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ceptation: "I know that thou canst do everything." (Job xlii. 2.) Jesus is "able to save to the uttermost."

We see, lastly, in these verses, the right observance of the Sabbath Day asserted and defended by our Lord Jesus Christ. The ruler of the synagogue in which the infirm woman was healed, found fault with her as a breaker of the Sabbath. He drew down upon himself a stern but just rebuke: "Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering ?" If it was allowable to attend to the wants of beasts on the Sabbath, how much more to human creatures! If it was no breach of the fourth commandment to show kindness to oxen and asses, much less to show kindness to a daughter of Abraham.

The principle here laid down by our Lord is the same that we find elsewhere in the Gospels. He teaches us that the command to "do no work" on the Sabbath, was not intended to prohibit works of necessity and mercy. The Sabbath was made for man's benefit, and not for his hurt. It was appointed to promote man's best and highest interests, and not to debar him of anything that is really for his good. It requires nothing but what is reasonable and wise. It forbids nothing that is really necessary to man's comfort.

Let us pray for a right understanding of the law of the Sabbath. Of all the commandments that God has given, none is more essential to the happiness of man, and none is so frequently misrepresented, abused, and trampled under foot. Let us lay down for ourselves two special rules for the observance of the Sabbath. For one thing let us do no work which is not absolutely needful.

For another let us keep the day "holy," and give it to God. From these two rules let us never swerve. Experience shows that there is the closest connection between Sabbath sanctification and healthy christianity.

NOTES. LUKE XIII. 10-17.

11.—[Which had a spirit of infirmity.] The nature of this woman's disease we are left to conjecture. It seems to have been some ailment mysteriously connected with possession by an unclean spirit, and caused by it. There is no other case precisely like it in the New Testament.

12.-[He called her to Him.] Let it be noted, that this miracle was one of those which our Lord worked unsolicited and unasked. The widow at Nain is another instance. In both cases the person to whom kindness was shown, was a woman.

There are some beautiful remarks in Stella's commentary on this passage. He observes that it is a striking instance of our Lord's love and compassion towards sinners. If he does so much for a person, when unsolicited, how much more will he do for those who call upon him in prayer.

14.-[There are six days, &c.] The bitterness and sarcasm of this unhappy speech, are very remarkable. The very sight of a miracle, which ought to have convinced the ruler of the synagogue that Jesus was the Messiah, seems to have called forth all the corruption of his heart. The same thing may often be remarked in some unconverted men. The nearer the kingdom. of God comes to them, the more bitter and angry they are.

[Men ought to work.] Let it be noted, that the Greek expression so translated, would be more literally rendered, "it is fit, or becoming to work." The word " men is not in the Greek.

Stella observes that there was a striking similarity between the character of this ruler of the synagogue, and that of many of the prelates and judges of his own day. They often pretended great zeal for the cause of religion, and persecuted any one who gave them offence. Yet this zeal in reality was only in behalf of their own dignity and office, and not for the glory of God. 16.-[A daughter of Abraham.] This expression certainly appears to me to make it highly probable, that this woman whom our Lord healed, was a true believer. When Zacchæus was converted our Lord said, "He also is a son of Abraham." (Luke xix. 9.) To regard the expression as only meaning a daughter of Abraham according to natural descent, a Jewess," seems to me a tame and unsatisfactory interpretation.

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[Whom Satan hath bound.] This expression is remarkable. It would seem to imply that Satan has a permissive power to inflict bodily disease and infirmity. It should be compared with the two first chapters of Job, and with St. Paul's expression, "to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh." (1 Cor. v. 5.)

LUKE XIII. 18-21.

18 Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?

19 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air

lodged in the branches of it.

20 And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God?

21 It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

THERE is a peculiar interest belonging to the two parables contained in these verses. We find them twice delivered by our Lord, and at two distinct periods in His ministry. This fact alone should make us give the more earnest heed to the lessons which the parables convey. They will be found rich both in prophetical and experimental truths.

The parable of the mustard seed is intended to show the progress of the Gospel in the world.

The beginnings of the Gospel were exceedingly small. It was like "the grain of seed cast into the garden." It was a religion which seemed at first so feeble, and helpless, and powerless, that it could not live. Its first founder was one who was poor in this world, and ended His life by dying the death of a malefactor on the cross.—Its first adherents were a little whose number procompany, bably did not exceed a thousand when the Lord Jesus left the world. Its first preachers were a few fishermen and publicans, who were, most of them, unlearned and ignorant men. Its first starting point was a despised

corner of the earth, called Judea, a petty tributary province of the vast empire of Rome.-Its first doctrine was eminently calculated to call forth the enmity of the natural heart. Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness.-Its first movements brought down on its friends persecution from all quarters. Pharisees and Sadducees, Jews and Gentiles, ignorant idolaters and self-conceited philosophers, all agreed in hating and opposing Christianity. It was a sect everywhere spoken against.-These are no empty assertions. They are simple historical facts, which no one can deny. If ever there was religion which was a little grain of seed at its beginning, that religion was the Gospel.

But the progress of the Gospel, after the seed was once cast into the earth, was great, steady and continuous. The grain of mustard seed "grew and waxed a great tree." In spite of persecution, opposition, and violence, Christianity gradually spread and increased. Year after year its adherents became more numerous. Year after

year idolatry withered away before it. City after city, and country after country, received the new faith. Church after church was formed in almost every quarter of the earth then known. Preacher after preacher rose up, and missionary after missionary came forward to fill the place of those who died. Roman emperors and heathen philosophers, sometimes by force and sometimes by argument, tried in vain to check the progress of Christianity. They might as well have tried to stop the tide from flowing, or the sun from rising. In a few hundred years, the religion of the despised Nazarene,—the

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religion which began in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, -had overrun the civilized world. It was professed by nearly all Europe, by a great part of Asia, and by the whole northern part of Africa. The prophetic words of the parable before us were literally fulfilled. The grain of mustard seed "waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it." The Lord Jesus said it would be so. And so it came to pass.

Let us never

Let us learn from this parable never to despair of any work for Christ, because its first beginnings are feeble and small. A single minister in some large neglected town-district,—a single missionary amidst myriads of savage heathen,-a single reformer in the midst of a fallen and corrupt church,-each and all of these may seem at first sight utterly unlikely to do any good. To the eye of man, the work may appear too great, and the instrument employed quite unequal to it. give way to such thoughts. Let us remember the parable before us, and take courage. When the line of duty is plain, we should not begin to count numbers, and confer with flesh and blood. We should believe that one man with the living seed of God's truth on his side, like Luther or Knox, may turn a nation upside down. If God is with him, none shall stand against him. In spite of men and devils, the seed that he sows shall wax a great tree.

The parable of the leaven is intended to show the progress of the Gospel in the heart of a believer.

The first beginnings of the work of grace in a sinner are generally exceedingly small. It is like the mixture of leaven with a lump of dough. A single sentence of

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