cold.
His nature is exposed because it is weakened. Righteousness is a
defence. A man in sweet communion with God is girded with strength and
endurance, with recuperative energies, of which a man is ignorant when
he is alienated from God, and exposed to wrath. "For the word of God
is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there
is no creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are
naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." The Lord
God was abroad. They hid themselves. They were afraid. Ah, there is a
nakedness which the culprit feels, which cannot be covered up. God's
eye pierces through every form of concealment, and lays bare the cause
of ruin and the deed of shame. It is impossible to hide from God. If
this world is deceived by our disguises, and pasteboard faces, and
long robes, the Being with whom we have to do shall laugh at our
calamities and mock when our fear cometh, as we shall stand out in our
true characters, and shall be judged for the deeds done in the body,
whether they be good or evil.

3. Sin not only changed their relations to each other, awakening their
animal nature and killing their spiritual hope of sweet communion with
God, but it changed their relations towards God. They became aliens to
him. They lost their love, and were tortured by fear. They feared him
whom they once loved. "And Jehovah God called to the man, and said to
him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and
was afraid because I was naked, and hid myself. And he said, Who has
showed thee that thou art naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree which
I commanded thee not to eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou
gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate."

Adam, in his beginnings of sin, furnishes an example to sinners, which
has been abundantly copied. He says, "The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." He finds fault with
God the giver, and fails to condemn woman the sinner. The passage is
sometimes falsely interpreted, as an unworthy attempt of the man to
cast the blame of his offence on the woman. But the emphasis lies on
the words _whom thou gavest to be with me_, by which utterance he
seeks to transfer the responsibility from himself to God, who gave him
the co