Trading and Thriving in Godliness: The Piety of George Swinnock

Many may have never heard of George Swinnock, but his writings are a type of Puritanism that is an essence in its self. George Swinnock (1627–1673) was a gifted English Puritan, known for his vivid illustrations of biblical truth. In “Trading and Thriving in Godliness”, J. Stephen Yuille highlights Swinnock’s conviction that godliness is the primary employment of every Christian. Yuille’s introductory essay analyzes the influences on, groundwork for, and expressions of piety in Swinnock’s life and thought. The book also contains fifty selections from Swinnock’s writings, exemplify his teaching on the foundation, door, value, pursuit, nature, means, and motives to godliness. Below is a section seven from the newest volume  of the Profiles in Reformed Spiritually Series, Trading and thriving in Godliness: The Piety of George Swinnock.  

The Sinfullness of Sin

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 the 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 too 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…. 

This section comes from pages 43 & 44. You can buy a copy of Trading and Thriving in Godliness here.