). Though, when our bones are full of marrow, we put the thoughts of sickness far from us, yet so it often falleth out that "One dieth in his full strength, being in all ease and prosperity," as Job speaketh (Job 21:23). Furthermore, what are we when bodily pain approach? So weak and frail are we, that we are not able to hold up our heads; and. if to all this we shall have the sense of guilt upon our consciences, our condition will be intolerable.Now for application.

1. It is a ground of humility. If it be so, that "Dust we are, and unto dust we must return," it is fit that we know it so to be; and that upon three accounts.

(1)That we be not proud and conceited.

(2)That we do not trust to ourselves or any fellow creatures whatsoever.

(3)That we may take the best course we can to make a supply.

2. It is matter of satisfaction to us to know that we are but dust; and that lies here, that God doth not look for much from us, but accordingly — not more than He did at first make us. He knows that we were finite and fallible; and therefore, as the Psalmist saith, God "considers our frame, He remembereth that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14), and makes allowance accordingly.

3. It is matter of great thankfulness to God that He doth so much consider such worms as we are; that He hath regard to us, that are but dust; and that He hath such patience with us, who are so inconsiderable, that He might bring us to repentance; and that He doth graciously accept from us any motion towards Him, or any good purpose, and that He is so ready to promote it.

4. This will give us an account of the folly and madness of those men who neglect themselves. We are dust. If there be not the remedy of culture and education to tame the wildness and exorbitancy of man, he will grow savage, wild, and ungovernable, unless the established government of reason shall be set up in his soul. Wherefore, let our great care and daily employment be to refine our spirits, by entertaining the principles of religion; and to inform our understandings, and to regulate our lives, by holding ourselves constantly to the measures of nature, reason, and religion.

(B. Whichcote, D. D.)

1. Man's earthly life is his probation. period. The opportunity of choice exists while soul and body are joined, but no longer. Death is the beginning of destiny.

2. A probation-period, to be just, satisfactory, merciful, must —

(1)Show the true nature and fruits of the objects to be chosen;

(2)bring out the true character and intentions of the individual choosing.

3. The body is a valuable agent in the accomplishment of this design.

(1)It brings out the nature of the objects to be chosen.

(2)It compels man to a religious decision.

II. WHY MAN, AFTER HAVING SPENT HIS PROBATION PERIOD IN THE BODY, HAD TO SUFFER PHYSICAL DEATH.

1. Death in relation to the saved —

(1)Delivers the soul from many sinful habits.

(2)Delivers the land from a fruitful nurse of sin.

(3)Introduces the soul to higher enjoyments.

2. Death in relation to the lost. A wicked spirit disembodied seems the most miserable, pitiable thing in God's universe; like a man suddenly expelled from a brilliant and warm room, to shiver naked in the cold and darkness of a winter night — a night, too, that shall know no dawn, and to the fierce blast of which no stupor can ever render the wretched outcast insensible!

(Homilist.)

1. Its origin: dust.

2. Its liability to injury.

3. Its tendency to dissolution.

II. THE CERTAINTY OF OUR END.

1. We are born to die.

2. The perpetual exit of mortals confirms this.

3. God has decreed and declared it.

III. THE GREAT BUSINESS OF LIFE.

1. To know and serve God.

2. To seek and obtain salvation.

3. We should always be living in reference to death and eternity.

(Sketches of Sermons.)

(W. Adamson.)

     6213   participation, in sin
     8735   evil, origins of

Genesis 3:1-24

     6023   sin, universality

Genesis 3:5-19

     5033   knowledge, of good and evil

Genesis 3:6-22

     5290   defeat

Genesis 3:8-19

     6155   fall, of Adam and Eve
     8822   self-justification

Genesis 3:9-19

     1443   revelation, OT

Genesis 3:14-17

     5483   punishment

Genesis 3:14-19

     4241   Garden of Eden
     5493   retribution

Genesis 3:15-17

     5436   pain

Genesis 3:16-17

     5297   disease

Genesis 3:16-19

     1335   blessing
     5267   control
     5561   suffering, nature of
     6125   condemnation, divine

Genesis 3:16-24

     6026   sin, judgment on

Genesis 3:17-19

     1680   types
     4007   creation, and God
     4010   creation, renewal
     4209   land, spiritual aspects
     4402   plants
     4406   agriculture
     4468   horticulture
     4520   thorns
     5002   human race, and creation
     5023   image of God
     5081   Adam, life of
     5341   hunger
     5418   monotony
     5447   poverty, causes
     5569   suffering, hardship
     5634   work, and the fall
     6024   sin, effects of
     6142   decay
     6200   imperfection, influence
     6632   conviction
     8718   disobedience

How Sin came In
'Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know, that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Ignorance of Evil.
"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil."--Gen. iii. 22. It is plain that the temptation under which man fell in paradise was this, an ambitious curiosity after knowledge which was not allowed him: next came the desire of the eyes and the flesh, but the forbidden tree was called the tree of knowledge; the Tempter promised knowledge; and after the fall Almighty God pronounced, as in the text, that man had gained it. "Behold, the man is become as …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

God Willing that all Men Should be Saved.
"Who will have all Men to be saved,--." In verse first, the apostle directs "prayers and thanksgivings to be made for all men;"--which he declares to "be good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved." Had salvation been provided for only a part of the human race, prayer and thanksgivings could have been, consistently made only for a part. Those for whom no provision was made, would be in like state with persons who have committed the sin unto death, for …
Andrew Lee et al—Sermons on Various Important Subjects

Christ the Conqueror of Satan
Is it not remarkable that this great gospel promise should have been delivered so soon after the transgression? As yet no sentence had been pronounced upon either of the two human offenders, but the promise was given under the form of a sentence pronounced upon the serpent Not yet had the woman been condemned to painful travail, or the man to exhausting labour, or even the soil to the curse of thorn and thistle. Truly "mercy rejoiceth against judgment." Before the Lord had said "dust thou art and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 22: 1876

On the Fall
(Sexagesima Sunday.) GENESIS iii. 12. And the man said, The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. This morning we read the history of Adam's fall in the first Lesson. Now does this story seem strange to you, my friends? Do you say to yourselves, If I had been in Adam's place, I should never have been so foolish as Adam was? If you do say so, you cannot have looked at the story carefully enough. For if you do look at it carefully, I believe you will find …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

The Voice of the Lord God
(Preached also at the Chapel Royal, St. James, Sexagesima Sunday.) GENESIS iii. 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. These words would startle us, if we heard them for the first time. I do not know but that they may startle us now, often as we have heard them, if we think seriously over them. That God should appear to mortal man, and speak with mortal man. It is most wonderful. It is utterly unlike anything that we have ever seen, or that any …
Charles Kingsley—The Gospel of the Pentateuch

The God of Nature (Preached During a Wet Harvest. )
PSALM cxlvii. 7-9. Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God: who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry. There is no reason why those who wrote this Psalm, and the one which follows it, should have looked more cheerfully on the world about them than we have a right to do. The country and climate of Judea is not much superior …
Charles Kingsley—The Water of Life and Other Sermons

The Protevangelium.
As the mission of Christ was rendered necessary by the fall of man, so the first dark intimation of Him was given immediately after the fall. It is found in the sentence of punishment which was passed upon the tempter. Gen. iii. 14, 15. A correct understanding of it, however, can be obtained only after we have ascertained who the tempter was. It is, in the first place, unquestionable that a real serpent was engaged in the temptation; so that the opinion of those who maintain that the serpent is only …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

His Past Work.
His past work was accomplished by Him when he became incarnate. It was finished when He died on Calvary's cross. We have therefore to consider first of all these fundamentals of our faith. I. The Work of the Son of God is foreshadowed and predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures. II. The incarnation of the Son of God. III. His Work on the cross and what has been accomplished by it. I. Through the Old Testament Scriptures, God announced beforehand the work of His Son. This is a great theme and one …
A. C. Gaebelein—The Work Of Christ

Adam's Sin
Q-15: WHAT WAS THE SIN WHEREBY OUR FIRST PARENTS FELL FROM THE ESTATE WHEREIN THEY WERE CREATED? A: That sin was eating the forbidden fruit. 'She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband.' Gen 3:3. Here is implied, 1. That our first parents fell from their estate of innocence. 2. The sin by which they fell, was eating the forbidden fruit. I. Our first parents fell from their glorious state of innocence. God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.' Eccl …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The First Lie.
"Ye shall not surely die."--GENESIS iii. 4. I.--WHO WAS THE FIRST LIAR? The old serpent, the devil, called elsewhere "the father of lies." But he had not always been a liar; he had fallen from a position very eminent, teaching us not to measure our safety by our condition. The higher we are elevated, the more dreadful the fall. Some of the most degraded vagrants were cradled in comfort, and have wandered from homes of splendour. Perhaps the vilest of the vile once were ministers of the Gospel. …
Thomas Champness—Broken Bread

Adam. Gen 3:09
John Newton 8,6,8,6 ADAM. Gen 3:9 On man, in his own image made, How much did GOD bestow? The whole creation homage paid, And owned him LORD, below! He dwelt in Eden's garden, stored With sweets for every sense; And there with his descending LORD He walked in confidence. But O! by sin how quickly changed! His honor forfeited, His heart, from God and truth, estranged, His conscience filled with dread! Now from his Maker's voice he flees, Which was before his joy: And thinks to hide, amidst the …
John Newton—Olney Hymns

Elucidations.
I. (We here behold only shadows, etc., p. 335.) Schleiermacher, [2821] in commenting on Plato's Symposium, remarks: "Even natural birth (i.e., in Plato's system) was nothing but a reproduction of the same eternal form and idea....The whole discussion displays the gradation, not only from that pleasure which arises from the contemplation of personal beauty through that which every larger object, whether single or manifold, may occasion, to that immediate pleasure of which the source is in the Eternal …
Methodius—The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, or Concerning Chastity

Man's Responsibility for his Acts.
THE STORY OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.--Gen. 3. Parallel Readings. Hist. Bible, Vol. I, 37-42. Drummond, Ideal Life, Chaps. on Sin. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eye, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened and they beard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the …
Charles Foster Kent—The Making of a Nation

Job's Faith and Expectation
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. C hristianity, that is, the religion of which MESSIAH is the author and object, the foundation, life, and glory, though not altogether as old as creation, is nearly so. It is coeval [contemporary] with the first promise and intimation of mercy given to fallen man. When Adam, by transgression, had violated the order and law of …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Curiosity a Temptation to Sin.
"Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."--Proverbs iv. 14, 15. The chief cause of the wickedness which is every where seen in the world, and in which, alas! each of us has more or less his share, is our curiosity to have some fellowship with darkness, some experience of sin, to know what the pleasures of sin are like. I believe it is even thought unmanly by many persons (though they may not like to say …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Plan for the Coming of Jesus.
God's Darling, Psalms 8:5-8.--the plan for the new man--the Hebrew picture by itself--difference between God's plan and actual events--one purpose through breaking plans--the original plan--a starting point--getting inside. Fastening a Tether inside: the longest way around--the pedigree--the start. First Touches on the Canvas: the first touch, Genesis 3:15.--three groups of prediction--first group: to Abraham, Genesis 12:1-3; to Isaac, Genesis 26:1-5; to Jacob, Genesis 28:10-15; through Jacob, …
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

"And the Life. " How Christ is the Life.
This, as the former, being spoken indefinitely, may be universally taken, as relating both to such as are yet in the state of nature, and to such as are in the state of grace, and so may be considered in reference to both, and ground three points of truth, both in reference to the one, and in reference to the other; to wit, 1. That our case is such as we stand in need of his help, as being the Life. 2. That no other way but by him, can we get that supply of life, which we stand in need of, for he …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Fulfilled Prophecies of the Bible Bespeak the Omniscience of Its Author
In Isaiah 41:21-23 we have what is probably the most remarkable challenge to be found in the Bible. "Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen; let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods." This Scripture has both a negative …
Arthur W. Pink—The Divine Inspiration of the Bible

On Earthly Things
The earth is man himself; in the gospel: another has fallen into the good earth. The same in a bad part about the sinner: you devour the earth all the days of your life. [Mark 4:18; Genesis 3:14] The dry lands are the flesh of a fruitless man; in Ecclesiastes, to work in a dry land with evil and sorrow. [Ecclesiastes 37:3] The dust is a sinner or the vanity of the flesh; in the psalm: like the dust, which the wind blows about. [Ps. 1:4 Vulgate] The mud is the gluttony of sinners; in the psalm: tear …
St. Eucherius of Lyons—The Formulae of St. Eucherius of Lyons