the ruler of the synagogue thus indignantly rebuked the people:- There are six days in which men ought to work: in them, therefore, come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. Our Lord knowing that this rebuke was intended for him, answered, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath day, loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering; and ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?-And all his adversaries were ashamed.

On another occasion, we read that Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn, and his disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. Some of the Pharisees happening to be present, charged them with breaking the Sabbath ; but our Lord fully justifies his disciples, on the ground of present necessity. Probably their little store of provisions was exhausted, and they had no other means of allaying the cravings of hunger. Under these circumstances, they might lawfully do, what would have been unlawful, had they not been in distress. "If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have MERCY, and not SACRIFICE ye would not have condemned the guiltless." The same day, our Lord found in the synagogue, a man whose hand was withered. The Jews, in their usual captious style, asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? And he said unto them, what man shall there be among you, that shall have one

sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much, then, is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days.

These quotations, it is believed, contain all the expositions, which our Lord thought proper to give of the fourth commandment; and let it be noted and remembered, that they are works of mercy only, which he justifies on the Sabbath. It was to relieve the ox, or the sheep, from present suffering, that he might be pulled out of a pit, or led away to watering. It was to deliver men and women from present distress, that Christ healed them on the Sabbath. It was because the disciples were then hungry, that he excused them, for plucking and rubbing a few ears of grain, as they passed through a field, on their way (it would seem) to public worship. Neither the precepts,

nor the example of Christ, can be pleaded, to sanction works of any other character, than such as have been mentioned.

The preceding observations will, if we mistake not, help the reader to understand and limit the word necessity, as it is used in a very brief, but able commentary on the ten commandments. "The Sabbath is to be sanctified, by an holy resting all that day, from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days, and spending the whole time in public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy." We are persuaded that the word

necessity here has in a thousand instances been so defined, as to cover real, not to say palpable violations of the fourth commandment. For how easily do men persuade themselves that whatever their interest seems to require, is a work of necessity.

Thus, one man gathers his wheat on the Sabbath, as a work of necessity; another carts his hay; a third posts his books; a fourth pursues his journey; a fifth spends the day in writing letters of business; a sixth loads and sends out his ship. Now, the Westminster Assembly of divines certainly cannot be held answerable for all the misconstructions which may possibly be put upon their language. It would be most unreasonable to demand of them, to guard effectually against all such abuses. The imperfections of human language will always afford ample scope for colouring and perversion. But the word necessity is nowhere used by the sacred penman to designate any thing that is lawful to be done on the Sabbath, and as it is liable to the greatest abuses, we have sometimes wished that it had never been sanctioned by such venerable authority.

Since, however, it has been adopted by most theological writers, it becomes extremely important to ascertain in what scriptural sense any work can be necessary 'on the Lord's day. Feeding and watering cattle may, doubtless, in one sense, be called necessary; because food and water are essential to the comfort of beasts, as well as men. In a strong and universal sense, food is absolutely necessary to sustain human life; no one can long

subsist without it. In a more limited sense, it is necessary every day; because we cannot, in ordinary circumstances, be comfortable a single day without it. In this latter sense, it was doubtless necessary for the disciples to pluck the ears of corn. They were hungry, and food of some kind was necessary, to abate the cravings of nature. But in appealing to our Lord's indulgence here, we should take care never to plead necessity, where the cases are dissimilar. We may not give a wider or more liberal construction to the fourth commandment, than Christ has given. Such explanations as were necessary, he gave, but in all other respects, left the law as he found it.

We believe the scriptures do not authorize any works, as works of necessity, on the Sabbath, which are not, at the same time, works of charity or mercy. Nor are all works of charity and mercy allowable. Those, and only those, may engage our attention on the Lord's day, which we had no opportunity of doing before, and which cannot, consistently with mercy and benevolence, be postponed till the end of the Sabbath. Necessary works of mercy, would therefore, as it appears to us, be more definite, less liable to abuse, and in fact more correct, than works of necessity and mercy. This would leave us, as the Scriptures do, at full liberty to partake temperately of the bounties of providence; to feed the hungry; to take care of the sick, and to attend to the sufferings and wants of domestic animals; while, on the other hand, it would take away the plea of necessity, from those who now gravely bring it forward,

to justify thoughts and conversation, and labors and journies and recreations, which are prompted by avarice instead of benevolence; by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, instead of mercy.

SECTION III.

When the discussion of any important subject results in the firm establishment of a general principle, it is an extremely convenient method of evading its application, to remark coolly, that every general rule has its exceptions. By a free and dexterous use of this trite expedient, men contrive to justify themselves in various practices, which are contrary, alike to the letter and spirit of the divine law. On no subject, perhaps, is this perverse ingenuity more frequently employed, than upon the prohibitions of the fourth commandment. The prevailing belief is, that the Sabbath is an ordinance of God, and that as a general rule, worldly employments and recreations on that day are sinful. But then, three persons out of four have their exceptions always ready, and before one half of these exceptions are enumerated, the rule itself is virtually destroyed. It seems important, therefore, to examine some of the excuses which thousands urge for doing their own work, and finding their own pleasures, upon the Lord's day. It is said,

In the first place, that manual labor in the field, is sometimes warranted by the most urgent necessity, and therefore cannot be a violation of the