Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

Inference 1. We may infer from hence, what a base and vile thing Sin is, which lays the foundation of the worlds change. Sin brings it to a decrepit age: Sin overturned the whole work of God^*; so that to render it useful to its proper end, there is a necessity of a kind of a new creating it: This causes God to fire the Earth for a purification of it from that infection and contagion brought upon it by the apostasy and corruption of Man: It hath served sinful man, and therefore must undergo a purging Flame to be fit to serve the holy and righteous Creator. As Sin is so riveted in the body of man, that there is need of a change by death to raze it out; so hath the Curse for sin got so deep into the bowels of the world, that there is need of a change by fire to refine it for its Masters use. Let us look upon Sin with no other notion than as the Object of Gods hatred, the cause of his grief in the Creatures, and the Spring of the pain and ruin of the World.

Inference 1. We may infer from hence, what a base and vile thing Sin is, which lays the foundation of the worlds change. Sin brings it to a decrepit age: Sin overturned the whole work of God^*; so that to render it useful to its proper end, there is a necessity of a kind of a new creating it: This causes God to fire the Earth for a purification of it from that infection and contagion brought upon it by the apostacy and corruption of Man: It hath served sinful man, and therefore must undergo a purging Flame to be fit to serve the holy and righteous Creator. As Sin is so riveted in the body of man, that there is need of a change by death to rase it out; so hath the Curse for sin got so deep into the bowels of the world, that there is need of a change by fire to refine it for its Masters use. Let us look upon Sin with no other notion than as the Object of Gods hatred, the cause of his grief in the Creatures, and the Spring of the pain and ruin of the World.

1. *Gen. 3.17.