on the ground] The lewdnesse of this fact was composed of lust, of envie, and murther; the first appeares, in that he went rashly upon it, it seemes he stayed not till night, for the time of privacie for such a purpose, else the bed might have been named, as well as the ground; the second is plaine by the Text, he envyed at the honour of his dead brother, and therefore would not be father of any child, that should be reputed his, and not his own; the third, in that there is a seminall vitall vertue which perisheth if the seed be spilt; and to doe this to hinder the begetting of a living child, is the first degree of murder, that can be committed, and the next unto it is the marring of conception, when it is made, and causing of abortion: now such acts are noted in the Scripture as horrible crimes, because otherwise many might commit them and not know the evill of them; It is conceived that his brother Er before was his brother in evill thus farre, that both of them satisfied their sensualitie against the order of nature, and therefore the Lord cut them off both alike with sudden vengeance; which may be for terrour to those Popish Onanites who condemne marriage, and live in Sodomiticall impuritie, and to those, who in marriage care not for the increase of children (which is the principall use of the conjugall estate) but for the satisfying of their concupiscence.