While, however, we maintain our vantage ground, and contend that nothing less than a plain declaration in the New Testament to that effect, can or ought to satisfy us, that the decalogue is annulled, we do not despair of being able to satisfy any candid mind, by an appeal to the New Testament, that we are as much bound by the ten commandments as are the Jews, to whom they were originally given. No one can say, that there is an express declaration in the New Testament, to the effect, that the decalogue is set aside under the present dispensation. Those who arrive at the conclusion, must confess, that it is merely inferential. In this respect, then, both parties stand on equal ground. Neither our opponents nor ourselves can adduce an undoubted and positive declaration. But we ask which have the greatest need of such a declaration—they who assert that the moral law, written and pronounced by God himself, has been abrogated, or they who affirm that it is still in force? On which side lies the greater probability, and with whom rests the greater responsibility? No very serious harm can result from the error (if such it be) of maintaining the perpetual authority of the moral law, but the most disastrous consequences may flow from the rejection of its claims. And surely it is more likely that God would continue his own law in force without a direct renewal of it, than that he would abrogate it without a plain announcement to that effect. In the absence then of positive evidence, the probability lies on the side of its retention. Now, this probability advances a step towards certainty, when it is remembered, that Judaism is not formally abrogated in the New Testament—that in fact Christianity is not a new religion, but the extension and expansion of the moral and spiritual part of the Mosaic dispensation—believing Jews still remaining on their own stock, and believing Gentiles being scions grafted into the Jewish olive tree. The religion of Jesus is in reality the perfection of the religion of Moses. But where would be its superiority in a moral point of view, if the authority of the very standard of morality were taken from it? At any rate, if such were the case, some express intimation to that effect is to be expected.