Genesis 38

My real purpose (after your order for this one) was to have presented the whole entire discourse to you, and I found not time, so much as leisure, and spirits failing me in the performance. I have therefore done as the midwife for that child did (in the same Genesis 38:28) bound…

Third, when a man is assured private reproof will do no good, and that the party offending will not brook it, nor take reproof at his hand, he is not to follow that order, and manner of reproof, but to acquaint them with it, that can and will redress it. Thus Joseph (as it may s…

So in Scripture, the uncleanness of some things is covered with a word, that so the offensiveness of it may be removed both from the ear and fancy. As for example, that vessel wherein nature does unburden itself, it is called, a vessel wherein there is no pleasure: and so the wo…

Indeed, and causeless anger, and bloody revengeful purposes; as appears (Genesis 4:5-6). Fornication was then also accounted a sin worthy of death; as appears (Genesis 38:24). The outward worship and service of God in solemn and public assemblies, was then known to be a duty; as…

Either these experiences are false and counterfeit, or I am yours, for whom you love once, you love to the end: though I be fickle and inconstant yet you are the same, and unchangeable in your love; now I dare not say that all these sweet experiences are mere fictions, dreams an…

To deny this duty being justly required, is to deny a due debt, and to give Satan great advantage. The punishment inflicted on Onan (Genesis 38:9-10) shows how great a wrong this is. From that punishment the Hebrews gather that this sin is a kind of murder.

But thereupon to infer, that because he is guilty of such vices as are in his wife, he ought not to reprove her though she be worthy to be reproved, is scarce sound and good divinity: for thus he makes himself guilty of a double fault, one of committing the sin himself, the othe…

3 It appears yet further by this, that they will decry and punish that sin in others, which themselves are guilty of, the better to conceal their own, or to compensate for it, by being severe to others: when a thief has stolen and robbed, he is the first that makes hue and cry,…

He needed not to bring in the great inquest for the trial: so it was with Judah, when Tamar his daughter was found to play the harlot, and was now brought to her examination, and so to her punishment, she sends the message to her father-in-law; By the man whose these are, am I w…