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I. A GENERAL ACCOUNT OR DECLARATION concerning "Whosoever committeth sin." What such an one doeth. "He transgresseth the law." By the law is here to be under stood the law of God, in and by which He hath commanded perfect obedience to every precept of it. Which law is as immutable as the nature and will of God: it can no more change than God Himself.

II. WHAT SIN IS IN ITS CONSEQUENCES: even in any, in the least act of it: yea, in any act of it: "Sin is the transgression of the law." It is therefore most carefully to be avoided. Sin in its nature and quality, matter and manner, may seemingly to us be more or less sinful; yet it is one and the same as to the essence of it. Herein it is we are ourselves so often deceived and overcome by it. If we can dish up the sin we are in our own persons most inclined to, so as to have the gross parts of it so refined as to render it palatable, and that it may go down glibe, we are then able to act the same; yet as the nature of sin cannot be changed, so it is not the less pernicious, because we have so contrived as to swallow it most easily. It is in many instances so much the more poisonous. Sin is like a poisonous plant. The root, the leaves, the every part is full of it. Be it weaker or stronger in any part of it, yet it diffuses itself in and throughout the whole. There is the nature of sin in every act of it: and this more than we can, or ever shall be able to comprehend.

III. THE ANTIDOTE THESE SAINTS HAD, which was all-sufficient to bear up their minds, and lift up their hearts with holy confidence, above and beyond the law, sin, and its curse. "And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin."

(E. S. Pierce.)

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KJV: Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

WEB: Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.