"for man," and so to "fulfil all righteous"ness," that not "one tittle of the Law should "fail"."

But this was not the only sense, nor indeed the most important, in which His declaration was made good. He fulfilled the Law, not only by conforming to its precepts and upholding its authority, but by effecting its purpose in such a manner as could have been done by none but Himself. "Christ," says St. Paul," was the end of the Law" It was ordained to testify of Him; was introductory to His coming; prefigured what was to be done by him; derived its chief efficacy from faith in Him, the promised seed; and could not attain its main object, until actually accomplished in his person. The whole tenor of St. Paul's reasoning with the Jews, to prove that the Law was no longer in force, is grounded upon our Lord's having thus completed its intention, and thereby brought it to a termination. He shews, that what the Law could not do by virtue of its own operation, Christ had done by coming in the flesh; and therefore that to Him was the Law indebted for its full effect. He con

tends also, that by no other means could the original promise, upon which the Law was

only engrafted for a special purpose, have been rendered effectual. For the Law, he observes, was not "against the promises of “God';" but pointed out the necessity of relying on those promises, and was instrumental to their attainment. Consequently, our Lord in fulfilling the promises, did that which the Law itself had chiefly in contemplation: and had He not done this, the Law (whatever other purposes it might have served of a secondary nature) would as to its chief object have been altogether defective.

By this clue, then, we are guided to the full meaning of our Lord's declaration in the text: nor shall we find any thing to shake our conviction of its truth, in the subsequent events which occurred under the Jewish dispensation. Our Lord fulfilled its precepts, its ordinances, its types, its prophecies, its whole design. Thus was the charge brought against him of destroying it, effectually refuted. As a necessary consequence of this fulfilment, the use of the Law was, indeed, thenceforth done away. There was now nothing further to be accomplished. The purpose of its existence was answered. The proposed term of its continuance was limited to the period when the promised "seed should

f Gal. iii. 21.

"come." That term having expired, it gave way to the more universal dispensation, of which it had been the forerunner.

But the subject may be further elucidated, if we consider more distinctly what is to be understood by the abrogation, or rather the cessation of the Jewish Law, and to what extent it has actually taken place.

In this Law, a distinction is always carefully to be made between the particular and the general purposes to which it was adapted. So much of it as related to the Jews only, could co-exist only with the continuance of that people as a distinct nation; and must necessarily cease, whenever that distinction should be done away. So much of it as was founded on principles common to the rest of mankind, and in unison with the Gospel-covenant, was to be perpetual and unchangeable. For, in point of date, the Gospel-covenant was as old as Adam, and will continue to the end of time. It commenced with the Fall; it was the basis of the Patriarchal covenants; it was carried on by the Law and the Prophets; it was perfected by our Lord Himself; it will receive its final consummation at the Resurrection of the just.

In separating what properly belongs to this enlarged and comprehensive purpose from

that which related exclusively to the Jewish dispensation; it will be found that the greater part, if not the whole of the moral Law, appertains to the former, and the greater part of the ceremonial and political Law to the latter.

Christian ethics differ in no respect, essentially, from Jewish. A full and ample commentary on the Decalogue is conveyed in the practical instructions of our Lord and his Apostles; and, when divested of the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees, the Mosaic precepts harmonize with the purest maxims of Christian piety and Christian philanthropy. These, therefore, remain unrepealed, and will continue to the end of time with authority undiminished.

Some parts of the ceremonial and of the political Law come also under the same description. Such injunctions, whether of ecclesiastical or civil concern, as involve the essentials of piety, of purity, of justice, or of charity, (and many such there are in the institutions of Moses,) are, in their principle, confined to no particular age or nation, but are entitled to universal observance. These also our Lord and his Apostles have distinctly recognized in the New Testament, and have given them a sanction which transfers them

from the Jewish to the Christian code. They are thus rendered of perpetual obligation.

It is not my purpose to specify particulars in proof of these observations. The general principles on which they rest hardly need illustration; the particular application of them could only be established by a very lengthened detail. But admitting the principle to be just, we readily perceive in what sense the Law may be said to have ceased from its operation, and in what respect it still continues to be in force.

The Law is no longer either necessary or availing, as it was under Moses and the Prophets, to justification; Christ having now obtained for the universal Church terms of pardon and acceptance not dependent upon any local or national privileges. The Law can no longer be necessary or efficacious as a system of coercion or restraint; its temporal sanctions having vanished on the discontinuance of the theocracy which upheld them; and its spiritual benefits being more than supplied by that better dispensation to which it has given place. Nor is the Law any longer wanted as a distinct code of religious instruction. Those momentous truths which relate to the hope of salvation and eternal life, it taught chiefly by prefigurative emblems, anti