The second rule for our guidance is to be found in the precepts and example of our Lord. In the first place, He lays down the principle, " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." It is to be remarked that Christ says, " the Sabbath was made for man," not for the Jews, not for the people of any one age or nation, but for man ; for man as man, and therefore for all men. Moral duties, however, often conflict, and then the lower must yield to the higher. The life, the health, and the well-being of a man are higher ends in a given case, than the punctilious observance of any external service. This is the rule laid down by the prophet (Hosea vi. 6) : "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offer- ing." This passage our Lord quotes twice in application to the law of the Sabbath, and thus establishes the general principle for our guidance, that it is right to do on the Sabbath whatever mercy or a due regard to the comfort or welfare of ourselves or others requires to be done. Christ, therefore, says expressly, " It is lawful to do well (/caASs Troieu/, that is, as the context shows, to confer benefits) on the Sabbath days." (Matt. xii. 12. See also Mark iii. 4.)
Again, we are told by the same authority, that " the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless." (Matt. xii. 5.) The services of the temple were complicated and laborious, and yet were lawful on the Sabbath. On another occasion He said to his accusers, " If a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken ; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day ? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge right- eous judgment." (John vii. 23, 24.) From this we learn that whatever is necessary for the due celebration of religious worship, or for attendance thereon, is lawful on the Sabbath.
Again in Luke xiv. 1-14, we read, " And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees, to eat bread on the Sabbath day, that they watched him. And, behold, there was a certain man before him, which had the dropsy. And Jesus answering, spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day ? And they held their peace.
And he took him, and healed him, and let him go And
he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms ; saying unto them," etc., etc. This was evidently a large entertainment to which guests were " bidden." Christ, therefore, thought right, in the
340 * PART III. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
prosecution of bis work, to attend on such entertainments on the Sabbath.
The frequency with which our Lord was accused of Sabbath- breaking by the Pharisees, proves that his mode of observing that day was very different from theirs, and the way in which He vindicated himself proves that He regarded the Sabbath as a divine institution of perpetual obligation. It had been easy for Him to say that the law of the Sabbath was no longer in force ; that He, as Lord of the Sabbath, erased it from the decalogue. It may indeed be said that as the whole of the Mosaic law was in force until the resurrection of Christ, or until the day of Pente- cost, the observance of the Sabbath was as a matter of course then obligatory, and therefore that Christ so regarded it. In answer to this, however, it is obvious to remark, that Christ did not hesitate to abrogate those of the laws of Moses which were in conflict with the spirit of the Gospel. This He did with the laws relating to polygamy and divorce. Under the old dispen- sation it was lawful for a man to have more than one wife ; and also to put away a wife by giving her a bill of divorcement. Both of these things Christ declared should not be allowed under the Gospel. The fact that He dealt with the Sabbath just as He did with the fifth, sixth, and seventh precepts of the decalogue, which the Pharisees had misinterpreted, shows that He regarded the fourth commandment as belonging to the same category as the others. His example affords us a safe guide as to the way in which the day is to be observed.
The Sunday Laws.
It is very common, especially for foreign-born citizens, to object to all laws made by the civil governments in this country to pre- vent the public violation of the Lord's Day. It is urged that as there is in the United States an entire separation of the Church and State, it is contrary to the genius of our institutions, that the observance of any religious institution should be enforced by civil laws. It is further objected that as all citizens have equal rights irrespective of their religious opinions, it is an infringement of those rights if one class of the people are required to conform their conduct to the religious opinions of another class. Why should Jews, Mohammedans, or infidels be required to respect the Christian Sabbath ? Why should any man, who has no faith in the Sabbath as a divine institution, be prevented from doing on that day whatever is lawful on other days ? If the State