Only mark the true colors, the essential evil and real nature of sin. It is depicted in this excuse of Adam. It shows that a man can in no way be brought to an open confession of his sin, but that he will deny his sin or excuse it as long as he can find that there is any hope or any probable ground of excuse left him. For it was not so wonderful that Adam should at first hope that his sin could be covered, and that he should rather accuse God than acknowledge the sin he had committed. The great wonder was that after he was convicted in his own conscience, and after he had heard his sin declared from the mouth of God himself, he should still persist in excusing that sin. For he does not say, "Lord, I have sinned; forgive me the debt of my sin; be merciful unto me;" for the very nature of sin is, that it will not suffer the mind to flee unto God, but instead compels it to flee from God. But he transfers all the fault from himself to the woman. It is a well known rule, taught in the schools of legal and civil orators, that when a charge of crime is brought against the defendant, the act should either be denied totally or defended as having been done rightly. Adam here does both. He first of all denies his sin altogether and asserts that his terror arose, not from his sin, but from the voice of the Lord. And then when so far convinced of his sin in what he has done he attempts to defend the act, as having been done rightly and unavoidably. "If," says he to the Lord, "thou hadst not given me this woman, I should not have eaten the fruit." Thus he further lays all the blame of what he had done on God himself, and positively accuses him as being after all the real cause of his sin. Wherefore there is no end to a man's sinning, when he has once turned aside from the Word. Adam at first sinned by unbelief and disobedience, and now he heaps upon that sin reproaches of God and positive blasphemy, saying in effect, It was not I who listened to the serpent; it was not I who was captivated by looking on the fruit of that tree; it was not I who stretched forth my hand to pluck the forbidden fruit. The woman whom _thou_ gavest me did all this. In a word Adam has no desire to acknowledge his sin. On the contrary he wishes to be considered pure and clean.