The very Commandment that should have meant Life I found to result in Death!
For Moses writes that, as for the righteousness which results from Law, 'those who practice it will find Life through it.'
Law entails punishment; but, where no Law exists, no breach of it is possible.
There was a time when I myself, unconscious of Law, was alive; but when the Commandment was brought home to me, sin sprang into life, while I died!
If the system of religion which involved Death, embodied in a written Law and engraved on stones, began amid such glory, that the Israelites were unable to gaze at the face of Moses on account of its glory, though it was but a passing glory,
But the Law is not based on faith; no, its words are--'Those who practice these precepts will find Life through them.'