And certainly it appears to me a strange notion to suppose, that the elaborate and noble Law given from mount Sinai amidst circumstances unexampled, awful, and tremendously magnificent, and believed to have been declared by the voice of God to be a perpetual and everlasting Code, should vanish, perish, and be annihilated by the mere dictum of twelve fishermen!! But the fact is otherwise, for Jesus was so far from teaching the abrogation of that law, that he expressly says--" Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the Prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." This is a most explicit declaration that not the smallest punctilio in the law of Moses was intended to be set aside by the Gospel.

Nay more, he expressly commanded his disciples to the same purpose--"The Scribes and Pharisees (says he,) sit in Moses' seat; all therefore whatsoever they command you, that observe, and do." It is said in answer to this by Christian Divines, that his discourse relates to things of a moral nature, and that he only meant, that no part of the Moral Law was to be abolished.

But besides that the expression is general, there could be no occasion to make so solemn a declaration against what he could not have been suspected of intending, viz.

of abolishing the moral law.