Robert Traill (Sermons from 1 Peter 1:1-4), Works 4:84:
The apostle was a man like a great many in our days, for the righteousness of the law, as long as he was a Pharisee, and confident of speeding that way; but when the law came to deal with him in the spirituality of it, he tells us what he felt: I had not known sin, saith he, but by the law, for I had not known lust, unless the law had said, Thou shall not covet, Rom. 7:7. There can be none of you so ignorant to think, but that the apostle Paul, when he was a Jew and a Pharisee, understood very well the tenth commandment, Thou shall not covet. He read it, remembered it, and understood it perfectly, as a Pharisee; but when the spirituality of the law of God was discovered to him, showing him that the least inordinate rising of his heart towards that which was evil was forbidden therein, then the man was slain, his confidence was broken: he did not know sin till this came. Alas! Sirs, many do nothing but sin, and yet they do not know what sin is. If I may so say, they know nothing but sinning, yet they do not know what sin is. The discovery of sin is made by the brightness and the power of the law of God, when the spirituality of the law is discovered.
The apostle was a man like a great many in our days, for the righteousness of the law, as long as he was a Pharisee, and confident of speeding that way; but when the law came to deal with him in the spirituality of it, he tells us what he felt: I had not known sin, saith he, but by the law, for I had not known lust, unless the law had said, Thou shall not covet, Rom. 7:7. There can be none of you so ignorant to think, but that the apostle Paul, when he was a Jew and a Pharisee, understood very well the tenth commandment, Thou shall not covet. He read it, remembered it, and understood it perfectly, as a Pharisee; but when the spirituality of the law of God was discovered to him, showing him that the least inordinate rising of his heart towards that which was evil was forbidden therein, then the man was slain, his confidence was broken: he did not know sin till this came. Alas! Sirs, many do nothing but sin, and yet they do not know what sin is. If I may so say, they know nothing but sinning, yet they do not know what sin is. The discovery of sin is made by the brightness and the power of the law of God, when the spirituality of the law is discovered.
