5. The Law Witnesses Against and Condemns Sin

The Law of God is without sin in itself, and it is against sin in others: the Law being holy, just and good, that which breaks the Law must be unholy, unjust and evil: the Law discovers the authority, wisdom, will and goodness of God (in its primary intention and promulgation, for it was to life) sin must therefore be exceeding sinful, it being against all this: the Law discovered man's [reconstructed: duty] and man's happiness (it was the whole of man, in both these senses) how evil is sin then that is a contradiction of, and contrariety to both the duty and happiness of man; so that sin being a transgression of God's good Law, the sinfulness of sin appears by the Commandment. More particularly.

1 The Law is against sin before it is committed.

2 After it is committed.

1 The Law is against sin before it is committed, it is against its being to be committed, it is holy, and wholly against sin, for it forbids sin, all sin, whether of Omission or Commission, whether in thought, word or deed, whether against God, or against man, the voice and cry of the Law is, you shall not sin; so that (in this sense) by the Law is the knowledge of sin, namely what is sin, as well as what sin is (Romans 7:7). Is the Law sin? God forbid! Indeed, I had not known sin but by the Law, for I had not known lust or concupiscence (to be a sin) unless the Law had said, you shall not covet, you shall not lust: the Law shows that lust is sin by forbidding it; indeed, the Law does not only forbid sin, but forbids it upon great and severe penalty, upon no less than pain of death, on the peril of a curse, for this it says, cursed be every one that does not, and continues not to do all things which are written in the Law (Galatians 3:11). So that the Law is utterly against the commission of sin.

2 The Law is against sin after it is committed; and here, even by the commandment, sin appears to be exceeding sinful after commission. For

1 The Law discovers (as before what is sin, so now) what sin is, how displeasing to God, how destructive to man, and that as it is a transgression of the Law of God made for the good of man, no sooner is sin committed, but the Law is so far from indulging or justifying it, or the sinner, or from concealing it, that it discovers it, and the displeasure of God against it (Romans 3:20). Indeed, not only discovers sin, but

2 It condemns the sinner; the Law is not against the righteous, against such there is no Law, nor condemnation; but this Law, which (like a good Magistrate) is an encouragement to them that do well, is a terror to evil doers, says the Apostle (Romans 7:9). When the commandment came (and showed me sin as in a Perspective-glass) sin revived, it got the victory over me, was too strong for me (for the Law strengthened it against me, (1 Corinthians 15:56)) and I died; I was dead in Law, I had sentence of death within me, as he speaks in another case: the transgressed Law works wrath (Romans 4:15). It sends abroad terrors, thunderings and flashes of wrath; it discovers wrath to them, that by sin have made work for wrath. Thus the Law is against sin, before and after the commission of it.