The truly blessed man, or, The way to be happy here, and forever being…

1. The Nature of the Evil. Though all are evil, and so have a tendency to become distressing, yet there are two sorts of them, some are bodily, some are spiritual; & although men that are immerged in sense, are apt to be more surprised & perplexed with the former; yet the latter are in themselves most terrible, and when aright conceived of, most distressing, Prov. 18. 14. And in this respect Sin is, in its own nature of all the most distressing, because it is the worst and most pernicious: and so Spiritual Plagues are the most terrible of all.

1. The Nature of the Evil. Though all are evil, and so have a tendency to become distressing, yet there are two sorts of them, some are bodily, some are spiritual; & although men that are immerged in sense, are apt to be more surprized & perplexed with the former; yet the latter are in themselves most terrible, and when aright conceived of, most distressing, Prov. 18. 14. And in this respect Sin is, in its own nature of all the most distressing, because it is the worst and most pernicious: and so Spiritual Plagues are the most terrible of all.

2. The degree of it. There are different measures in those Evils that men are liable to, some are lighter, others are heavier. Some are so easy to be born, that though there be some inconvenience in them, yet the Spirit is not over-born by them, and so they are not distressing; others are heavier, and harder to bear, and out bid the man: God therefore so expresseth the Judgment that he was about to bring on them, Ezek. 7. 5.