Genesis 4

Adam was a public person, and all his posterity were involved and wrapped up in him, and he sinning, did at once destroy all his posterity, if free grace did not interpose. If Abel's blood did cry so loud in God's ears (Genesis 4:10): "The voice of your brother's blood cries to…

3. We please God when we dedicate our heart to give him the best of every thing. Abel gave God the fat of the offering (Genesis 4:4). Domitian would not have his image carved in Wood or Iron, but in gold.

Object. But is it not said, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord (Genesis 4:16). Resp.

My soul thirsts for you, to see your glory so as I have seen you in the sanctuary. Such as disregard ordinances are not God's children, because they care not to be in God's presence (Genesis 4:17). Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.

Why should any murmur, or be discontented at their condition? Does God owe them anything? Or, can they deserve anything at his hands? Oh, how uncomely is it to murmur at providence! It is fittest for a Cain to be wroth with God (Genesis 4:6). 1. Murmuring proceeds from unbelief.…

Question: Why is not humiliation grace? Wherein does it come short? Answer: 1. Tears in the wicked do not spring from love to God, but are forced by affliction (Genesis 4:13), as water that drops from the still is forced by the fire. The tears of sinners are forced by God's fier…

Envy is a sin that breaks both the tables at once. It begins in discontent against God, and ends in injury against man, as we see in Cain (Genesis 4:6, 8). Envious Cain, first discontented with God, there he broke the first table; and then he fell out with his brother and slew h…

Thus the angels in Heaven do God's will, they serve him in the best manner, they give him their seraphic high-strung praises; he who loves God gives him the cream of his obedience; God challenged the fat of all the sacrifice as his due (Leviticus 3:16). Hypocrites care not what…

For this Church was in the household of Adam, when there was no more but it in the world: for sacrifice to God is a sign of the Church: yea, and beside the sacrifice, they had a place appointed where Adam and his family came together to worship God. For, so much Cain intimates,…

Not so. For there were Cities built even before the flood, Gen. 4.17. Cain built a City: no marvel therefore if there were many after, as Sodom and all her sisters.

In Pharaoh and his host we may see their end, which is usually destruction: that is their reward for persecuting God's Church. Cain slays Abel that notable servant of GOD: but his reward was this, he was cast forth of God's Church, Genesis 4.11, 13. and stricken in God's just ju…

'The righteous is bold as a lion' (Proverbs 28:1). It was guilt in Cain's conscience that made him cry, 'Everyone that meets me will kill me' (Genesis 4:14). A guilty conscience is more terrified with imagined dangers than a pure conscience is with real ones.

1. As for this word iniquity, by it is meant sometimes 1. sin formally taken as it has a disconformity to the Law of God, and supposes a spot and defect, and so it is commonly taken when we pray for pardon of sin; and when David says (Psalm 51), "My sin is ever before me"; and (…

Then as there be two sorts of punishments, one temporary, and another the eternal wrath to come; so there are in Scripture two sorts of remissions, one from the temporary, another from eternal punishment. Therefore sin is put for punishment, (Genesis 4:13). My iniquity (says Cai…

He makes Christ's very blood an Advocate to speak for us, though Christ himself were silent; as he says in another case, Abel, though dead, yet speaks, Hebrews 11:4 Many other things are said to cry to Scripture, (and I might show how the cry of all other things do meet in this)…

As was the case of Ahab, he comes sadly and mourning from Elijah's sharp reproof (1 Kings 21, two last verses), but he could not be well at ease, till he had cast it all off, with putting Naboth to death, and put it off with calling a Council about going to War, and so damped al…

Use 1. But for further use, let us learn from here not to neglect the falls of our brethren, and think it is good for us, neither to meddle nor make with them — let that be far from us. That was the spirit of Cain (Genesis 4:6): "Am I my brother's keeper?" as if he would neither…

Implying, that God is a Prince, and if a Prince, then where is his princely service, if you will serve him, serve him of the best of that you have: God looks for no more but what you have; but when you come and offer him a lame and peremptory sacrifice, and be loath to come off…

When they call I will answer, and when they cry he shall say, Here I am. This has been the course of God's dealing with the prayer makers all along; Abel (Genesis 4:4) God had respect to; it is [reconstructed: in the original], set his offering on fire. Daniel prays, and he says…

I answer: he is said to accept persons, that deales vnequally with men, being bound to deale equally: now God is not thus bound: because he is a soueraigne, and absolute Lord ouer all his creatures, and may doe with his own what he will, Math. 20. 16. Secondly, it may be obiecte…

Ans. It does sometime, but not alwaies: for Eue says of Ss, God has given me an other seede, Gen 4:25. that is, an other sonne. Lastly, it is said, that this one particular seede of Abraham is Christ Jesus.

Here Raca, signifies all signs and gestures that express contempt, as snuffing, scoffing, jeering, sneering, etc. Cain is rebuked of God, even for the casting down of his countenance (Genesis 4:6). Again, the mocking wherewith Ishmael mocked Isaac, proceeded from a contempt and…

The first is, bondage under Satan, who keeps unrepentant sinners in his snare according to his own will (2 Timothy 2:26), he rules in their hearts like a God (2 Corinthians 4:4), and has power to blind them, and to harden their hearts, till he have brought them to eternal death…

Deut 29:2.) but that shee should be tormented, twise as much as shee had tormented others. Againe, these phrases and formes of speech, of rewarding double, or seuen fold, signifie, that God will pay wicked men whome to the full (a definite number being put for an indefinite) as…

For having a long time abused the patience of God, in showing themselves obstinate and rebellious, they shall be constrained in the end to take knowledge of his judgments. Thus although Cain, Esau, and the like (who repented their sins too late) fled from God's presence, yet in…

For this cause the Scripture mentions this exercise of prayer, when it notes out the marks of God's worship. For Moses, meaning to show that the same was again restored, says, that then men began to call upon the name of the Lord (Genesis 4:26). I take the particle Ci in the sec…

From the blood of Abel. Though Abel (Genesis 4:8) was not slain by the Jews, yet the murder of Abel is imputed to them by Christ, because there is an affinity of wickedness between them and Cain; otherwise there would have been no propriety in saying that righteous blood had bee…

For of Her it is said expresly in Prophesie. [[original in non-Latin script]], Isa. 7. 14. A Virgin shall Conceive; the same Word that is used to express the Conception of any other Woman, Gen. 4. 1. Hence She is termed by the Ancients [[original in non-Latin script]], and Dei g…

Isa. 33. 14. Gen. 4. 13. Sect. 50 Moreover this Darkness fills the Mind with Enmity against all the Ways of God.

But that which is wrought in us by the especial Grace of the Holy Ghost in the way mentioned, is supernatural, as being not educed out of the Powers of our natural Faculties, but an immediate Effect of the Almighty supernatural Efficacy of the Grace of God. And therefore the sol…

These questions were not to inform God, but only that Adam might give a confession out of his own mouth concerning those things. So he questioned Cain (Genesis 4): Where is Abel your brother? It was a question only to draw a confession from Cain of what he had done.

For if it has come so far that God turns his sight to any man to behold him, that is nothing but grace and mercy, and there must needs follow all gifts and works. As we read in Genesis 4, that God did look upon Abel and his gifts, and not so upon Cain nor his offering. Of this c…

They will fix on something or other, that cannot cure their disease, but shall only make them forget that they are sick. As Cain under the terror of his guilt, departed from the presence of the Lord, and sought inward rest in outward labor and employment; he went and built a Cit…

What else any of them has fixed on in this case, has been no less foolish than his hiding; and in most, more pernicious. When Cain had received his sentence from God, it is said he went out from the presence or face of the Lord, Genesis 4:16. From his providential presence he co…

But the word signifies trouble as well as sin, especially that trouble or punishment that is for sin. So Cain expresss himself upon the denunciation of his sentence; my sin, that is, the punishment you hast denounced against my sin, is too great or heavy for me to bear, Genesis…

Eph. 4. 31, 32. The second branch of sinne here condemned is, to say unto our brother, Raca: whereby we may see that every gesture expressing rash anger, and despite of heart towards another, is murther before God; as casting downe the countenance towards him: this God reprooued…

The reason why we must correct our brother for s[]al offences, is because every great sin has his beginning of some little & small sin; & therefore it is a duty of brotherly correction, to cut off sin in the head, before it growe out to the full. Thus the Lord dealt with Caine,…

Murder was forbidden, and known to be a sin, before the Lord proclaimed, 'You shall not kill.' 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).

Thirdly; a teacher in any art, science, or invention, is likewise called a father. Thus (Genesis 4:20-21) Jabal is said to be the father of such as dwell in tents, and Jubal to be the father of such as handle the harp and organ. Fourthly; a superior in wisdom and counsel is like…

Now as the love and fear of God are often used in Scripture for his whole worship and service, so likewise is this invocation of his name. So we find it (Genesis 4:26): Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. That is, (as many learned expositors understand it, although…

The swearer damns none by his oaths but himself; and although he curse others to the pit of hell, yet shall descend there alone for them. The drunkard, with his intemperance drowns but his own soul in perdition: the bloody murderer may say with Lamech (Genesis 4:23), I have slai…

So that Homicidium est Deicidium; to slaughter a man, it is to stab God in effigy: for though the image of God's holiness and purity be totally defaced in us since the fall; yet still every man, even the most wicked and impious that lives, bears some strictures of the image of G…

There is too much of this violence nowadays. No sin has a louder voice than blood (Genesis 4:10). The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground.

They have loved to wander; sin does not care to be near holiness. The wicked get as far as they can from God: Like Cain, who went out from the presence of the Lord (Genesis 4:16). That is the Church of God, where were the visible signs of God's presence: he estranged himself fro…

And such worship as hath not a warrant from divine institution, cannot be offered up in faith, because faith has no foundation where there is no divine appointment. It cannot be offered up in faith of God's acceptance; for men have no warrant to hope for God's acceptance, in tha…

And withal, did not he that made me in the womb, make him? (Job 31:13-15). When our hearts are at any time hot within us, we would do well to put that question to ourselves which God put to Cain (Genesis 4:6): Why am I wroth? Why am I angry at all?

It is true (though not so readily apprehended) that the sullenness, and murmuring, and silent frets of children and servants is as great a transgression of the law of meekness, as the more open, noisy and avowed passions of their parents and masters. We find the king's chamberla…

The promise of him was all, (and it was enough) that God gave Adam in his inexpressible distress, to relieve and comfort him (Genesis 3:15). Eve perhaps supposed that the promised seed had been born in her firstborn, when she said, I have gotten a man from the Lord, so most prop…

If in ordering the goods of the family she yields not subjection, wherein shall she yield it? Against this groundwork some object that the same law of subjection is imposed upon a younger brother in the very same words, and yet a younger brother was not thereby bound to have his…

On this ground David desired God, to lift up the light of his countenance upon him, that thereby he might know the favor and love of God towards him (Psalm 4:6). On the other side by a frowning and lowering face, by hanging down the head, putting out the lips, with the like, ang…