Robert Browning, in a poem of terrible moral interest and power,[34] confesses that, amidst a thousand doubts and difficulties, his mind was anchored to faith in Christianity by the fact of its doctrine of Sin: "I still, to suppose it true, for my part See reasons and reasons; this, to begin; 'Tis the faith that launched point blank her dart At the head of a lie; taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart." [Sidenote: Ver. 19.] =Now we know that whatever things the Law says, it speaks them to those in the Law,= those within its range, its dominion; =that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may prove guilty with regard to God.= "_The Law_"; that is to say, here, the Old Testament Revelation. This not only contains the Mosaic and Prophetic moral code, but has it for one grand pervading object, in all its parts, to prepare man for Christ by exposing him to himself, in his shame and need. It shews him in a thousand ways that "_he cannot serve_ the Lord" (Josh. xxiv. 19), on purpose that in that same Lord he may take refuge from both his guilt and his impotency. And this it does for "_those in the Law_"; that is to say here, primarily, for the Race, the Church, whom it surrounded with its light of holy fire, and whom in this passage the Apostle has in his first thoughts. Yet they, surely, are not alone upon his mind. We have seen already how "the Law" is, after all, only the more full and direct enunciation of "law"; so that the Gentile as well as the Jew has to do with the light, and with the responsibility, of a knowledge of the will of God. While the chain of stern quotations we have just handled lies heaviest on Israel, it yet binds the world. It "shuts _every_ mouth." It drags MAN in guilty before God. "_That every mouth may be stopped._" Oh solemn silence, when at last it comes! The harsh or muffled voices of self-defence, of self-assertion, are hushed at length. The man, like one of old, when he saw his _righteous_ self in the light of God, "_lays his hand on his mouth_" (Job xl. 4). He leaves speech to God, and learns at last to listen. What shall he hear? An eternal repudiation? An objurgation, and then a final and exterminating anathema? No, something far other, and better, and more wonderful. But there must first be silence on man's part, if it is to be heard. "_Hear_--and your souls shall live." So the great argument pauses, gathered up into an utterance which at once concentrates what has gone before, and prepares us for a glorious sequel. Shut thy mouth, O man, and listen now: [Sidenote: Ver. 20.] =Because by means of works of law there shall be justified no flesh in His presence; for by means of law comes--moral knowledge (ἐπύγνωσις) of sin.= [27] Μὴ γένοιτο: literally, "_Be it not_"; "_May it not be_." Perhaps nothing so well represents the _energy_ of the Greek as the "_God forbid_" of the Authorized Version.