2. Though the covenant character of the Decalogue is abolished, by reason of the Sinaitic Covenant being entirely abrogated, the moral character of it remains untouched, and just the same as it was before a covenant was based upon it. Hence, though we are under no covenant obligation to its precepts, we are under a moral obligation to them. The Jews were under a covenant obligation to the Decalogue, brought upon them by the transaction at Sinai. But Jews and Gentiles were alike under moral obligation to its precepts, antecedently to the covenant made at Sinai. Let men learn to distinguish between covenant obligation and moral obligation, and they will have no difficulty on this point.[3] 3. If the covenant character of the Decalogue is abolished, and all covenant obligation destroyed along with it, of course those temporal penalties which were annexed to its precepts are also abolished. But the moral penalty, the death of the soul, remains to be inflicted upon every impenitent transgressor. Hence the Sabbath-breaker, as well as the idolator, the profane swearer, and the adulterer, though not obnoxious to death, as the despiser of Moses' law, is yet obnoxious to the curse of God, and must inherit it by being punished with everlasting destruction from His presence, and from the glory of His power. What is it then? Not only do the ten commandments possess a moral character, independent of their inscription upon the stone tablets, as the grand constitutional platform of the Jewish Theocracy; but they possess this moral character BECAUSE they compose this constitution. For the constitution, as we have already proved, could not, in the nature of things, be any thing else than a summary of moral precepts. Therefore, as the Sabbath is one of these precepts, it is a part of the moral law, and remains of everlasting force and obligation. In our defense of the ten commandments, we do _not_ "contradistinguish them from the rest by calling the former exclusively _the_ moral law, and all the other divine instructions of the Jews, through Moses, _the_ ceremonial law." We not only admit, but strongly insist, that moral duties are inculcated elsewhere besides in the Decalogue. "When the Jews are told, Exod. xxii. 22, _Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child_, we need no scholastic definitions to enable us to recognize this as a part of the moral code."[4] But we _do_ suppose that the Decalogue comprises the _elementary principles_ of the moral law. We suppose, that whatever moral duty is inculcated elsewhere, it is deducible from one or other of the ten commandments. We can hardly imagine a single condition in which it is possible for man to be placed in this life, or a relation that he sustains, which is not cognizable by this code.