MR. TAYLOR' S THIRD REPLY. 275 



" The Sermon on the Mount." 



Until the advent of the baptist Harbinger, "the Law and 

 the Prophets'' maintained their inviolable supremacy: but 

 when the '^witness of the Light'' appeared, he heralded «71- 

 otlier '^kingdom/' And yet, even then, no "tittle of ^ the Law' 

 could fair' of its great office. {Luke xvi. 16, 17.) For the 

 Master '^ came not to destroi/^' the Mosaic economy ; but he 

 came "to f uljil'' it. His mission was not to "make it void;" 

 but to "estahlish" it in its higher spiritual significance. And 

 till this "fulfilment/' one jot could not pass from "the Law," 

 nor its minutest requirement be neglected. 



The references to the Pentateuch, which formed the texts of 

 this instructive discourse, were gathered indifferently from the 

 Decalogue and the general "Law;'' as if with the very design 

 of showing their identity of character and their correspondency 

 of obligation.* Nor can a single hint be found throughout his 

 lucid and assiduous teachings to favor the " fancy" of ani/ stc- 

 jierior sanctity in the tahles of stone. BuT every^where the 

 CONTRARY !f He taught that a true morality did not consist 



* It appears strange that, upon tliis point, my friend J. N. B. and 

 myself sliould, from the same premises, have arrived at opposite con- 

 clusions ! He remarks, in his former Reply {p. 58), " That by ' these 

 commandments' \_Matt. v. 19], our Lord meant the commandments of 

 the Decalogue, seems to me so perfectly plain, from the spedficaiions 

 which folloiv,\\'] that I shall consider it bejond all dispute. When it 

 is formally denied, it will be time enough formally to prove it." My 

 friend -will find it infinitely more difficult " formally to prove it," than 

 to " consider it bey ond dispute !" 



*'In all PauFs Epistles," says Baxter, *'and commonly in all the 

 New Testament, the word 'Law' is ordinarily, if not always, tåken 

 more extensively than the Decalogue : therefore, to expound it for the 

 Decalogue only, is to contradict the constant use of Scripture, under pre- 

 tence of expounding the Scripture." [Lord's Day, appendix, chap. ii.) 



f When, for example, the lawyer asked "which is the great com- 

 mandment in 'the Law?'" Jesus, instead of turning to "the Deca- 

 logue" (the infallible resort of the Sabbatarian), rcferred him to Deut. 

 vi. 5, for "the first and great commandment;" and to Levit. xix. 18, 

 for " the second :" and he declared that " on ihtse two Commandments 



