no better than the killing of a dog : and if God had so ordained, the blood of swine would have been as good as the blood of bulls and of goats. As commanded of God, even the slightest ordinance is to be regarded with the deepest reverence : but, divest even Sabbaths and sacrifices of their divine authority, and I say again, they are of no value. Hence David says, " Thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I give it : thou de- lightest not in burnt-oiFering^." And Samuel, reproving Saul, puts to him this pointed interrogation, " Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice ; and to hearken, than the fat of rams'."]
2. That, where they come in competition with each other, ritual duties must give way, and be superseded by the moral —
[The whole course of our blessed Lord's conduct upon earth attests this truth. On many occasions he, if I may so say, violated the Sabbath-day; performing his miracles then, as on any common day, and ordering a man to carry his bed upon the Sabbath-day. On account of these apparent violations of the Sabbath he was constantly accused as disregarding the laws of Moses and of God. In the twelfth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel we are informed, that he authorized his disciples upon the Sabbath-day to pluck some ears of corn, and rub out the grain and eat it. The act was perfectly legal in itself^: but, being done on a Sabbath-day, it was construed as a threshing of the wheat, and, consequently, as a work forbidden on that day. But our Lord justified them from the example of David, who, with his followers, had, contrary to an express command, eaten the shew-bread, which was the exclu- sive portion of the priests. He further justified them from the countless occupations of the priests in the temple, which turned the Sabbath, that should have been a day of rest, into a day of more than ordinary labour. These being works of necessity, the one for satisfying of their hunger, and the other for the serving of the altar, the ritual command was made void, being superseded by a call of more urgency, and of paramount obligation.]
Such being the lesson here inculcated, let us consider,
II. The vast importance of learning it —
The manner in which our blessed Saviour speaks, shews that this lesson is far from being generally understood ; whilst yet it is- so important, that it
^ Ps. li. 16. ' 1 Sam. xv. 22. ^ Deut. xxiii. 25.