that it is their duty not to endeavour to avoid it. And will anyone say, that Eve, or any other woman sinned, if she were brought to bed without those multiplied pains God threatens her here with? or that either of our queens, Mary or Elizabeth, had they married any of their subjects, had been by this text put into a political subjection to him? or that he should thereby have had monarchical rule over her? God, in this text, gives not, that I see, any authority to Adam over Eve, or to men over their wives, but only foretels what should be the woman’s lot; how by his providence he would order it so, that she should be subject to her husband, as we see that generally the laws of mankind and customs of nations have ordered it so: and there is, I grant, a foundation in nature for it.

Thus when God says of Jacob and Esau, “that the elder should serve the younger,” Gen. 25:23, nobody supposes that God hereby made Jacob Esau’s sovereign, but foretold what should de facto come to pass.