32 FIRST SERMON a corruption of the whole substance, from head to foot, Isa. i. 5, 6. And who doth not feel such a universal languor to be a heavy burden ? for a man that must needs labour, to have weights hung at his hands ; that must needs walk, to have clogs fastened to his feet, how can he avoid crying out with the apostle, " wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me ?" Rom. vii. 24. Consider it in the curse that belongs unto it. A roll written within and without with curses. Look outward, and behold a curse in the creature ; vanity, emptiness, vexation, disappointments, every creature armed with a sting, to revenge its Maker's quarrel. Look inward, and behold a curse in the conscience ; accusing, witnessing, condemning, haling to the tribunal of vengeance ; first defiling with the allowance, and after terrifying with the remembrance, of sin. Look upward, and behold a curse in the heavens ; the wrath of God revealed from thence upon all un- righteousness. Look downward, and behold a curse in the earth ; death ready to put a period to all the pleasures of sin, and like a trap -door to let down into hell, where nothing of sin will remain, but the worm and the. fire. Look into the scriptures, and see the curse there described : an everlasting banishment from the glory of God's presence : an everlasting destruction by the glory of his power, 2 Thes. i. 9. The Lord showing the jealousy of his justice, the unsearchableness of his severity, the inconceivableness of his strength, the bottomless guilt and malignity of sin, in the everlast- ing destruction of ungodly men, and in the everlasting preserving of them to feel that destruction. Who knoweth the power of thy anger ?" saith Moses; "even
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