The Institution of Christian Religion

when he came ones in his sight, he fell down as half dead at his feet, until he found him more favourable than he durst have hoped.¹ Beside that, at his first entry into the land, he lost Rachel his dearly beloved wife. Afterward he heard word that ⟨p. 72⟩the son which he had by her,² and whom therefore he loved above the rest, was torn with wild beasts: by whose death how great grief he conceived, he himself declared in this, that after long weeping he obstinately stopped up all ways whereby comfort might come to him, leaving himself nothing, but to go down to his son wailing into the grave.³ In the mean time how great causes of grief, waiting and weariness were the ravishment and deflowering of his daughter, and the boldness of his sons in revenging it, which not only made him to be abhorred in sight of all the inhabitants of that country, but also procured him most present peril of utter destruction?⁴ Then followed that horrible outrageous offence of Reuben his first begotten son, which was such as their could not chance a more grievous. For whereas the defiling of a mans wife is reckoned among the hiest ill fortunes: what is to be said of it, when that wickedness is committed by a mans own son? Within a little while after,⁵ his house is spotted with an other vunaturall adultery: so that so many shames might well break a heart, that otherwise were most constant and unable to be vanquished with calamities. Near before the end of his life, while he sought to provide succour for the famine of himself and other, he was stricken with tidings of a new misfortune, understanding that an other of his sons was kept in prison,⁶ for recovering of whom he was compelled to leave to the rest Benjamin his only darling. Who can think, that in such a heap of mischiefs he had any one moment given him safely to take breath in? And therefore he himself the best witness of himself,