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 be 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 word 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).