A77976:445
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.
though you stick to them as being such as you received from your Fathers, yet know all the world cannot deliver you from the guilt of one of these vain Conversations: If you knew all you would see there were so much evil in one sin, as required a price to ransom you from it• of more worth than Heaven and Earth, yea, than ten thousand Heavens and Earths: there must be a price laid down of infinite worth: And observe this before you go away; there may be a price laid down to ransom a Captive, ⟨p. 350⟩and this price may Note not so much the greatness of the deliverance, as the worth of the person for whom this price is laid down; because the person is worthy, not from the miserableness of the bondage, but the greatness of the person: But it is not so here, the reason of the greatness of the price for your ransom, is not from the worthiness of the person, we be poor, vile, dirt, and dross, and filthy before God: what if you were all buried to all eternity, what great matter were it? But God hath paid a great price to note the greatness of your misery, and evil you have brought upon your selves by reason of sin, and therefore this is the price of our ransom. This is the third thing wherein the infiniteness of sin appears.
A Fourth thing to discover a kind of infiniteness of evil in Sin is this, That Sin, it is so evil, that let there be never so much hatred against it in thy soul, let there be as much hatred against it as possibly can be; yet there is enough evil in sin to raise this hatred higher and higher, if it were possible to an infinite hatred: therefore there is a kind of infiniteness in it. If Sin were but a mere finite Evil, then there might be some bounds and limits set to the hatred of our sin; but that cannot be, there can be no bounds nor limits set to the hatred of our sin, but we are to hate it more and more still, and if we could, grow to an infinite hatred: therefore there must be some kind of infinite Evil in it. Other things be not so; we may set bounds to our hatred in other things: but when it comes to sin, there is no limits to be set to the hatred ⟨p. 351⟩