It is an utterance full of pain and of wrath against God, when Adam says, "The woman whom _thou_ gavest me." It is as if he had said, thou thyself has laid upon me the burden of this evil; if thou hadst given to the woman some separate garden to herself and hadst not burdened me with thy command that I should live with her, I might have continued without sin. As therefore I have sinned, the fault is thine in adding to me a wife. In the case of Adam therefore is set before us an exact example of all those who sin and who despair under their sin. They cannot do otherwise than accuse God and excuse themselves, for seeing as they do that God is omnipotent they consider that he could have prevented these their sins. So horrible is sin, whenever the minds of sinners are not soon relieved and lifted up with the promise of the forgiveness of sins. And this is the true effect of the law, whenever the law is alone, without the gospel and the knowledge of its grace, it always leads to despair and to final impenitence. V. 13. _And Jehovah God said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done? (Why hast thou done this?) And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me and I did eat._ Here the example of Eve is also set before us, who being corrupted by sin is seen to be in no degree better than Adam. Adam wished to appear innocent, and laid the blame on God, because he had given him a wife. Eve also attempts to excuse herself and accuses the serpent, which also was a creature of God. She confesses indeed that she had eaten the fruit, but she says, The serpent, which thou createdst and which thou permittedst to go about in paradise, imposed upon me. Now is not this actually accusing her Creator and removing the fault from herself? Hence we see that sin is always and everywhere the same and works in the same way. It is never willing to be punished as sin, but ever wishes to appear to be righteousness. And as it cannot accomplish this it turns the blame from itself upon God; so that when God accuses a man of sin the man actually charges God with falsehood in that accusation. So that sin, from being a human sin, becomes positively a devilish sin; and the unbelief of the man is turned into blasphemy, and his disobedience into reproach against his Creator! I term this a devilish and not a human sin; because the devil hates and accuses and condemns God, and justifies himself to all eternity; nor can he possibly from his heart say, "Lord, I have sinned; pardon my sin." Were it not so the devil would not eternally despair of pardon. But that pardon is impossible, as long as he acknowledges not his sin, but blasphemes God as exercising unjust cruelty against him as a creature without just cause.