on all-fours with His disciples' case. The Pharisees had pored over
the Old Testament all their lives, but it would have been long before
they had found such a doctrine as this in it.

Jesus goes on to bring out the principle which shaped the instance he
gave. He does not state it in its widest form, but confines it to the
matter in hand--Sabbath obligations. Ceremonial law in all its parts
is established as a means to an end--the highest good of men.
Therefore, the end is more important than the means; and, in any case
of apparent collision, the means must give way that the end may be
secured. External observances are not of permanent, unalterable
obligation. They stand on a different footing from primal moral
duties, which remain equally imperative whether doing them leads to
physical good or evil. David and his men were bound to keep these,
whether they starved or not; but they were not bound to leave the shew
bread lying in the shrine, and starve.

Man is made for the moral law. It is supreme, and he is under it,
whether obedience leads to death or not. But all ceremonial
regulations are merely established to help men to reach the true end
of their being, and may be suspended or modified by his necessities.
The Sabbath comes under the class of such ceremonial regulations, and
may therefore be elastic when the pressure of necessity is brought to
bear.

But note that our Lord, even while thus defining the limits of the
obligation, asserts its universality. 'The Sabbath was made for
man'--not for a nation or an age, but for all time and for the whole
race. Those who would sweep away the observance of the weekly day of
rest are fond of quoting this text; but they give little heed to its