When the Word of God has obtained its true place in any man's heart, it disposes at once of a hundred questions which were difficult or perplexing before. On the one hand, when we have the divine standard of right and wrong set up, it becomes immediately apparent that one class of actions are right, are just, are necessary, on the part of all who would make God's will their rule. On the other hand, it becomes no less apparent that another class of actions are distinctly prohibited. No man who believes the Word of God to be his word can do these things. But between these two, or the decidedly right and the decidedly wrong, there are some actions whose moral character it is not so easy to adjust. They are not so exactly described in the Word of God. They lie on the debateable territory between the right and the wrong. They may partake of the one character or the other, according to the circumstances in which they are performed. They may be right, for example, for me in sickness, but wrong for me in health; or the reverse. Now, it is generally among these undecided cases that a man's principles are exposed to the greatest strain. No one who professes to respect[*15] the Word of God can refuse to do what is decidedly right, and as little can he refuse to shun the decidedly forbidden. If he do not shun it, he is detected as offering to the Bible only the mockery of respect--to its God only the semblance of homage. He has extinguished the lamp of life, and deliberately walks in darkness. THE SABBATH LAW. In regard, for example, to the Sabbath law, certain things are distinctly commanded, and other things are as distinctly forbidden. There can be no doubt in any mind which has bowed to the supremacy of God, or recognised his right of property in us and ours, that he claims a seventh part of our time as his own, to be employed in his service and in preparing for his abode for ever. Our blessedness here and hereafter is thus involved in that law; and all objections to spend the Sabbath with God, are suggested by ignorance of what is at once our chief good and our chief end--GOD. But it is equally certain that works of necessity and mercy are not prohibited; and it is regarding /these/ that a man's principles are put to the most decisive test. It is not possible to lay down any rule applicable to every case, for what is necessity at one time may be no necessity at another; or what is mercy in one case--for instance, to the aged and the feeble--may be indolence and sloth in others. Between the unvarying right, then, and the unvarying wrong, lies the territory where men are tried as moral agents. Will they use their liberty, or will they abuse it? Will they grasp at feigned reasons for violating the Sabbath law? Will they be guided by the necessity which God creates, or will they fabricate pleas and pretences for themselves, under cover of which the law of God may be broken, and the consciences of men entangled or defiled?