The Sinfulness of Sin

The world's view of sin is usually reserved for the other guy, when it is considered at all. As Christians we must remind ourselves of the evil of sin. So, Let's take a look at what George Swinnock thought about sin. He lived from 1627 to 1673.

This is taken from "Trading and Thriving in Godliness," The Piety of George Swinnock, Profiles in Reformed Spirituality, Reformation Heritage Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan (pp. 43-44).

If God be so incomparable, that there is none on earth, none in heaven comparable to him, it may inform us of the great venom and malignity of sin, because it is an injury to so great, so glorious, so incomparable a being. The higher and better any object is, the baser and worse is that action which is injurious to it. To throw dirt on sackcloth is not so bad as to throw dirt on scarlet or fine linen. To make a flaw in a pebble of common stone is nothing to the making a flaw in a diamond of precious stone. Those opprobrious speeches, or injurious actions, against an ordinary person, which are but a breach of the good behavior, and bear but a common action at law, if against a prince, may be high treason, because of the excellency of his place, and majesty of his person. The worth and dignity of the object doth exceedingly heighten and aggravate the offence.

How horrid then is sin, and of how heinous a nature, when it offendeth  and opposeth not kings, the highest of men, not angels, the highest of creatures, but God, the highest of beings; the incomparable God, to whom kings and angels, yea, the whole creation is less than nothing!

We take the size of sin to low, and short, and wrong, when we measure it by the wrong it doth to ourselves, or our families, or our neighbours, or the nation wherein we live; indeed, herein somewhat of its evil and mischief doth appear; but to take its full length and proportion, we must consider the wrong it doth  to this great, this glorious, this incomparable God. Sin is incomparably malignant, because the God principally injured by it is incomparably excellent. . . .