done? what a gracious God thou hast offended,what a righteous law thou hast broken,-what a precious soul thou hast wounded,-what a loving brother thou hast murdered? The evidence against thee is clear and convincing; the voice of thy brother's blood crieth. The blood that was shed on earth cried so loud as to be heard in heaven. We have the language of this cry in Rev. vi. 10. Blood calls for blood; the blood of the murdered for the blood of the murderer. Sin committed calls to divine justice for punishment to be inflicted; and divine justice hath an open ear to those calls. All sin is crying; but especially blood. All blood is crying; but especially the blood of a brother, an innocent brother,a righteous brother.

From the ground. Cain no doubt buried the blood, and 'tis likely the body, lest his sin should thereby be discovered; but murder will cry out. He did not bury them so deep but their cry could be heard as far as heaven.

11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.

Adam had the curse but at second-hand;-the

ground was cursed for his sake: but Cain was the immediate object of it;-now art thou cursed. God had mercy in store for Adam, but none for Cain. The curse of God is the due desert of every sin : cursed is every one that continueth not in all things. Gal. iii. 10. A little word, but inclusive of all misery in this world, and in that which is to come; for as those whom God blesses, are blessed indeed; so those whom he curses, are cursed indeed. And under this curse must every one abide that lives and dies without an interest in him that was made a curse for us. Gal. iii. 13.

From the earth; from thence the cry came up to God, from thence the curse came up to Cain. "Though I that am the Lord of Hosts could deal with thee by an immediate stroke from heaven; though I could send an angel to take vengeance on thee, or a thunderbolt or hailstone to destroy thee, yet will I not take that course with thee. The earth,—that earth in which thy trading lies, that earth out of which thy father was made, and into which thou must return, shall be unto thee the avenger of blood.”

Which has opened her mouth to receive. The earth by drinking in the blood of Abel, thought for very shame to hide that which she could not hinder. She blushed to see her own face dyed with such blood. Abel's grandmother-earth-being in that respect

M

more kind to him than his own brother Cain; the earth, saith God, that, out of a detestation of the murder, drunk in the blood, shall, out of a detestation of the murderer, be a curse to thee.

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforh yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

The ground was cursed to Adam before, but it was here doubly cursed to Cain; for besides the general curse remaining upon the whole, there was an additional curse upon that portion which fell to his share, and which he had the tilling of; and this curse made it barren. Abel's blood spoiled the fruitfulness of Cain's field. Ps. cvii. 34.

A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth; without any certain dwelling place, banished from thy father and thy father's family; compassed about with all the troubles and inconveniences that attend an unsettled, unquiet state. The grounds of this were the horrors of a guilty conscience, which did continually fly in his face, and make him a terror round about.

This was the sentence, and it was not only a just and righteous, but a merciful sentence. Cain's body

was made to wander, when he had deserved that God should make his soul to wander. I refer to the original expression used by Job.

not mercy that he was sent to

xxvii. 8. Was it

wander on earth, that deserved to have been cast into everlasting burnings? The great mercy of this reprieve was, that hereby he had space given him to repent, if he had had the grace to have been led to repentance by this goodness of God. Rom. ii. 4.

13 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Instead of justifying God, and judging himself, accepting the punishment of his iniquity, and acknowledging the righteousness, nay, the goodness, of God in this sentence; instead of saying, as he had cause to say, blessed be God, I am out of hell; he falls a quarrelling with God and his justice, as if God had herein done him wrong. Here's no concern how to get the guilt removed, how to retrieve the favour of God, and to recover the light of his countenance. No; that was the farthest thing from his thoughts; but the punishment stuck a little upon his stomach. To be a fugitive and a vagabond was a thing that his high spirit could not brook, and therefore that

he complains of. Wicked people are more concerned about their afflictions,-to get them removed,—than about their sins, to get them pardoned; as Pharoah, -intreat the Lord, that he may take away from me this death; Exod. x. 17; not this sin, of which this death is the wages. Indeed, the margin reads it, (and the original will well bear it,) mine iniquity is greater than that it may be forgiven; the same word (as was stated before) signifying sin and punishment; and the same word also signifying to bear, and to lift off,-that is, to forgive: for when God forgives sin, he lifts it off, as a burden too heavy for the sinner to bear,-a burden under which he must have eternally sunk, had not Christ borne it in his own body upon the tree. And, reading it so, it seems that Cain saw his condition bad; nay, (which is worse) thought it desperate. He speaks of iniquity but in a despairing way, as if his iniquity, which was at most but finite, had extended beyond the infinite, bound less mercy of almighty God. Thus Judas said, I have sinned. That was well said; but he departed, and went, and hanged himself; Matt. xxvii. 4, 5; saying in effect with Cain here, my iniquity is greater than can be forgiven, and therefore Satan take thine own. Desponding, despairing sinners, that cry out of the impardonableness of their sin, may see by this whose language they speak who say, there is