That the Decalogue, as such, held a peculiar aspect towards the Jews, different from that which it holds towards any others, is freely admitted. It made a part of their civil code; it was incorporated with their political laws, and, therefore, temporal penalties were annexed, which were inflicted by the civil magistrate. Offences against the most of its precepts were punishable by death, Sabbath-breaking not excepted. Hence some contend that these precepts ought not to be called, by way of eminence, "_the_ Moral Law;" that the fact of their having been graven upon stone, and given under circumstances of greater pomp and glory than the other precepts of the Old Testament, constitutes no solid argument for their being so called. The greater glory of their promulgation from the Mount of God, is supposed to be sufficiently accounted for, by considering them as the _Constitution_, or _Grand Platform_, upon which was based the whole of that system which was peculiar to the Jews. The Decalogue, therefore, is supposed to bear about the same relation to the other precepts spoken by Moses, as _constitution_ bears to _statute law_. This view is thought to be favored by those passages which call the stone tables "the tables of the Covenant." Heb. ix. 4. Hence, as they say, the Covenant being abrogated, the tables of the Covenant are set aside also; on the same principle that when a political government is dissolved the constitution is of no farther use. Upon this seemingly plausible argument we offer the following remarks: 1. Admitting that the Decalogue is the grand constitution of the Jewish polity, and that it has an excellence over the other precepts spoken by Moses, precisely like that of constitution over statute law; still we think it could not, in the nature of things, be any thing less than a code of morals. There was a necessity of the strongest kind, that it should embody all the essential elements of the moral law. For, as obedience to statute law must proceed from constitutional principles, so the obedience of the Israelites to the whole system of Moses must proceed upon moral footing. Any other obedience than this--any obedience which is of an inferior kind, God does not require, and cannot, consistently with his holy nature. No matter what is the nature of the precepts He gives, obedience to them must be upon moral principle. A love for the great principles of righteousness must regulate it all; for this only is the pledge that they will rigidly, and without deviation, conform to any system that He enjoins upon them. Therefore, the Moral Law, or rather the essential elements of it, go before all the other laws He gave to the children of Israel. If they will keep this law, which they promised to do, Exod. xix. 8, it is a pledge that they will keep all the rest.