The Pharisees, nevertheless, were now on the watch for occasion to find fault. This is not an occupation which brings out the amiable side of men’s natures; and they became still more soured by finding nothing on which to hang a charge; so that at last they even leagued with the Herodians, their natural opponents, against our Lord. The most popular of all accusations, and one for which it was easy to find ground, was a breach of the traditionary rules for keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath was an inestimable Law. It was maintained by Divine sanction at a time when a Law could not be upheld by any other means: it debarred men from “doing what they would with their own” on one day out of seven, so far as regarded the labour of themselves or of their children, their servants, their ox or their ass. It secured for the race this portion of time against the greed of gain: but all this was done _for men_, although the Jews had come to look on it as something done _by men for God_, and in so doing they made God a taskmaster like the gods of the pagans. Moreover the Sabbath kept alive in each Israelite his self-respect as one of God’s people; however sordid his calling, he put away every seventh day his squalor and his toil and resumed the dignity of Abraham’s son. The Sabbath question was the chosen battle-ground of those who reduced all virtues to that literal unquestioning obedience to authoritative records, which was so damaging to moral and spiritual life. Men thought that God’s favour was won or His wrath incurred in virtue of acts—such as the keeping within or the overstepping the limit of the journey allowed on the Sabbath-day—which in themselves had no moral significance at all. Here again we see how our Lord deals with views falling short of the truth. The moral creed of His countrymen was imperfect; it unduly exalted and obtruded formal duties, but it was all that they had; their whole life and that of their nation was moulded by it; instincts fostered by it had become hereditary, and to break it ruthlessly down would have been to lay waste men’s souls. In the instance before us our Lord introduces a freer practice; and trusts to this to give birth in time to more intelligent notions about the Sabbath day. One passage in the history I purposely passed by. I thought that I might have to write of it at such a length as to break the continuity of the narrative, and I therefore kept it for the close of the chapter. The passage in question, which I subjoin, immediately follows the account of the entertainment of our Lord in Matthew’s house.