The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 524

to quite opposite meanings. The Pharisees took the letter of the law, , egardless of its spirit and intention. The letter ran, "'l'hou shalt do no work;" and with the most perfect verbal logic the Pharisee maintained that he kept the law beet who did least work. Our Lord, on the other hand, sought to find and satisfy the spirit of the law; and he said, " The day was made to promote men's good; to be a pleasure and a boon, not II vexation and II burden." ,vhatcver best promotes man's good best satisfies the sabba.th law. Whatever most effectually sets him free from the grinding toil and feverish cares of this life best satisfies the law. Starting, then, with this idea, the.t the day is meant to promote the good of man, we see why the one point insisted on in the commandment is that men should cease from their ordinary works. There is not a word about worship, no hint regarding the observance of the day further than this, that it is to be a.n exceptional day, a day of rest. But, the rest being provided by God, it follows that we must be in cordial and frank fellowship with him in availing our- selves of it. When a father brings his boy home for a holiday, he feels grieved and disappointed if the boy obviously prefers the company of low and coarse lads to the company he finds in his father's house. And how can a man be directed to the right observance of the seventh day who is at discord with his heavenly Father on the fundamental point of what constitutes true happiness and well-being? Two instances are cited by our Lord to illustrate his meaning. I. David did not scruple, in an extraordinary emergency, to fall back on the great principle that he himself, God's living servant, was more precious than an ordinance made for his good. From this we derive two hints: 1. We see that the se.bbe.th is not an idol to which man's life or health is to be sacrificed. In all large cities there m-e thousands who from Monday morning till Saturday night breathe nothing but the most polluted atmosphere, and for such persons to confine themselves to their little room through the whole Sunday as well, seems to lean rather to the Pharisaic observance of the day. 2. But this instance carries with it no sanction of the conduct of any who use it habitually for their mere bodily comfort and worldly gain. David ate the shewbread under pressure. He did it once in his lifetime. And so our Lord admits that resting was the ordinary, normal way to observe the day, and that whoso- ever dispenses with that must be able to show good ea.use. II. The second illustration is equally instructive. The ordinary work of the priests prevents them from keeping the co=and in the letter. They must ea.re for the public worship. There are circumstances in which you may fairly be expected to give up your day of rest out of deference to the necessities of society, of your employers, or of one another. Your business is to see that these necessities are real, and not fanciful. But we are no longer under the Jewish Law; do any of the ideas expressed in it directly concern us? No doubt Paul sometimes speaks 'as if we were done with all distinctions of days, and had no need any longer of the Law, but could live entirely by the direction and impulse of the Spirit. But he sets before us the ideal of the Christian and Christianity; practically the attempt to live without the a.ids of sabba.th observance co=only ends not in elevating all our days t0 the level of a well-spent sabbath, but in bringing down to a merely worldly level both our sabbaths and our week-days, If, then, we assert for ourselves our Lord's liberty regarding this day, let us be sure we do so from his point of view. Let us not hesitate to prefer the real welfare of men to the claims of the sabbath. But let us be quite sure that we a.re at one with God in our judgment of what does constitute the welfare of ourselves and others. Seven weeks of leisure out of every year should surely leave behind some very visible traces of our willingness to be helpful in this world, where there is such room for wise and honest helpfulness. To spend such a day in formal attendance a.t church, in yawning idleness, in gossiping levity, is a. scandal to our common humanity; and to spend it even in the pursuit of science, or in reading good secular literature, is to prove we do not yet know whl!,t are the capacities and contents of our na.tnre. Make a duty of seriously con- 11idering your ways, your habits, your disposition; let your mind rest on the great gospel facts, seek your Lord's presence a.ad address him wit~ the words ,:our thou~h~I! of him suggest, and you wili learn how reasonable and fruitful an appomtment it lB that from all your ordinary works you should rest every seventh day.-D. Vere. 22-31.-0asting wt devils, and blasphemy againet the Holy Ghost. The  011. :r.n. 1-60.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 621