What Is the Misery of That Estate Whereinto Man Fell?

Answ. 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,

Q. What mean you by man’s misery § A. That which distresseth and hurts him, Rom. ii. 8, 9. Deut. xxviii.

Q. Wherein do sin and misery as such differ?

A. Sin is the cause; misery is the effect sin is odious to God, and pleasant to sinners; misery is disagreeable to sinners, arid agreeable to the justice of God, Rom. vi.

Q. Doth God take pleasure in the misery of man?

A. He takes no pleasure in it as distressing to man but he takes pleasure in it as the just punishment of man’s sin, Gen. iii. 17, 18, 19. Lam. iii. 33, 39. Jer. v. 9, 29.

Q. Of how many parts does the misery of our natural estate consist? A. Of three *, what we have lost; what we are brought under; and what we are liable to.

Q. What have we lost by the fall? A. The glorious image of God, and most sweet communion with him.

Q, How prove you that the loss of God’s image is a misery as well as a sin? A. Because to be like God

is our highest honour, and to be unlike him is our greatest ignominy, Hah. i. 13. John viii. 44.

Q. Hath man lost his likeness to God in the spiritual nature and substance of his soul? A. No j but the image of the devil is drawn upon it; it is become a slave to our body, and a resting place for God’s wrath, Jer. xvii. % t G

Q. How do you prove man has lost communion with God?

A. The scripture testifies, that God hates the wicked,

and will not suffer them to dwell in his presence, or stand

in his sight j and that men are naturally without God,

and estranged f&om him, Psalm y. 4, 5. Eph. ii. 12.

Q. How can the loss of communion with God be a misery, when we naturally contemn and shun it?

A. Because God is the only sufficient portion of our souls j and nothing can supply the want of him, Jer. ii..

O. Why then do we slight and shun communion with God? A. Because we are distracted fools, who

forsake our own mercy, Jonah ii. S. Jer. viii. 9.

Q. Shall all men at length know the value of communion and fellowship with God? A. Yes; either when they are converted, or when they are east into h?II.

Q^ Under what hath the fall brought mankind r

A. Under the wrath and curse of God, Psalm vii. 11.

Q. How prove you that?

A. The scripture affirms, that we art by nature children of wrath; that he thai believeth not, is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him, John iii. 18, 3(3.

Q. What are we to understand by the wrath of God?

A. Plis holy displeasure with sin, Hab. i. 13.

Q. Why is this called wrath? A. Because it

produceth the most terrible effects, Deut. xxxii. 22.

Qj Wherein is the wrath of God against the wicked i

A. In his heart, face, mouth, and hand.

Q. How is wrath against them in the heart of God i

A. Plis soul despises, loathes, and abhors them* and all their works, Psalm cxxxviii. 6. xi. 5. and vii. 11.

Q. How is wrath in the face of God against them?

A. In wrath he hides his gracious countenance from them, he frowns on them, and sets his eyes upon them for evil, Isa. lix. 2. Psalm xxxiv. 16. Amos viii. 4.

O. Plow is wrath in his mouth, or Zips, against them?

A. His word condemns and curves them, and all their works; his breath slays them, and kindles Tophet for them, Gal. “ii, 10. Rev. ii. 16. Ica. xi. 4. and xxx. 33.

O. How is wrath in his hand against the wicked r

A. In the hand of the Lord there is a cup of unmixed wrath for them •, and his power is engaged in smiting them with more secret or more sensible strokes of wrath.

O. What are the properties of God’rf wrath

A. It is irresistible, insupportable, unavoidable, powerful, constant, eternal, and most just wrath.

Q. How is God’s wrath irresistible?

A. There is no prevailing against the force of it,.

Q. How is it insupportable? A. No creature

is able to stand under it without sinking, lsa. xxxiii. 14.

Q. How is it unavoidable? A. There is no flying

from it, if we continue without Christ, Heb. ii. 3.

Q. How is this wrath powerful? A. It reaches

both soul and body, and destroys to the uttermost.

Qj, How is it constant? A, It lieth on the wicked

without interruption, Psal. vii. 11. John Hi. 36.

Q. How is the wrath of God eternal?

A. It shall never, never have an end, 2 Thess. i. 9.

Q. How is it most just wrath?

A. Cur sins well deserve it, Psal. xi. 5, 6, 7. Jer. ii. 19*

Q. Upon what of the sinner doth God’s wrath lie?

A» Upon his person, name, estate, actions, and relations*

Q. What is the curse of God?

A. The threatening or sentence of his law denouncing wrath against sinners.

£). Hath God set up any glasses in this world for displaying the terrible nature of his wrath and curse?

A. Yes; such as, the drowning of the old world, raining fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, &c. but especially the death of Christ, Gen. vii. and xix.

Q. How is the death of Christ the clearest glass for displaying the wrath of God? A. In it we behold

God bruising the only Son of his love, and executing upon him the fierceness of his wrath, till his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, Rom. viii. 32.

Q. To what h man by the fall liable?

A. To all the effects of God’s wrath ar.d curse.

0. In what different periods are we liable to these?

A. In this life, at the end of it, and through eternity.

Q. To what are we by sin liable in this life?

A. To all the miseries of this life, whether on our soul, body, name, estate, or relations, Dent, xxviii.

O. To what spiritual miseries is man liable in this life?

A^ To judicial blindness of mind, hardness of heart, ?earedness and horror of conscience, vile affections, slavery to Satan, weakness of memory, &c. Eph. iv.,19, §£e.

£h What is judicial blindness of mind? A.. It can-

sists in God’s giving up men to ignorance and delusion, and blastiing the means of instruction to them, Eph. iv.

Q^ What ls judicial hardness of heart? A. It is

when our heart is neither awakened by judgments, nor

moved by mercies to repent of sin, but emboldened in it.

(,). What is searedness of conscience? A. It is to

be without fear or shame in committing known sin,

Q. What is horror of conscience? A. It consists

in our being terrified with apprehensions of God’s wrath.

Q. What call you vile affections? A. Strong

inclinations to unnatural wickedness, especially such as

respects fleshly lusts, Rom. i. 26, 27. Eph. iv. 19.

Q. What is meant by the thraldom or slavery of Satan? A. Our want okability to oppose, and ready compliance with Satan’s vilest temptations, 1 Tim. ii. 9, 10.

Q. Wherein do the blindness of mind, hardness of heart, searedness of conscience, vile affections, and slavery of Satan in reprobates, differ from the resemblances of these plagues and maladies in believers?

A. In reprobates these plagues are their pleasure, but they are the believer’s heavy burden, Rom. vii. 14, 24.

Q. Wherein doth a wicked man’s horror of conscience differ from that of a believer?

A. Apprehensions of God’s positive wrath, are the spring of the wicked man’s horror; but sin, and dread of separation from God, are the chief spring of a believer’s terror, Gen. iv. 13. Psalm lxxxviii.

Q. To what bodily miseries is man liable by sin? A. To desolation, captivity, sword, famine, pestilence, persecution, sickness, infirmity, and toil, &c.

Q. To what misery on his name is man liable by sin? A. To infamy and reproach, Deut. xxviii. 37. Q^ What misery is man by sin liable to, in his estate? A. To poverty; or to have his riches turned into a curse, or a mean of fattening him for the slaughter of eternal wrath, Psalm xxxvii. 20. Prov. i. 32.

Qj To what misery is man liable, in his relations? A. To lose them, or to be afflicted by them. Q^ Wherein do the afflictions of the godly and the wicked in this life differ? A. The afflictions of the godly proceed from God’s love, and promote their interest ‘, but those of the wicked flow from God’s wrath, and are their punishment, Heb. xii. 6, — 11. Psal. xi. 6.

Q, To what is man by sin liable at the end of this life?

A. To death itself for the scripture sarth, The wages of sin is death: The soul that sinneth shall die; and, It is appointed for men once to die, &c.

£). How can it be appointed for all men to die, when Enoch, Elias, and these found alive at Christ’s second coming, die not? A. These did, or shall undergo a

change equivalent to death, 1 Cor. xv. 52.

Q. What is death to a wicked man? A. A passage from all his joy and happiness to eternal misery.

Qj. What makes death terrible to a wicked man?

A. It robs him of all his beloved enjoyments, tears his soul from his body, drags it to God’s tribunal, and casts it into the prison of hell, Prov. xiv. 32.

Q. What is the sting of death? A. Sin.

Q. How is sin the sting of death?

A. It renders death irresistibly powerful, and infinitely agonizing and ruinous, Prov. xiv. 32. Job xviii. 7, — 18.

Q. What is the grave to a wicked man?

A. It is a prison to retain his body till the judgment of the great day, Rev. xx. 13 Psalm xlix. 14.

Q. To what, is man by sin liable after his death?

A. To the pains of hell for ever, Luke xvi. 22. 23’.

Q. How is hell called in scripture? A Tophei,

a prison, a lake of fire and brimstone, a bottomless pit, outer darkness, &c. Isa. xxx. 33. Rev. xx. 3, 10.

O. For whom was hell originally prepared?

A. For the devil and his angels, Matth. xxv. 41.

Q. Why then are men cast into it? A. They joined with the devil and his angels in rebellion against God.

Q. How may the pains or punishments of hell be distinguished? A. Intc%fhe punishment of loss and of sense.

Q. What do these in hell lose? A. The enjoyment of God and Chribty the fellowship of holy angels and saintsp the happiness of their souls, and every good thing.

Q. How are the damned affected with this loss?

A. They are filled with anguish and grief, Mat. xiii. 42*

Q. What is the punishment of sense in hell?

A. The most terrible torments in soul and body.

Q. Who torment the damned in hell .?

A. God, the devil, and their own conscience.

Q. How doth God torment them? A. By making

all the arrows of his wrath stick fast in them, 2 Thess. i. 9, G 3

Q. How doth Satan torment them? A. His presence is a burden, and he insults them in their misery, &c.

Qj How doth the gnawing worm of conscience torment them? A. It presents the eternity and justice of their

misery, lashes them for their former sins, and especially gospel-hearer?, for refusing Christ, Mark ix. 43, — 49.

Q. What are the properties of hell-torments?

A. They are inconceivably severe, constant, and eternal.

Q^ How prove you that they are eternal?

A. The scripture calls them everlasting punishment and destruction.

Q. Why must the punishment of the wicked be eternal?

A. Because their sin is infinitely evil, Hab. i. 13.

Qj Why might not God lay all the infinite wrath which their sins deserve upon them at once?

A. It is impossible for creatures to bear it, and therefore it must be continued upon sinners through all eternity, Psal. xc. 11.

Q. What attributes of God are chiefly glorified in hell-torments? A. His holiness, justice, and power.

0. How is God’s holiness glorified in hell-torments?

A. In casting the wicked out of his gracious presence.

Q. How is God’s justice glorified in hell-torments?

A. In rendering to sinners according to their crimes.

Q^. How is God’s power glorified in hell-torments?

A. It upholds the damned in being with one hand, and lashes them with the other, 2 Thess. i. 8, 9.

Q. What doth this view of our misery teach us?

A. To rly speedily out of our natural estate to Christ, if in it; and if delivered, to extol the Lord who plucked us as brands out of the burning, Heb. vi. 19. Zech. iii.