Q19. What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
A. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
Q1. What are the branches of man's misery expressed in this answer, as the effects of the fall?
A. They are these three: the happiness man has lost; the evil he lies presently under; and the future misery and punishment to which he is liable.
Q2. Is the loss which man has sustained by the fall, great and grievous?
A. Yes; it is so great, that we have all reason to cry out with the church, "Wo unto us that we have sinned!" Lam. 5:16. "How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!" chap. 4:1.
Q3. What is that great loss which man has sustained by the fall?
A. He has lost all that good which was promised him in the covenant of works, upon condition of his perfect obedience.
Q4. What was the good promised?
A. Life in its fullest latitude and extent; or all the happiness man was capable of, either in this world, or that which is to come.
Q5. What was man's chief happiness in that state in which he was created?
A. His chief happiness lay in his enjoyment of fellowship and communion with God.
Q6. In what did that fellowship and communion consist?
A. In :he most agreeable intimacy and familiarity that man had with God, in the uninterrupted enjoyment of his gracious presence.
Q7. How does it appear that man has lost this by the fall?
A. It appears from his being "without God in the world," Eph. 2:12; and "alienated from the life of God," chap. 4:18.
Q8. Did this breach of fellowship between God and man immediately follow upon the first sin?
A. Yes; for we find that our first parents immediately essayed to fly from the presence of God, and to hide themselves from him among the trees of the garden, Gen. 3:8.
Q9. Upon what footing had man fellowship with God before the fall?
A. Upon a law footing, namely, his continuing in his integrity of nature, and yielding perfect obedience to the holy law.
Q10. Is that door of access to God, and fellowship with him, closed and shut against all mankind?
A. Yes; because "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," Rom. 3:23; the broken law, and its curse, stand as an insuperable bar in our way to God and glory, upon the footing of the first covenant, Gal. 3:10.
Q11. What is the second branch of man's misery?
A. His being under the wrath and curse of God.
Q12. What is it to be under the wrath of God?
A. It is to be under his anger, in the sad and dismal effects of it, whether in a more visible, or more secret way, Psalm 11:6, and 50.21.
Q13. What is it to be under his curse?
A. It is to be under the sentence of his law, denouncing all evil upon the transgressor, Gal. 3:10.
Q14. How does it appear that man is now under the wrath and curse of God?
A. From those passages of scripture, where God is said to be "angry with the wicked every day," Psalm 7:11; that his "wrath is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men," Rom. 1:18; that "he who believes not is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him," John 3:18, 36.
Q15. Is the wrath of an infinite God tolerable by a finite creature?
A. Oh! No; "Who shall dwell with devouring fire! who shall dwell with everlasting burnings!" Isaiah 33:14. "Who knows the power of his anger!" Psalm 90:11. It makes the whole creation groan, Rom. 8:22; and when it lighted upon the Son of God for our iniquities, it crushed his human body down to the dust of death, and melted his soul like wax in the midst of his bowels, Psalm 22:14, 15.
Q16. Can any man hide himself from the presence of an angry God?
A. No; there is no flying from the presence of that God who is every where, Psalm 139:7-13.
Q17. What is the third branch of man's misery by the fall?
A. He is liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
Q18. What are these miseries which man is liable to in this life?
A. They are such as extend both to his soul and body.
Q19. What are these soul miseries and maladies that sin has entailed upon us?
A. The precious soul is quite defaced, deformed, and debased, from its original beauty and excellency, being stricken with "blindness of mind, Eph. 4:18; hardness of heart, Rom. 2:5; a reprobate sense, Rom. 1:28; strong delusions, 2 Thess. 2:11; horror of conscience, Isaiah 33:14; vile affections, Rom. 1:26;"26 and the thralldom and bondage of Satan, Eph. 2:2.
Q20. Is there no medicine against these soul maladies and miseries?
A. Yes; there is "balm in Gilead, and a Physician there," Jer. 8:22; who is "able to save to the uttermost," Heb. 7:25; and who says, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth," Isaiah 45:22.
Q21. What are those external miseries we are liable to in this life?
A. They are either more public, such as sword, famine, pestilence, desolation by fire and water, captivity, persecution, and the like, Ezek. 5:17; or more private and personal, such as diseases of all sorts, reproach and calumny, toil and labour, poverty, and crosses of all kinds, Deut. 28:16, 17, &c.
Q22. Do not all these external miseries come alike to all, both godly and wicked?
A. Yes, as to the external conduct of providence, Eccl. 9:2; but to the godly they are only fatherly chastisements, and work together for their good, Rom. 8:28; whereas to the wicked, they come in a way of vindictive anger, and are but the beginnings of sorrows, unless the goodness of God do lead them to repentance, Rom. 2:5.
Q23. Has sin any other retinue attending it than what has been already mentioned?
A. Yes; for like the pale horse, Rev. 6:8, it has death, and then hell following after.
Q24. What death is here intended?
A. A corporeal or bodily death, which lies in the separation of soul and body.
Q25. Is sin the cause of death?
A. It is both the cause of death, Rom. 5:12, and the sting of it, 1 Cor. 15:55, 56.
Q26. Is the connexion between sin and death inseparable?
A. Yes; they are inseparable by the appointment of the righteous God, who has said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," Ezek. 18:4; and, "It is appointed unto men once to die," Heb. 9:27.
Q27. How did this appointment of heaven hold, in the case of Enoch and Elijah?
A. They underwent what was equivalent to death in their translation to heaven; it fared with them as it will with the saints that shall be alive at Christ's second coming, concerning whom it is said, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed," 1 Cor. 15:51.
Q28. What is the difference between the death of believers and the death of the wicked?
A. To the wicked it comes as standing under a covenant of works, but to believers as standing under a covenant of grace; to the one, in the hand of Christ, saying, "Death is yours;" to the other in the hand of Satan, as God's executioner, having the power of death: to the one without, but to the other as armed with a fearful sting: to the one as an everlasting and irreparable loss; to the other as eternal and unspeakable gain: to the one as a conqueror, dragging the sinner to the prison of hell; to the other as a vanquished enemy, paving the way to heaven and glory.
Q29. What will be the believer's language when he views death approaching in this light?
A. Faith will cry out, "O death! where is thy sting?" 1 Cor. 15:55.
Q30. What will be the language of the wicked when they see death approaching as the king of terrors?
A. It will be like that of Ahab to Elijah, 1 Kings 21:20, - "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy!"
Q31. What misery has sin made us liable to after death?
A. To the pains of hell for ever.
Q32. What do you understand by hell?
A. A state and place of torment, prepared for the devil and his angels, Matt. 25:41.
Q33. If it was prepared for the devil and his angels, what concern have any of mankind with it?
A. Though it was prepared for the devil and his angels, yet the wicked of the world shall be turned into it also, and all the nations that forget God, Psalm 9:17.
Q34. Why must the wicked and ungodly world be turned into hell, with the devil and his angels?
A. Because they served and obeyed the devil as their god, and were in a confederacy with him against the living and true God, Isaiah 28:15; Eph. 2:2.
Q35. How many fold are the punishments of the damned in hell?
A. Twofold; the punishment of loss, and the punishment of sense.
Q36. What loss shall the damned in hell sustain?
A. They shall lose God, the chief good, Matt. 25:41; they shall lose the vision and fruition of the glorious Immanuel, Matt. 7:23; they shall lose their own souls, Matt. 16:26, and all the pleasures of sin and sense, in which they placed their happiness in this world, Luke 16:25.
Q37. What will be the punishment of sense which the wicked shall suffer in hell?
A. It is represented in scripture by their being shut up in outer darkness, Matt. 8:12; in a lake of fire and brimstone, Rev. 20:10, where the smoke of their torment shall ascend up for ever and ever, Rev. 14:11; which is called the second death, chap. 21:8, the worm that never dies, and the fire that shall never be quenched, Mark 9:44.
Q38. How do you prove, from scripture, that the pains of hell shall be for ever, or everlasting?
A. The wicked are said to be "cast into everlasting fire," Matt. 18:8; to "go away into everlasting punishment," Matt. 25:46; to be "punished with everlasting destruction," 2 Thess. 1:9; to have the "mist of darkness" reserved for them for ever, 2 Pet. 2:17; to be "tormented day and night, for ever and ever," Rev. 20:10; and by several other expressions of the like nature.
Q39. Is eternity of punishment essential to the threatening, or penal sanction of the law?
A. No; else there never had been a satisfaction for sin.
Q40. Whence then arises the eternity of punishment?
A. From the nature of the creature, which being finite, can never be capable of enduring the uttermost of infinite wrath; Psalm 90:11 - "Who knoweth the power of thine anger?"
Q41. How can it consist with the justice of God, to inflict eternal punishment for temporal sinning?
A. Because sin, objectively considered, is an infinite evil, as being committed against an infinitely holy God; and therefore nothing can expiate it, but a satisfaction of infinite worth, which mere creatures can never yield, 1 Pet. 1:18, 19.
Q42. What sort of sinners shall undergo the most dreadful degree of punishment in hell?
A. The despisers of Christ and the gospel: it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, for Tyre and Sidon, who never heard of Christ, than for Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, and other cities, nations, and persons, to whom Christ, and his great salvation, have been offered, and yet rejected through unbelief, Matt. 11:21-25; Heb. 2:3.
Q43. What should all this teach us?
A. That however sweet sin be in the mouth, it will be bitter in the belly, even lamentation, mourning, and wo, in the latter end, Ezek. 2:10; it should teach us to fly from the wrath to come, to the horns of the New Testament altar, the satisfaction and intercession of Christ; there being no name by which we can be saved from sin and wrath, except the name of Jesus only, Acts 4:12.
Q1. What communion had God with man before the fall?
A. Man that enjoyed the gracious presence and favor of God with him, which was better than life.
Q2. How does it appear this was lost by the fall?
A. It appears by scripture-testimony, that Adam lost it as to himself; Genesis 3:8. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, among the trees of the garden. And we in him; Ephesians 2:12. At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the common-wealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
Q3. Was this the only misery that came by the fall?
A. No; man did not only lose communion with God, but fell under his wrath and curse; Ephesians 2:3. And were by nature children of wrath, even as others.
Q4. Does the wrath and curse of God then lie on all men?
A. It lies on all the unregenerate in the world; Galatians 3:10. Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them: But believers are delivered from it by Christ; 1 Thessalonians 1:10. Even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
Q5. How are the miseries of man by the fall divided?
A. They are divided into the miseries of this world, and of the World to come.
Q6. What are the miseries that come on them in this world?
A. The miseries of life, as sickness, pain, poverty on the body; fear, trouble, sorrow on the mind, and at last death itself; Romans 6 ult. The wages of sin is death.
Q7. What are the miseries after this life?
A. The pains and torments of Hell forever; Psalm 9:17. The wicked shall be turned into Hell.
Q8. What are the torments of Hell?
A. Pain of loss and pain of sense; Matthew 25:41. Depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire.
Q9. What learn you from hence?
A. The woeful state of the unconverted; miserable here, and miserable to eternity.
Q10. What else learn we hence?
A. The great salvation believers have by Christ from all this misery; Hebrews 2:3. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. Of the Salvation of God's Elect, and of the Covenant of Grace
Q1. When our first parents had eaten the forbidden fruit, did they become as gods?
A. No: They were like the beasts that perish, Ps. 49:12.
Q2. Did the devil make his words good then?
A. No: For he is a liar and the father of it, John 8:44.
Q3. Did not he put a cheat upon them?
A. Yes: The woman said, the serpent beguiled me, Gen. 3:13.
Q4. Did shame come in with sin?
A. Yes: For they knew that they were naked, Gen. 3:7.
Q5. Did fear come in with sin?
A. Yes: For they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden, Gen. 3:8.
Q6. Was not that their misery?
A. Yes: For fear hath torment, 1 John. 4:18.
Q7. Did they lose communion with God?
A. Yes: For he drove out the man, Gen. 3:24.
Q8. Is fallen man unworthy of communion with God?
A. Yes: For what communion has light with darkness? 2 Cor. 2:14.
Q9. Is he unfit for communion with God?
A. Yes: For can two walk together except they be agreed? Amos 3:3.
Q10. Could fallen man ever get to heaven by virtue of the covenant of innocency?
A. No: For cherubims and a flaming sword were set to keep that way to the tree of life, Gen. 3:24.
Q11. Is fallen man under God's wrath?
A. Yes: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, Rom. 1:18.
Q12. Are we all so by nature?
A. Yes: We are by nature children of wrath, even as others, Eph. 2:2.
Q13. Are we so by reason of sin?
A. Yes: For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience, Eph. 5:6.
Q14. Is there a distance between God and man by reason of sin?
A. Yes: Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, Isa. 49:2.
Q15. Is there a quarrel between God and man by reason of sin?
A. Yes: My soul loathed them, and their soul also it abhorred me, Zech. 11:8.
Q16. Is it not said to lie under God's wrath?
A. Yes: For who knows the power of his anger? Ps. 90:11.
Q17. Is fallen man under God's curse?
A. Yes: For cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them, Gal. 3:10.
Q18. Is this curse in force against all wicked people?
A. Yes: The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, Prov. 3:33.
Q19. Has sin brought a curse upon the world?
A. Yes: Cursed is the ground for thy sake, Gen. 3:17.
Q20. Is mankind by the fall become liable to the miseries of this life?
A. Yes: In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, Gen 3:17.
Q21. Are we all by nature liable to these miseries?
A. Yes: For man is born to trouble, Job 5:7.
Q22. Is all the hurtfulness of the creatures the effect of sin?
A. Yes: Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth, Gen. 3:18.
Q23. Is the toil of business the effect of sin?
A. Yes: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, ver. 19.
Q24. Is pain and sickness the effect of sin?
A. Yes: There is not any rest in my bones, because of my sin, Ps. 38:3.
Q25. Are all our crosses the effect of sin?
A. Yes: Our sins have withholden good things from us, Jer. 5:25.
Q26. Should we not therefore bear them patiently?
A. Yes: Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin? Lam. 3:39.
Q27. Is all mankind by the fall become liable to death itself?
A. Yes: For so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, Rom. 5:12.
Q28. Was a sentence of death immediately passed upon fallen man?
A. Yes: Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return, Gen. 3:19.
Q29. Do we all deserve death?
A. Yes: The wages of sin is death, Rom. 6:23.
Q30. Is it the natural consequence of sin?
A. Yes: For sin, when it is finished, brings forth death, Jam. 1:15.
Q31. Can any avoid it?
A. No: What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? Ps. 89:48.
Q32. Is it determined?
A. Yes: It is appointed to men once to die, Heb. 9:27.
Q33. Do you expect it?
A. Yes: I know that thou wilt bring me to death, Job 30:23.
Q34. Is sin the sting of death?
A. Yes: The sting of death is sin, 1 Cor. 15:56.
Q35. Is the amazing fear of death the effect of sin?
A. Yes: There are those who through fear of death are all their life-time subject to bondage, Heb. 2:15.
Q36. Is the body's rotting in the grave the effect of sin?
A. Yes: As drought and heat consume the snow-waters, so doth the grave those which have sinned, Job 24:19.
Q37. Is mankind by the fall become liable to the pains of hell for ever?
A. Yes: For he that wanders out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead, Prov. 21:16. Ps. 9:17.
Q38. Can God make a soul forever miserable?
A. Yes: For after he hath killed he hath power to cast into hell, Luke 12:5.
Q39. Is there a state of punishment in the other life?
A. Yes: For we are warned to flee from the wrath to come, Matt. 3:7.
Q40. Is it the desert of sin?
A. Yes: For when God renders to every man according to his works, he will render indignation with wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, Rom. 2:8, 9.
Q41. Will it be the portion of impenitent sinners?
A. Yes: Ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell, Matt. 23:33.
Q42. Is hell the wrath of an everlasting God?
A. Yes: For the breath of the Lord. like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it, Isa. 30:33.
Q43. Is it the anguish of an immortal soul?
A. Yes: For their worm dieth not, Mark 9:44.
Q44. Is any way of relief open to them?
A. No: Betwixt us and you there is a gulf fixed, Luke 16:26.
Q45. Is their punishment therefore everlasting?
A. Yes: These shall go away into everlasting punishment, Matt. 25:46.
Q46. Should we not every one of us dread it?
A. Yes: For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, Heb. 10:31. Isa. 33:14.
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Sin and Human Nature
The fall, sin, and the misery of humanity
Q13. Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
A. Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.
Q14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
Q15. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?
A. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit.
Q16. Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression?
A. The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity; all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.
Q17. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
A. The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.
Q18. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
A. The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.
Q19. What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
A. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
Q20. Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
A. God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.
### 4. Man's Misery By The Fall
Q-19: WHAT IS THE MISERY OF THAT ESTATE WHEREINTO MAN FELL?
A: All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
'And were by nature children of wrath.' Eph 2:3. Adam left an unhappy portion to his posterity, Sin and Misery. Having considered the first of these, original sin, we shall now advert to the misery of that state. In the first, we have seen mankind offending; in the second, we shall see him suffering. The misery ensuing from original sin is two-fold.
I. Privative. By this first hereditary sin we have lost communion with God. Adam was God's familiar, his favourite; but sin has put us all out of favour. When we lost God's image, we lost his acquaintance. God's banishing Adam out of paradise hieroglyphically showed how sin has banished us out of God's love and favour.
II. Positive. In four things. 1. Under the power of Satan. 2. Heirs of God's wrath. 3. Subject to all the miseries of this life. 4. Exposed to hell and damnation.
[1] The first misery is, that by nature we are ‘under the power of Satan,' who is called ‘The prince of the power of the air.' Eph 2:2. Before the fall man was a free denizen, now a slave; before, a king on the throne, now in fetters. And whom is man enslaved to? To one that is a hater of him. This was an aggravation of Israel's servitude. ‘They that hated them ruled over them.' Psa 106:41. By sin we are enslaved to Satan, who is a hater of mankind, and writes all his laws in blood. Sinners before conversion are under Satan's command; as the ass at the command of the driver, so he does all the devil's drudgery. No sooner Satan tempts but he obeys. As the ship is at the command of the pilot, who steers it which way he will, so is the sinner at the command of Satan; and he ever steers the ship into hell's mouth. The devil rules all the powers and faculties of a sinner.
(1.) He rules the understanding. He blinds men with ignorance, and then rules them; as the Philistines first put out Samson's eyes, and then bound him. Satan can do what he will with an ignorant man; because he does not see the error of his way, the devil can lead him into any sin. You may lead a blind man any whither. Omne peccatum fundatur in ignorantia [Every sin is founded upon ignorance].
(2.) Satan rules the will. Though he cannot force the will, yet he can, by temptation, draw it. ‘The lusts of your father ye will do.' John 8:44. He has got your hearts, and him ye will obey. ‘We will burn incense to the queen of heaven.' Jer 44:17. When the devil spurs a sinner by a temptation, he will over hedge and ditch break all God's laws, that he may obey Satan. Where then is free will, when Satan has such power over the will? ‘His lusts ye will do.' There's not any member of the body but is at the devil's service: the head to plot sin, the hands to work it, the feet to run the devil's errand. Grave jugum servitutis. Cicero. ‘Slavery is hateful to a noble spirit.' Satan is the worst tyrant; the cruelty of a cannibal, or Nero, is nothing to his. Other tyrants do but rule over the bodies, he over the conscience. Other tyrants have some pity on their slaves; though they work in the galley, they give them meat, let them have hours for rest; but Satan is a merciless tyrant, he lets them have no rest. What pains did Judas take! The devil would let him have no rest till he had betrayed Christ, and afterwards imbrued his hands in his own blood.
Use one: See here our misery by original sin; enslaved to Satan. Eph 2:2. Satan is said to work effectually in the children of disobedience. What a sad plague is it for a sinner to be at the will of the devil! Just like a slave, if the Turks bid him dig in the mines, hew in the quarries, tug at the oar, the slave must do it, he dares not refuse. If the devil bids a man lie or steal, he does not refuse; and, what is worse, he willingly obeys this tyrant. Other slaves are forced against their will: ‘Israel sighed by reason of their bondage,' Exod 2:23; but sinners are willing to be slaves, they will not take their freedom; they kiss their fetters.
Use two: Let us labour to get out of this deplorable condition into which sin has plunged us, and get from under the power of Satan. If any of your children were slaves, you would give great sums of money to purchase their freedom; and when your souls are enslaved, will ye not labour for their freedom? Improve the gospel. The gospel proclaims a jubilee to captives. Sin binds men, but the gospel looses them. Paul's preaching was ‘to turn men from the power of Satan to God.' Acts 26:18. The gospel star leads you to Christ; and if you get Christ, then you are made free, though not from the being of sin, yet from Satan's tyranny. ‘If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' John 8:36. You hope to be kings to reign in heaven, and will you let Satan reign in you now? Never think to be kings when you die, and slaves while you live. The crown of glory is for conquerors, not for captives. Oh get out of Satan's jurisdiction; get your fetters of sin filed off by repentance.
[2] ‘And were by nature the children of wrath.' Tertullian's exposition here is wrong, who by children of wrath, understands subjectively, that is, subject to wrath and passion; offending often in the irascible faculty of a wrathful spirit. By children of wrath, the apostle passively means heirs of wrath, exposed to God's displeasure. God was once a friend, but sin broke the knot of friendship; now God's smile is turned into a frown; we are now bound over to the sessions, and become children of wrath. ‘And who knows the power of God's wrath?' Psa 90:11. ‘The wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion.' Prov 19:12. How did Haman's heart tremble, when the king rose up from the banquet in wrath! Esth 7:7. But God's wrath is infinite, all other is but as a spark to a flame: wrath in God is not a passion, as in us; but it is an act of God's holy will, whereby he abhors sin, and decrees to punish it. This wrath is very dismal; it is this wrath of God that embitters afflictions in this life, for when sickness comes attended with God's wrath, it puts conscience into an agony. The mingling of the fire with the hail made it most terrible. Exod 9:24. So mingling God's wrath with affliction, makes it torturing; it is the nail in the yoke. God's wrath, when but in a threatening (as a shower hanging in the cloud), made Eli's ears to tingle; what is it then, when this wrath is executed? It is terrible when the king rates and chides a traitor; but it is more dreadful when he causes him to be set upon the rack, or to be broke upon the wheel. ‘Who knows the power of God's wrath?' While we are children of wrath we have nothing to do with any of the promises; they are as the tree of life, bearing several sorts of fruit, but we have no right to pluck one leaf. ‘Children of wrath.' Eph 2:3.' Strangers to the covenants of promise,' verse 12. The promises are as a fountain sealed. While we are in the state of nature, we see nothing but the flaming sword; and, as the apostle says, ‘There remains nothing but a fearful looking for of fiery indignation.' Heb 10:27. While children of wrath we are ‘heirs to all God's curses.' Gal 3:10. How can the sinner eat and drink in that condition? Like Damocles, banquet, who while he sat at meat with a sword hanging over his head by a small thread could have little stomach to eat; so the sword of God's wrath and curse hangs every moment over a sinner's head. We read of a flying roll, written with curses. Zech 5:2. A roll written with curses goes out against every person that lives and dies in sin. God's curse blasts wherever it comes. There is a curse on the sinner's name, a curse on his soul, a curse on his estate and posterity, a curse on the ordinances. Sad, if all a man eats should turn to poison; yet the sinner eats and drinks his own damnation at God's table. Thus it is before conversion. As the love of God makes every bitter thing sweet, so the curse of God makes every sweet thing bitter.
Use one: See our misery by the fall. Heirs of wrath. And is this estate to be rested in? If a man be fallen under the king's displeasure, will he not labour to re-ingratiate himself into his favour? Oh let us flee from the wrath of God! And whither should we fly, but to Jesus Christ? There is none else to shield off the wrath of God from us. ‘Jesus has delivered us from the wrath to come.' I Thess 1:10.
[3] Subject to all outward miseries. All the troubles incident to man's life are the bitter fruits of original sin. The sin of Adam has ‘subjected the creature to vanity.' Rom 8:20. Is it not a part of the creature's vanity, that all the comforts below will not fill the heart, any more than the mariner's breath can fill the sails of a ship? ‘In the midst of his sufficiency he shall be in straits.' Job 20:22. There is still something wanting, and a man would have more; the heart is always hydropsical; it thirsts, and is not satisfied. Solomon put all the creatures into a crucible; and when he came to extract the spirit and quintessence, there was nothing but froth, ‘all was vanity.' Eccl 1:2. Nay, it is vexing vanity; not only emptiness, but bitterness, our life is labour and sorrow: we come into the world with a cry, and go out with a groan. Psa 90:10. Some have said, that they would not live the life they have lived over again, because their life has had more water in it than wine; more water of tears, than wine of joy. Quia est diu vivere nisi diu torqueri [Long life is merely long torment]. Augustine. ‘Man is born to trouble.' Job 5:7. Every one is not born heir to land, but he is born heir to trouble. As well separate weight from lead as trouble from man. We do not finish our troubles in this life, but change them. Trouble is the vermin bred out of the putrid matter of sin. Whence all our fears but from sin? ‘There is torment in fear.' I John 4:18. Fear is the ague of the soul, sets it shaking; some fear want, others alarms, others fear loss of relations; if we rejoice, it is with trembling. Whence all our disappointments of hopes but from sin? Where we look for comfort, there is a cross; where we expect honey, there we taste wormwood. Whence is it that the earth is filled with violence, that the wicked oppresses the man who is more righteous than he? Hab 1:13. Whence so much fraudulence in dealing, so much falseness in friendship, such crosses in relations? Whence is it children prove undutiful, and they that should be as the staff of the parents' age are a sword to pierce their hearts? Whence is it that servants are unfaithful to their masters? The apostle speaks of some who have entertained angels in their houses; Heb 13:2; but how oft, instead of entertaining angels in their houses, do some entertain devils! Whence all the mutinies and divisions in a kingdom? ‘In those days there was no peace to them that went out, nor to him that came in.' 2 Chron 15:5. All this is but the sour core in the apple which our first parents ate, the fruit of original sin. Besides, all the deformities and diseases of the body, fevers, convulsions, catarrhs are from sin, Macies et nova febrium ferris incubuit cohors [Famine and a new crop of fevers oppressed the lands]. There had never been a stone in the kidneys, if there had not been first a stone in the heart. Yea, the death of the body is the fruit and result of original sin. ‘Sin entered into the world, and death by sin.' Rom 5:12. Adam was made immortal, conditionally, if he had not sinned. Sin dug Adam's grave. Death is terrible to nature. Louis, king of France, forbade all that came into his court to mention the name of death in his ears. The Socinians say, that death comes only from the infirmities of the constitution. But the apostle says, Sin ushered in death into the world: by sin came death. Certainly, had not Adam ate of the tree of knowledge he had not died. ‘In the day thou eatest, thou shalt surely die,' Gen 2:17: implying, if Adam had not eaten, he should not have died. Oh then see the misery ensuing upon original sin! Sin dissolves the harmony and good temperature of the body, and pulls its frame in pieces.
[4] Original sin without repentance exposes to hell and damnation. This is the second death. Rev 20:14. Two things are in it:
(1.) Poena damni, Punishment of loss. The soul is banished from the beatific presence of God, in whose presence is fulness of joy.
(2.) Poena sensus, Punishment of sense. The sinner feels scalding vials of God's wrath. It is penetrating, abiding, John 3:36, and reserved, 2 Pet 2:17. If when God's anger be kindled but a little, and a spark or two of it flies into a man's conscience in this life, it be so terrible, what will it be when God stirs up all his anger? In hell there is the worm and the fire. Mark 9:44. Hell is the very accent and emphasis of misery; there is judgement without mercy. Oh what flames of wrath, what seas of vengeance, what rivers of brimstone, are poured out there upon the damned! Bellarmine is of opinion, That one glimpse of hell-fire were enough to make the most flagitious sinner to turn Christian; nay, live like a hermit, a most strict mortified life. What is all other fire to this but painted fire? Ejus adesse intolerabile, ejus abesse impossibile; ‘to bear it will be intolerable, to avoid it will be impossible.' And these hell torments are for ever, they have no period put to them. ‘They shall seek death, and shall not find it.' Rev 9:9. Origen fancied a fiery stream in which the souls of sinful men were to be purged after this life, and then to pass into heaven; but it is for ever. The breath of the Lord kindles that fire; and where shall we find engines or buckets to quench it? ‘And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night.' Rev 14:11. Thank original sin for all.
Use one: What sad thoughts should we have of this primitive original sin, that has created so many miseries! What honey can be got out of this lion? What grapes can we gather off this thorn? It sets heaven and earth against us. While we choose this bramble to rule, fire comes out of the bramble to devour us.
Use two: How are all believers bound to Jesus Christ, who has freed them from that misery to which sin has exposed them! ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood.' Eph 1:7. Sin has brought trouble and a curse into the world: Christ has sanctified the trouble, and removed the curse. Nay, he has not only freed believers from misery, but purchased for them a crown of glory and immortality. ‘When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.' I Pet 5:4.