. the second seems most likely to be correct. The question, hap- pily, is one which afiPects no point of doctrine, and may safely be left alone.
3. — [ What David did."] Here, as in other places, let ns not fail to observe how our Lord refers to things recorded in Old Testament Scriptures, as well-attested and acknowledged historical facts. The infidel notion, that the Old Testament narratives are no- thing better than amusing fables, and fictions invented to convey useful lessons, is a notion that finds no foot-hold, or countenance in the New Testament. He that strikes at the authority of the Old Testament, will find at last, whether he means it or not, that he is striking also at the authority of the New.
[ When himself was an hungeredJ] This is an expression which should be carefully noted in considering passages like that now be- fore us, in which our Lord teaches the true spirit of Sabbath ob- servance. The case of positive necessity, it should be observed, is carefully shown. It was a case of "hunger." This, and this only, justified the departure from a divine law. In this spirit we ought to consider the often mooted question, what may and what may not be done on the Christian Sundav. When Sunday is deMh- erately made a day for doiug secular things which need not necessarily be done on Sunday, and might easily have been done befors Sunday, there is an open breach of the fourth command- ment. Neither here, nor elsewhere, does our Lord Jesus Christ sanction such use of the Sunday. The works that He sanctions, are works of necessity and mercy, not of money-making, business, pleasure-seeking, and amusement.
5. — [The San of man,,, Lord of the sahhath.] The meaning of this expression has been already luUy considered in my note on St. Mark. At present it may suffice to say, that I consider " the Son of man '* to mean what the expression always means in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. — The words, " Lord of the Sabbath," were not meant to imply that our Lord, by virtue of His divine authority, would alter, abrogate, or let down the law of the fourth commandment. They mean that Jesus is " Lord of the Sabbath," to deliver it from Jewish tradi- tions, to protect it from superstitious views of its obsei-vance, and to show the true spirit and manner in which it was always intended to be kept.