A77976:537
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.
Corollaries and Consequences from all the former Particulars. › Chapter 52
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.
Secondly, Melancholiness comes by degrees upon men and women; alterations of the Body are not sudden things, the temper of men and women's Bodies cannot suddenly be altered to any extremity, but gradually, from one degree to another: but trouble of Conscience comes many times as a flash of Lightning from Heaven. Many men and women have come to the Congregation with scornful spirits, profane, wicked, and ungodly; never knew what sin meant, nor trouble for sin meant, and God hath met with them in the Word, and fastened some Sentence ⟨p. 416⟩upon their hearts so, that they fall down under the power of it: that comes just as an Arrow struck into their Liver, and they could never get out of it, & have gone away with horrors of soul; and therefore this hath not been melancholiness Certainly the humours of the Body, never so suddenly alters the Spirits of men: but when God comes to work, when the Spirit of God, and Bondage comes to work, it needs no matter before, no preparative matter, for the work of the Word is such, as it works immediately, without any preparation: Therefore many men that understood as little of trouble of Conscience as ever any did in their lives, and yet God lets some Truth reach them, fitted to their hearts and dispositions; that he finds his own sin come to be discovered, and the man is smitten: as he in 1 Cor. 14. 25. the ignorant man that comes into the Church, and hears there the Saints prophesy, He is convinced, and falls down, and saith, verily God is among them, of a truth God is in them: it is a remarkable Text: what ever he thought before; it may be he heard strange Stories of the Church of Christ, of profane Meetings, That Gods People, when they met together, they blew out the Candles, and committed Uncleanness, and Wickedness. As there be notorious lies reported abroad of such Sects in the world; for certainly there is no such Sect in the world; but such reports are raised, merely to make the Meetings of Gods Saints odious in the esteem of others. As the Jesuit said, Do you but Calumniate strongly, somewhat ⟨p. 317⟩will stick, though nothing be true: Well, what ever thoughts they had of the Assemblies of the people of God (for it is like the Heathens had strange thoughts) but when he came in, and heard what was done, he is Convinced, and Judged, and the secrets of his heart came to be discovered;