Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

4. Then in the fourth place, after all this is done, comes sin and cries for its wages, which is death. The terrible death which comprehends in it all that beadroll of curses, which are written in the Book of God; and not only those, but the curses also which are not written, Deut. 28. which are so many that they cannot be written. Though the Book of God be a complete Book, and the Law of God a perfect Law, yet here they come short, and are imperfect: For the curses not written shall light upon him, which are so many, as pen and ink cannot set down, nay, the very pen of God cannot express them, so many are the calamities, and sorrows, that shall light upon the soul of every sinful man.

4. Then in the fourth place, after all this is done, comes sin and cries for its wages, which is death. The terrible death which comprehends in it all that beadroll of curses, which are written in the Book of God; and not onely those, but the curses also which are not written, Deut. 28. which are so many that they cannot be written. Though the Book of God be a compleat Book, and the Law of God a perfect Law, yet here they come short, and are imperfect: For the curses not written shall light upon him, which are so many, as pen and ink cannot set down, nay, the very pen of God cannot express them, so many are the calamities, and sorrows, that shall light upon the soul of every sinful man.

Now let us take these woes in pieces one after another.

1. The first woe is the polluting and defiling of the soul by sin. A thing (it may be) that we little think of; but if God once open our eyes, and show us what a black soul we have within us, and that every sin, every lustful thought, every covetous act, every sin sets a new spot and stain upon the soul, and tumbles it into a new puddle of filth, then we shall see it, and not till then; for our eyes are carnal, and we cannot see this. If once we did but see our hateful and abominable spots, that every sin tumbles us afresh into the mire: did we see what a black Devil we have within us, we would hate and abhor our selves, as Job did. It would be so foul a sight, that it would make us out of our wits, as it were, to behold it. A man that is but natural, cannot imagine, what a black Devil there is within him: But though he seeth it not, yet he that hath eyes, like as flame of fire,