4. Our Lord Jesus doth show the true end of God's giving the Sabbath, and also how it ought to be kept, and shows the pharisees their mistake in the observation of it, they being so rigid that they would not suffer good works and works of mercy to be done, though there were necessity for the doing of them, as will appear if we consider the following Scriptures: The pharisees asked Christ if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him, (Matt. 12:10,) and his answer was this, _What man is there among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day._ Matt. 12:10-12. Again, the pharisees told Christ that his disciples did that which was not lawful, because they pulled the ears of corn upon the Sabbath day. But mind the answer of Christ, _Have ye not read what David did when he was a hungered and had need, how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which it is not lawful for any to eat but the priests?_ Mark 2:24-26. _Have ye not read in the law, that the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath day and are blameless?_ Matt. 12:5. It was not unlawful to pluck the ears of corn when they went through their neighbor's field, for that they might do by the law of God, (Deut. 23:25,) and that the pharisees knew very well; but they thought it was unlawful because they did it upon the Sabbath day. But mark the answer of Christ, how he cleared the disciples; it was unlawful for David to eat the shew-bread, but he was a hungered and had need, and therefore to be excused. If the disciples had pulled the ears of corn when they had no need, upon the Sabbath day, it had been doing of needless work, and so had been unlawful. But the text saith they were a hungered, therefore they might do it, it being a work of mercy as David's was. And the same may be said of the priests' profaning the Sabbath, who, notwithstanding, are said to be blameless. Their preparation of the sacrifices was allowed, which work in itself would have been counted servile work, but that it was for such a merciful end, namely, the sins of the people; therefore saith Christ, _Had ye known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless._ Matt. 12:7. Clearly proving that the Sabbath was to be observed, (but not so as to break another command, to neglect mercy, which the pharisees would do,) and that his disciples, in having mercy on their bodies, were no Sabbath-breakers.