Chapter 25.—God’s
Judgments Upon Fallen Men and Angels. The Death of the Body is
Man’s Peculiar Punishment.
And yet such a nature, in the midst
of all its evils, could not lose the craving after happiness. Now
the evils I have mentioned are common to all who for their
wickedness have been justly condemned by God, whether they be men
or angels. But there is one form of punishment peculiar to
man—the death of the body. God had threatened him with this
punishment of death if he should sin,
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leaving him indeed to the freedom
of his own will, but yet commanding his obedience under pain of
death; and He placed him amid the happiness of Eden, as it were in
a protected nook of life, with the intention that, if he preserved
his righteousness, he should thence ascend to a better
place.
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Gen. ii. 17