The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 514

the observance of the sabbath was ever to proceed-it "is made for man, and not man for " it. Any man and every man is to use that sabbath that certainly was "made for him,'' and be is to use it intelligently and to the best of his light, and he is so far in one sense only appointed to be lord over it, while none the less he stands or falls to his Lord on the question how he uses it. Much more, therefore, must "the Son of man be Lord al.so of the sabbath day." Notice- I. A GREAT msTORIO CHANGE, Few enough men now come near the edge of the snare of supposing that they "were made for the sabbath." They triumph too loudly and too self-confidently in the help they themselves, perhaps, have given to the explosion of that heresy. May we not easily and truthfully imagine that if the moral majesty of Christ's presence were again amongst us, his gaze and his emphatic accents would all go to say, " The sabbath was made for man; have you forgotten that? Divinely suggested for man, divinely exampled for man; have you forgotten this? Man is '11-0t its lord and sovereign disposer in the sense you are practically interpreting it"? How does the world in its sad history pitch from one extreme of error to the opposite! II. THE PRIOR GREAT BISTOBIO FACT. That the "sabbath was me.de for man" is not, indeed, a revelation of things to come, but it is the pronounced and authoritative revelation of e. great reality in this world's creation and design. Consider it by the a.id of the light of a few contrasts and comparisons. What things are made for man I How divinely me.de I What wealth of possession, of beauty, of thought I What powers of body, the mere shadows and servants of richer and more wonderful faculties of mind! What lamps are hung np in the heavens; what seasons are made for man, and months, and days, and nights I Amidst them all, Christ says another thing, less evident, very likely, to sense, but not less real," was made for man "-the sabbath I Strange, indeed, would it be that Christ should use so emphatic a sentence, without one hint of any waning importance of the day, if he and the force of his truth were e.bout to assign it a lower standard, or to put altogether an end to it I The very first mention of it, as the day on which God ended his creative work-how striking it is! "On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : because that in it he had rested from all his work which he had created and made." That majestic history is unaccompanied by any precept or command that it should br, observed by men. Nor is it wonderful, when it is remembered that it is descriptive of a time when there was but one man in the world. But from that time forward, for many a centnry, there is not to be found one distinct and explicit reference to the "sabbath day" till the reference to it as placed in the ten commandments. Thence its checkered history for ages varied much with that of the one nation to whom it was expressly appointed, and it may safely be said about it that it was not most faithfully kept, or most profitably and in the spirit, when it was most scrupulously talked about. Once, then, "God hallowed and sanctified it," surely not for himself; then when it appears again on the surface of the sacred page it is emphatically introdu_ced as a day to be "remembered,'' and not as though it were now new and unknown hitherto; and now in the bold and most authoritative language of the text, so universal in its scope and idea, it is said, "The sabbath was made for man." In another brief but solemn spell of time the day became the first day of the week instead of the seventh, when Christ's resurrection gave the signal And in due time the first converted Roman emperor, Constantine, made it the legalized day for his wide dominions; and all the world has followed suit-an amazing:, overwhelming indication that it was not he alone who did it I The day is one of those f;ifts specially entitled to the language of St. Paul, "e. gift of God without repentance.' It came with the sacred voice of God ; it was revived to the favoured people to whom belonged the oracles ; it rose from e. long oppressed and discredited state with the appearance of the most intense new motives of religious feeling and princiJ:!le and devotion; it still holds its own in th~ yery whirl- pool of worldliness, and amid the most constant and subtle underminmg of the unbelieving; and it vindicates in deed what Jesus here Be.ye of it by word, "it wa, 'IMIU/or man." Ill. THE GRAND BlSTORIO SWEEP 80 CONFESSED TO OF ITS PRICELESS USEFULNESS, With such an Author, and with such nativity, it was well to be supposed that the use CN, xu. 1-60.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. Gll