And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Ver. 7. They knew that they were naked.] Bereft of God's blessed image; no more of it left than, as of one of Job's 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. tie 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". Hos 13:9 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 Eve's 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, Take heed, thou wretch. Cave miser And why do we not the same to ourselves, when solicited to sin?, Alterius perditio tua sit cautio saith Isidore; and, cavebis si pavebis saith another. a There is a practical judgment still practised in our hearts. On the one side is propounded the commodity of sin; on the other, the offence 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 comnland of God, and accepting of the pleasure of sin. What is this but to prefer Paris before Paradise with Cardinal Bourbon, Barabbas before Christ, a thing of nought before heaven's happiness? Our first parents were born with the royal robe of righteousness, as those Porphyrogeniti in Constantinople; but the devil soon stripped them of it (the same day, as some think), b and so they became sore ashamed of their bodily nakedness, which therefore they sought to cover by making themselves aprons to cover their privities.
Quest. But why did they, and do we still, so studiously hide those parts, rather than their eyes and ears, which they had abused to sin with?
Ans. Because sin has become natural, and derived by generation. Psa 51:7 Gen 5:3 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 worshippers of Priapus, which Jerome and Isidore make to be that Baal-peor, Num 25:5 that shamed not to say, Nos, pudore pulso, stamus sub dove, coleis apertis & c. c But in man's soul is now a πανσεπρμια, 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". Pro 27:19 And as there were many Marii in one Caesar, so are there many Caius and Caiaphases in the best of us all. Totus homo est iuversus 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 Spirit's 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, than the heart can from punting, 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 poisoneth our whole man. And as the whitest ivory turns with the fire into the deepest 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 honour, was without understanding," and is now in worse case than the very "beasts that perish":, Psa 49:20 Pecoribus morticinis saith Treme]; the beasts that die of the murrain, and so become carrion, and are good for nothing.
a Augustine.
b Purchas's Pilgrims .
c Empedoclis vocab. apud Arist.