Thus far we have hardly glanced at the Sabbath as a positive institution of the Lawgiver and Ruler of this world. The view of the Sabbath which has already been presented, seems to underlie all Divine legislation (and there is such) upon the subject. This is the foundation on which it rests, towards the realization of this it works. We miss much of the meaning of the old Jewish legislation, by not going deep down beneath the positive commandment, and studying, as we are able—nay, if friends of Christ, bound to do—the necessity out of which the law arises, the feature of the original Divine constitution which it is intended to illustrate and guard. This method will bring us into true tune with the commandment, our observance will then be spiritual, that of a friend, a child, not a slave. Every law must have its reason in the nature of things, must be intended to direct attention to, vindicate, or restore, some reality which is in danger of being disregarded. It is needful to see what is behind the law, in order to understand it truly. God saw that there was in man a fearful tendency to deny the God that made him, by withholding himself from the higher exercises, the higher life, of which God made him capable—getting rid of spiritual burden and care, and making his life as much like a brute’s as it could possibly become. He saw, moreover, that the struggle between the higher element and the lower, the spirit and the flesh, which had broken loose from the spirit’s control, would be a long and sharp one, in each human soul, and in the world at large; and, tenderly compassionating his afflicted and distracted prodigal children, He came, even in the very hour of their apostacy, to help the higher nature in its conflicts, and finally give to it the victory by allying it for ever with himself. His purpose of mercy had a methodic development—first the germ, then the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. He chose Abraham as the man through whom He would enter into relations with his descendants, the Jewish people, constituting them the people through whom He would enter into relations with the whole human world. He gave to the Jews a law, the purpose of which was to bring out the original features of the constitution of man, and his primal relations to God and to all things. That which had been lost in the fall was re-established by the Jewish economy, and every ordinance of God, which man, the sinner, had trampled upon and spurned, was brought forth again, and sealed afresh, in the sight of all the people, and, through history, in the sight of all men, with the seal of the Almighty and the All-wise. The Jews, in this solemn covenant, were the representative people, through whom God was addressing the whole human race. It was, above all things needful, to bring out the idea that there was power to support the original constitution of things, though man had been suffered to attempt, for a time, at any rate, to