Chapter 14. Of the punishment of sin.
WILLIAM PERKINS
Chapter 14. Of the punishment of sin.
Up to here we have treated sin, with which all mankind is infected. In the next place follows the punishment of sin, which is threefold.
The first concerns the body, either:
I. In providing for the things of this life, with trouble, Gen 3.17;
or a proneness to disease. Mat 9.2
[to the paralytic], Son, be of good comfort; your sins are forgiven you. Joh 5.14 [the cripple at Bethesda],
Behold, you have been made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing fall upon you. Deu 28.21-22, The Lord shall make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from the land, etc. Or shame of nakedness, Gen 3.7.
Or in women's pains in childbirth. Gen 3.16, To the woman He said, I will greatly increase your sorrows and conceptions; in sorrow you shall bring forth children.
II.
The soul is punished with trembling of conscience: care, trouble, hardness of heart, and madness. Deu 28.28, The Lord shall strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with bewilderment
of heart.
III. The whole man is punished, 1. With fearful subjection to the regiment of Satan. Col
1.13, Which freed us from the power of darkness, and translated [transferred] us into the kingdom of his beloved son. Heb 2.14, He also took part with them himself, that he might destroy through death, the one who had the power of death; that is, the devil.
2. A separation from the fellowship of God, and trembling at His presence. Eph 4.18, Having their cogitation darkened, and being strangers from the life of God. Gen 3.10, I heard Your voice in the garden, and
A GOLDEN CHAIN
was afraid, because I was naked; therefore, I hid my face.
3. Diverse calamities and damages upon a man's goods.
Deu 28.29, You will ever be oppressed with wrong, and be plundered, and no man will help you, etc., to the end of the chapter. To this passage may be referred a distinction of Lordships; and from this comes a care to enlarge them, and bargaining with all manner of civil servitudes.
4. The loss of that Lordly authority which man had over all creatures; also, their futility, which is not only a weakening but also a corrupting of that excellence of the virtues and powers which God put into them at the first. Rom 8.20-21, The creature is subject to futility, not of its own will, but because of him who has subdued it under hope, etc.
5. In a man's name — infamy and ignominy — sometimes after his death. Jer 24.9.
The second is at the last gasp — namely death, or a change like death. Rom 6.23, The wages of sin is death.
The third is after this life, even eternal destruction from God's presence, and from His exceeding glory.
2Th 1.9, Who shall be punished with everlasting perdition, from the presence of God and the glory of His power.