is to expect, on the account of this sin. This is the law's proper work;
nature to sin, which is here called "lust," as it is in James 1:14. "I had not known it," or not known it to be sin, "but by the law." This, then, the law does, - it draws out this traitor from secret places, the recesses of the soul. When the law comes, a man is no longer ignorant of his enemy. If he will now perish at his hand, it is knowingly; he has to admit that the law warned him of him, revealed him to him, and cried about him in his various affections, as an officer does when he discovers a thief, calling out for assistance to arrest him.
2. The law not only reveals sin, but reveals it to be a very bad inmate, pernicious to the soul: Romans 7:13, "Was what is good," - that is, the law, - "made death to me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by what is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." What I mean is that sin is made known by the law, - it is seen to be sin; and it is seen in its true colours, - exceedingly sinful. The law makes the soul know the guilt of this indwelling sin, - how great, how vile it is, how against God, how hated by him. The soul shall never again look on it as a small matter when it has been so greatly caught out.
As a man who finds himself ill, and sends for a physician of skill, asks for a diagnosis; he, considering his condition, tells him, "Alas! I am sorry for you; the case is very different than you imagine: your disease is mortal, and it has proceeded so far, pressing on your spirits and infecting all your blood, that I think you will only live a few hours without treatment." So it is in this case. A man may have some trouble in his mind and conscience about indwelling sin; he finds all not so well as it should be with him, more from the effects of sin and its continual eruptions than the nature of it, which he hopes to wrestle with. But now, when the law comes, it lets the soul know that its disease is terminal, that it is exceeding sinful, as being the cause of his alienation from God; and thus also the law proceeds against it.
3. The law judges the person, or lets the sinner plainly know what he is to expect, on the account of this sin. This is the law's proper work; its revealing property is preparative to its judging. The law is itself