But before I adduce my proofs, I beg leave to premise, that when any Law is solemnly enacted, we expect that the abrogation of it should be equally solemn, and express, in order that no room for dispute may remain upon the subject. Accordingly, it is the custom, I believe, in all countries, not to make any new Law, contradictory to another before subsisting, without a previous express abrogation of the old one. 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. He seems in his discourse to have had in view the additions that had been made to the law. These he sets aside, but no part of the original law itself. It has also been urged that by fulfilling, may be meant such an accomplishment of it as would imply the superseding of it when the purposes for which it was instituted should be answered. To silence this explication it will be sufficient to produce a few out of many passages of the New Testament where the term fulfil occurs in connexion with the term law. Thus Paul says, Gal. v. 14, "All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," and again. Rom. xiii. 8, "He that loveth another, hath fulfilled the law." But certainly, notwithstanding this fulfilment of the moral law, it remains in as full force as ever.