Of Man's Misery
asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood.
Q. 8. What learn we from original sin!
A. To bear patiently the miseries we see on our children, and their death also without murmuring; Rom. 5:14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression.
Q. 9. What is the second instruction?
A. It teaches us humility, and should be matter of confession and humiliation, when we sin actually; Psal. 51:5. Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Q. 10. What is the third instruction?
A. It should provoke parents to use their utmost diligence for the conversion of their children who draw sin from them.
Q. 11. What is the last instruction?
A. It teaches us the necessity of regeneration, and should provoke us greatly to desire it.
Of Man's Misery Quest. 19. WHAT is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
A. All mankind by their Jail 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. 1. What communion had God with man before the fall?
A. Man that enjoyed the gracious presence and favour of God with him, which was better than life.
Q. 2. How doth it appear this was lost by the fall?
A. It appears by scripture-testimony, that Adam lost it as to himself; Gen. 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; Eph.
2:12. At that time ye 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.
Q. 3. 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; Eph. 2:3. And were by nature children of wrath, even as others.
Q. 4. Doth the wrath and curse of God then lie on all men?
A. It lies on all the unregenerate in the world; Gal. 3:10. Cursed is every one that continueth 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 Thess. 1:10. Even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
Q. 5. 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.
Q. 6. 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; Rom. 6 ult. The wages of sin is death.