When the Scribes and Pharisees beheld Him thus openly associating with a degraded caste, they could not restrain themselves, and openly protested against such an infraction of custom and right behaviour. But they were speedily silenced by His wise reply. If those, amongst whom He sat, were sinners, then to them was it specially meet that He should vouchsafe His presence, for, as the Physician of souls, He had specially come to call _not the righteous but sinners to repentance_ (Mtt. ix. 13; Mk. ii. 17; Lk. v. 31, 32). Nor were they more successful in contrasting His apparent laxity and freedom with the strictness and austerity of the Baptist. The very garments worn by those around, the very wine they were drinking, suggested similes that conveyed the true answer to their objections[292]. _To sew a piece of new cloth on an old_ and ragged garment, to _pour new wine into old bottles_ of skin, was not more foolish than to attempt to unite with the Dispensation He was inaugurating the dead formalities of one which was rapidly passing away for ever (Mtt. ix. 14–17; Mk. ii. 18–22; Lk. v. 33–39). The day following was a Sabbath, _the second-first Sabbath_[293], as St Luke calls it (Lk. vi. 1), and the Saviour walked through the corn-fields with His disciples, who began to pluck the ears of ripening grain, and to eat them, rubbing them in their hands. Such an act, though not forbidden by the Mosaic code, was declared unlawful by the traditional expounders[294]. The Pharisees, therefore, already scandalized by His assumption of power to forgive sins, and His associating with publicans, now urged a third complaint against His allowing His disciples to do what was unlawful on the Sabbath. But in full and explicit vindication of what they had done, the Saviour not only referred His accusers to the well-known incident in the life of David, when flying from Saul, he ate the shewbread, forbidden to all except the priests (1 Sam. xxi. 6), and to the words of the Prophet, who had declared that God would _have mercy, and not sacrifice_ (Hos. vi. 6), but openly declared that HE, as the Son of Man, was _Lord also of the Sabbath_, which had been _ordained for man, and not man for the sabbath_ (Mtt. xii. 8).