Jeremiah Burroughs (1599–1646) in his Puritan work,
The Evil of Evils, proposes:
[I]t is a very evil choice for any soul under heaven to choose the least sin rather than the greatest affliction. Better be under the greatest affliction than be under the guilt or power of any sin...There is more evil in sin than in outward trouble in the world; more evil in sin than in all the miseries and torments of hell itself.
He illustrates:
Suppose that God should bring any of you to the brink of that bottomless gulf and open it to you, and there you should see those damned creatures sweltering under the wrath of the infinite God, and there you should hear the dreadful and hideous cries and shrieks of those who are under such soul-amazing and soul-sinking torments through the wrath of the Almighty. Yet, I say, there is more evil in one sinful thought than there is in all these everlasting burnings...
Do we think of sin as we ought? Do we realize just one wicked deed's wickedness; one sin's sinfulness; one evil thought's evil? When given the choice of sin or affliction, will we look to Christ in that moment? Will we see the great affliction that He endured for just one of our sins (and all the others)? Will we be content to share in the afflictions of Christ, choosing righteousness, and not choose to sin? Or will we choose the evil of evils: sin?
