An Help for the Ignorant, WSC Question 19

QUEST. 19. 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 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 distresses and hurts him, Romans 2:8-9; Deuteronomy 28.

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, and agreeable to the justice of God, Romans 6.

Q. Does 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, Genesis 3:17-19; Lamentations 3:33, 39.

Q. How many parts does the misery of our natural estate consist of?

A. 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, Habakkuk 1:13; John 8:44.

Q. Has man lost his likeness to God in the spiritual nature and substance of his soul?

A. No, but the image of the devil is drawn on it; it is become a slave to our body, and a resting-place for God’s wrath.

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; and that men are naturally without God, and estranged from him, Psalm 5:4-5; Ephesians 2:12.

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

A. Because God is the only sufficient portion of our souls; and nothing can supply the want of him, Jeremiah 2:13.

Q. Why then do we slight [think little or nothing of] and shun communion with God?

A. Because we are distracted fools, who forsake our own mercy, Jonah 2:8.

Q. Shall all men at length know the value of communion and fellowship with God?

A. Yes.

Q. When shall this be?

A. Either when they are converted, or when they are cast into hell.

Q. Under what has the fall brought mankind?

A. Under the wrath and curse of God.

Q. How prove you that?

A. The scripture affirms, that we are by nature children of wrath; that he that believeth not, is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him, John 3:18, 36.

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

A. His holy displeasure with sin, Habakkuk 1:13.

Q. Why is this called wrath?

A. Because it produces the most terrible effects, Deuteronomy 32:22.

Q. Wherein is the wrath of God against the wicked?

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

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

A. His soul despises, loathes, and abhors them, and all their works, Psalm 138:6; 11:5 and 8:11.

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

A. In wrath he hides his gracious countenance from them, frowns on them, and sets his eyes on them for evil, Isaiah 49:2; Psalm 34:16; Amos 8:4.

Q. How is wrath in his mouth or lips against them?

A. His word condemns and curses them, and all their works; his breath slays them, and kindles Tophet for them, Galatians 3:10; Revelation 2:16; Isaiah 11:4 and 30:33.

Q. How is wrath in his hand against the wicked?

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 sensible [sensed, felt] strokes of wrath.

Q. What are the properties of God’s 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.

Q. How is it unavoidable?

A. There is no flying [fleeing] from it, if we continue without Christ, Hebrews 2:2.

Q. How is this wrath powerful?

A. It reaches both soul and body, and destroys to the uttermost.

Q. How is it constant?

A. It lies on the wicked without interruption, Psalm 7:11.

Q. How is the wrath of God eternal?

A. It shall never, never have an end.

Q. How is it most just wrath?

A. Our sins well deserve it, Psalm 11:5-7.

Q. On what of the sinner does God’s wrath lie?

A. On his person, name, estate, actions, and relations.

Q. What is the curse of God?

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

Q. Has God set up any glasses [observation windows, or magnifiers] 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, etc. but especially the death of Christ, Genesis 7 and 19.

Q. How is the death of Christ the clearest glass for displaying the wrath of God?

A. Therein we behold God bruising the only Son of his love, and executing upon him the fierceness of his wrath, until his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, Romans 8:32.

Q. What is man by the fall liable to?

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

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

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

Q. What are we by sin liable to in this life?

A. To all the miseries of this life, whether on our soul, body, name, estate, or relations, Deuteronomy 28.

Q. What spiritual miseries is man liable to in this life?

A. To judicial blindness of mind, hardness of heart, searedness [desensitised by a burn] and horror of conscience, vile affections, slavery to Satan, weakness of memory, etc.

Q. What is judicial blindness of mind?

A. It consists in God’s giving up men to ignorance and delusion, and blasting the means of instruction to them.

Q. What is 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.

Q. 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, Romans 1:26-27; Ephesians 4:19.

Q. What is meant by the thraldom or slavery of Satan?

A. Our want [lack] of ability to oppose, and ready compliance with Satan’s vilest temptations, 2 Timothy 2:26.

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, Romans 7:14, 24.

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

A. Apprehensions of God’s wrath are the spring of the wicked man’s horror; but sin, and dread of separation from God, are the spring of the believer’s terror, Genesis 4:13; Psalm 88.

Q. To what bodily miseries is man by sin liable?

A. To desolation, captivity, sword, famine, pestilence, persecution, sickness, infirmity, and toil, etc.

Q. What misery on his name is man by sin liable to?

A. To infamy and reproach, Deuteronomy 28:37.

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 means off fattening him for the slaughter of eternal wrath, Psalm 37:20.

Q. What misery is man liable to in his relations?

A. To lose them, or be afflicted by them.

Q. Wherein do the afflictions of the godly and 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 positive strokes of God’s wrath, and are their punishment.

Q. What is man by sin liable to at the end of this life?

A. To death itself.

Q. How prove you that?

A. The scripture saith, The wages of sin is death; The soul that sinneth shall die; and, It is appointed for men once to die, etc.

Q. How can it be appointed for all men to die, when Enoch, Elias [Elijah], and these found alive at Christ’s second coming, die not?

A. These did, or shall undergo a change equivalent to death, 1 Corinthians 15.

Q. What is death to a wicked man?

A. A passage from all his joy and happiness to eternal misery.

Q. 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 into the prison of hell, Proverbs 14:32.

Q. What is the sting of death?

A. Sin.

Q. How is sin the sting of death?

A. It makes a man unwilling to leave this world, and is his passport to the bottomless pit, Proverbs 14:32.

Q. What is the grave to a wicked man?

A. A prison to retain his body till the judgment of the great day, Revelation 20:13.

Q. What is man by sin liable to after his death?

A. To the pains of hell for ever, Luke 16:22-23.

Q. How is hell called in scripture?

A. Tophet, a prison, a lake of fire and brimstone, a bottomless pit, outer darkness, etc. Isaiah 30:33. Rev. xx. 3. 10.

Q. For whom was hell originally prepared?

A. For the devil and his angels, Matthew 25:41.

Q. Why then are men cast into it?

A. They joined with the devil and his angels int rebellion against God.

Q. How may the pains or punishments of hell be distinguished?

A. Into the punishment of loss, and of sense.

Q. What do these in hell lose?

A. The enjoyment of God and Christ, the happiness of their soul, and every good thing.

Q. How are the damned affected with this loss?

A. They are filled with anguish and grief.

Q. What is the punishment of sense in hell?

A. The most terrible torments in soul and body.

Q. Who torments the damned in hell?

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

Q. How does God torment them?

A. By making all the arrows of his wrath stick fast [permanently] in them.

Q. How does Satan torment them?

A. His presence is a burden, and he insults them in their misery, etc.

Q. How does 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-hearers, for refusing Christ.

Q. What are the properties of hell-torments?

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

Q. How prove you they are eternal?

A. The scripture calls them everlasting punishment and [everlasting] destruction.

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

A. Because their sin is infinitely evil.

Q. Why might not God lay all the infinite wrath 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 eternity.

Q. What attributes of God are chiefly glorified in hell-torments?

A. His holiness, justice, and power.

Q. How is God’s boliness 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 Thessalonians 1:8-9.

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

A. To fly speedily out of our natural estate to Christ, if in it; and if delivered, to extol the Lord that plucked us as brands out of the burning.