(In response to the claim that “it is a strange thing that so small an offense…should plunge the whole of mankind into such a gulf of misery.) “Though at first glance it seems to be a small offense, yet, if we look [earnestly] upon the matter it will appear to be an exceeding great offense; for thereby intolerable injury was done unto God; as, first, His dominion and authority in His holy command was violated.
Secondly, His justice, truth, and power, in His most righteous threatening, were despised.
Thirdly, His most pure and perfect image, wherein man was created in righteousness and true holiness, was utterly defaced.
Fourthly, His glory, which, by an active service, the creature should have brought to Him, was lost and despoiled.” He goes on to explain how Adam broke all ten commandments:
“1. He chose himself another God when he followed the devil. 2. He idolized and deified his own belly…3. He took the name of God in vain, when he believed him not. 4. He kept not the rest and estate wherein God had set him. 5. He dishonored his Father who was in heaven; and therefore his days were not prolonged in that land which the Lord his God had given him. 6. He massacred himself and all his posterity. 7. From Eve he was a virgin, but in eyes and mind he committed spiritual fornication. 8. He stole, like Achan, that which God had set aside not to be meddled with; and this his stealth is that which troubles all Israel – the whole world. 9. He bare witness against God, when he believed the witness of the devil before him. 10. He coveted an evil covetousness, like Amnon [2 Sam 13], which cost him his life, and all his progeny.” (The Marrow of Modern Divinity, 35-36)
