Monsieur Abel!--Although it is most plainly shown, in my twelfth letter to Calvin, that the Law of the Decalogue had been abrogated, I shall add a few words that you may the better understand the innovation brought about by the advent of Christ. If you turn to Jeremiah xxxi., verse 31 _et seq._, you will find it stated distinctly that the law of the Decalogue was to be annulled. The prophet teaches that the Covenant entered into with the Fathers, when they left Egypt, was to be no longer in force. But this was the Covenant of the Decalogue. For in I Kings, chapter viii., it is said that the Covenant or Testimony--the Decalogue, to wit--was in the Ark with the Fathers at their exodus from Egypt, whence the Ark is called the Ark of the Covenant, that is of the Tables, or Ten Commandments of the Law. Now this was the form of the Covenant: God promised the Israelites that they should be his people, if they did according to the words of the Law, and they on their part engaged that they would obey them. Such was the Covenant. And it is of this Covenant that Jeremiah (chapter xviii.) speaks as being repealed, as does Ezekiel (chapter xvi.), and Paul likewise in his Epistle to the Hebrews. If God took us for his own under that Law, we should lie under the curse, and perish by its pressure. The Law therefore was repealed. God does not now receive us as his children but by faith in his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. See then what becomes of your Gospel when it is confounded with the Law. Your Gospel is without the One God, without true faith, without good works. For the One God you have a three-headed Cerberus; for faith a fatal dream, and good works you say are vain shows. Faith in Christ is to you mere sham, effecting nothing; Man a mere log, and your God a chimæra of subject-will. You do not acknowledge celestial regeneration by the washing with water, but treat it as an idle tale, and close the kingdom of heaven against mankind as a thing of imagination. Woe to you, woe, woe!