A77976:328
The Evil of Evils
The eighth book of Mr Jeremiah Burroughs. Being a treatise of the evil of evils, or the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Wherein is showed, 1 There is more evil in the least sin, than there is in the greatest affliction. 2 Sin is most opposite to God. 3 Sin is most opposite to mans good. 4 Sin is opposite to all good in general. 5 Sin is the poison, or evil of all other evils. 6 Sin hath a kind of infiniteness in it. 7 Sin makes a man conformable to the Devil. All these several heads are branched out into very many particulars. / Published by Thomas Goodwin, William Bridge, Sydrach Simpson, William Adderly, [double brace] William Greenhil, Philip Nigh, John Yates.The eighth book of Mr Jeremiah Burroughs. Being a treatise of the evil of evils, or the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Wherein is shewed, 1 There is more evil in the least sin, than there is in the greatest affliction. 2 Sin is most opposite to God. 3 Sin is most opposite to mans good. 4 Sin is opposite to all good in general. 5 Sin is the poyson, or evil of all other evils. 6 Sin hath a kind of infiniteness in it. 7 Sin makes a man conformable to the Devil. All these several heads are branched out into very many particulars. / Published by Thomas Goodwyn, William Bridge, Sydrach Sympson, William Adderly, [double brace] William Greenhil, Philip Nye, John Yates.
London: printed by Peter Cole, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
CHAP. XXIX.
Sixthly, Sin is more opposite to mans good than affliction, because sin is the object of Gods hatred; but God hateth not any for affliction.
Sixtly, Sin is more opposite to mans good than affliction, because sin is the object of Gods hatred; but God hateth not any for affliction.
Sixthly, Sin is the only object of the hatred of God, nothing is the object of Gods hatred but sin: God doth not hate a man or a woman because they are poor, God may love them as well as any Monarch or Prince in the world, though they be poor: God hates not a man because he is sick, you hate not your Children because they be sick or weak: all the afflictions in the world make not a man an object of Gods hatred, but sin doth: mark that expression in Scripture, Psalm, 5. 5. The Fool shall not stand in thy sight, thou ⟨p. 266⟩hatest all workers of iniquity; so that sin makes the Creature the object of Gods hatred: God saith not (mark) he hates the work of iniquity only; but the worker of iniquity: God hates not the Creature as he made them, but through sin the Creature come• to be hated; even the workers of iniquity. Now observe the strength of the Reason, That which makes a man the object of Gods hatred, must needs be a greater evil than that which can stand with Gods everlasting love: for afflictions in the strength of them, and bitterness of them, may stand with Gods eternal love; nay observe, they may stand with the same love wherewithal God the Father loved his Son Jesus Christ; for so in the 17. of John, latter end; there Christ prays to the Father, that thou mayest love them with the very same love with which thou lovest me: Now God the Father loved Christ, and yet God the Father afflicted Christ, and Christ was under sore afflictions, and yet at that very time God the Father loved him: So a man or a woman afflicted, notwithstanding all their afflictions, they may have the very same love of God the Father that Jesus Christ himself had, in a manner the very same: And my thinks this might be a mighty encouragement to afflicted souls; are you afflicted with poverty, bodily sickness, persecution, any thing? Know, for all this affliction, God may love you with the same love he loved his Son: but sin makes the Creature the object of the hatred of God. But you will say, Gods Children have sin. Of its own nature, it would make them objects of