'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'—Hosea 4:6
Q. Can you make this appear by experience?—A. Yes: the first things that bloom and put forth themselves in children, shew their ignorance of God, their disobedience to parents, and their innate enmity to holiness of life; their inclinations naturally run to vanity. Besides, little children die, but that they could not, were they not of God counted sinners; for death is the wages of sin (Rom 6:23).
Q. What is sin?—A. It is a transgression of the law (1 John 3:4).
Q. A transgression of what law?—A. Of the law of our nature, and of the law of the ten commandments as written in the holy scriptures (Rom 2:12-15; Exo 20).
Q. When doth one sin against the law of nature?—A. When you do anything that your conscience tells you is a transgression against God or man (Rom 2:14,15).
Q. When do we sin against the law as written in the Ten Commandments?—A. When you do anything that they forbid, although you are ignorant of it (Psa 19:12).
Q. How many ways are there to sin against this law?—A. Three: by sinful thoughts, by sinful words, and also by sinful actions (Rom 7:7, 2:6; Matt 5:28, 12:37).
Q. What if we sin but against one of the ten commandments?—A. Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all; 'For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law' (James 2:10,11).
Q. Where will God punish sinners for their sins?—A. Both in this world and in that which is to come (Gen 3:24, 4:10-12; Job 21:30).
Q. How are men punished in this world for sin?—A. Many ways, as with sickness, losses, crosses, disappointments and the like: sometimes also God giveth them up to their own heart's lusts, to blindness of mind also, and hardness of heart; yea, and sometimes to strong delusions that they might believe lies, and be damned (Lev 26:15,26; Amos 4:7,10; Rom 1:24,28; Exo 4:21, 9:12-14; Zeph 1:17; Rom 11:7,8; 2 Thess 2:11,12).
Q. How are sinners punished in the world to come?—A. With a worm that never dies, and with a fire that never shall be quenched (Mark 9:44).
Q. Whither do sinners go to receive this punishment?—A. 'The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God' (Psa 9:17).
Q. What is hell?—A. It is a place and a state most fearful (Luke 13:28, 16:28; Acts 1:25).
Q. Why do you call it a place?—A. Because in hell shall all the damned be confined as in a prison, in their chains of darkness for ever (Luke 12:5,58, 16:26; Jude 6).
Q. What [kind of] place is hell?—A. It is a dark, bottomless, burning lake of fire, large enough to hold all that perish (Matt 22:13; Rev 20:1,15; Isa 30:35; Prov 27:20).
Q. What do you mean when you say it is a fearful state?—A. I mean that it is the lot of those that are cast in thither to be tormented in most fearful manner, to wit, with wrath and fiery indignation (Rom 2:9; Heb 10:26,27).
Q. In what parts shall they be thus fearfully tormented?—A. In body and soul: for hell-fire shall kindle upon both beyond what now can be thought (Matt 10:28; Luke 16:24; James 5:3).[6]
Q. How long shall they be in this condition?—A. 'These shall go away into everlasting punishment' (Matt 25:46). 'And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night' (Rev 14:11). For they 'shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power' (2 Thess 1:9).
Q. But why might not the ungodly be punished with this punishment in this world, that we might have seen it and believe?—A. If the ungodly should with punishment have been rewarded in this world, it would in all probability have overthrown the whole order that God hath settled here among men. For who could have endured here to have seen the flames of fire, to have heard the groans, and to have seen the tears, perhaps, of damned relations, as parents or children? Therefore as Tophet of old was without the city, and as the gallows and gibbets are built without the towns;[7] so Christ hath ordered that they who are to be punished with this kind of torment, shall be taken away: 'Take him away,' saith he (out of this world) 'and cast him into outer darkness,' and let him have his punishment there 'there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth' (Matt 22:13). Besides, faith is not to be wrought by looking into hell, and seeing the damned tormented before our eyes, but by 'hearing the word of God' (Rom 10:17). For he that shall not believe Moses and the prophets, will not be persuaded should one come from the dead, yea should one come to them in flames to persuade them (Luke 16:27-31).
Q. Are there degrees of torments in hell?—A. Yes, for God will reward every one according to their works. 'Wo unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him' (Isa 3:11).
Q. Who are like to be most punished there, men or children?—A. The punishment in hell comes not upon sinners according to age, but sin; so that whether they be men or children, the greater sin, the greater punishment; 'For there is no respect of persons with God' (Rom 2:11).[8]
Q. How do you distinguish between great sins and little ones?—A.
By their nature, and by the circumstances that attend them.
Q. What do you mean by their nature?—A. I mean when they are very gross in themselves (2 Chron 33:2; Eze 16:42).
Q. What kind of sins are the greatest?—A. Adultery, fornication, murder, theft, swearing, lying, covetousness, witchcraft, sedition, heresies, or any the like (1 Cor 6:9,10; Eph 5:3-6; Col 3:5,6; Gal 5:19-21; Rev 21:8).
Q. What do you mean by circumstances that attend sin?—A. I mean light, knowledge, the preaching of the Word, godly acquaintance, timely caution, &c.
Q. Will these make an alteration in the sin?—A. These things attending sinners, will make little sins great, yea greater than greater sins that are committed in grossest ignorance.
Q. How do you prove that?—A. Sodom and Gomorrah wallowed in all or most of those gross transgressions above mentioned: yea, they were said to be sinners exceedingly, they lived in such sins as may not be spoken of without blushing, and yet God swears that Israel, his church, had done worse than they (Eze 16:48), and the Lord Jesus also seconds it in that threatening of his, 'I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee' (Matt 11:24; Luke 10:12).
Q. And was this the reason, namely, because they had such circumstances attending them as Sodom had not?—A. Yes, as will plainly appear if you read the three chapters above mentioned.
Q. When do I sin against light and knowledge?—A. When you sin against convictions of conscience, when you sin against a known law of God, when you sin against counsels and the dissuasion of friends, then you sin against light and knowledge (Rom 1:32).
Q. When do I sin against preaching of the word?—A. When you refuse to hear God's ministers, or hearing them, refuse to follow their wholesome doctrine (2 Chron 36:16; Jer 25:4-7, 35:15).
Q. When else do I sin against preaching of the Word?—A. When you mock, or despise, or reproach the ministers; also when you raise lies and scandals of them, or receive such lies or scandals raised;[9] you then also sin against the preaching of the Word, when you persecute them that preach it, or are secretly glad to see them so used (2 Chron 30:1,10; Rom 3:8; Jer 20:10; 1 Thess 2:15,16).
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