An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

Thirdly, Sin is worse than affliction, for when God would declare his severest wrath, and bring the greatest affliction upon the children of men, when he resolves to afflict a person or a people to the utmost, he doth not say, I will make this man a poor man, or I will send plague, or sickness, or famine among this people, ⟨p. 331⟩but he saith, I will deliver him or them up into the hands of their sins, or to the power of their lusts. (Psal. 81.11.) Israel would none of me (saith the Lord) they were coy, they had other lovers, they would have the world, they chose sin, rather than God, and to go a whoring after the creature, rather than keep close to him. What then? So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts. As if the Lord had said, Pray take your course, you that love your own inventions, take your fill of them, you that love and would have the vanities of the world, take your fill of them. The Lord doth not threaten them with famine and pestilence, no nor with hell, but he threatens them with sin, and leaves them to the power of iniquity. Thus he gave up the old Gentile Romans to vile affections, (Rom. 1.26, 28.) Let them be victorious, let them be rich, let them subdue all Nations under their iron hands, let Rome be the Head and Mistress of the world, and command all people, let all stoop to their power, but saith God, I will give them up to vile affections, they shall be basely Idolatrous, and basely wanton, and basely gluttonous, and basely drunken, and basely ambitious, and basely envious: As they were above all people of the world in outward glory and power, so God left them under the power of their lusts, and gave them up to glut themselves with wickedness; He gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do things that are not convenient. 'Tis the most terrible of all afflictions, when God makes a sin an affliction, and gives men up to hardness of heart, to pride, to a spirit of looseness and wantonness; here is a mischief indeed, the mischief of sin.

Thirdly, Sin is worse than affliction, for when God would declare his severest wrath, and bring the greatest affliction upon the children of men, when he resolves to affli•t a person or a people to the utmost, he doth not say, I will make this man a poor man, or I will send plague, or sickness, or famine among this people,