170 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



The strengest eTidence expected : but not always accorded. 



ceive his Lord's rebuke for this '^evil heart of unbelief/' 

 (^Matt. xvi. 16—23.) 



The pretext for unbelief and opposition is always the same 

 — want of evidence. " Yea, hath God said ?" is the first ar- 

 ticulate breath of the Tempter. (Gen. iii. 1.) So when Christ, 

 at the beginning of His ministry, bad purged the Temple of 

 God of its pollutors, the multitude eagerly thronged around 

 him, and demanded some sign of His Divine Mission. They 

 required some stupendous miracle, like the parting of the Red 

 Sea, or the consuming blaze of Mount Sinai, or the national 

 support by the morning showers of Manna. How were they 

 disappointed ! " To their demand/' says Milman, ^' Jesus 

 calmly answered by an obscure and somewhat oracular allusion 

 to the remote event of His own resurrection, the one great 

 ' Sign' of Christianity, to which it is remarkable that Christ 

 constantly refers, when required to ratify His mission by some 

 public miracle." (Ris. Christ. p. 80.) 



The lesson we learn from this is of the deepest import. We 

 may be demanding on some points a kind, or degree, of evi- 

 dence, which Infinite Wisdom does not see fit to give. If the 

 Divine Will is revealed in any icay, or by any means, in a 

 degree sujfficient to guide the sincere inquirer after Truth and 

 DutT/, while it leaves the caviller unsatisfied, all the purposes 

 of our moral probation are fulfilled. " If any man desire to do 

 His loill,'' says the Great Teacher, " he shall know of the doc- 

 trine, whether it be of God.'' In every practical question, an 

 obedient heart is the first and most indispensable thing. With- 

 out this, with all the Prudence, Learning, and Logic of Ga- 

 maliel, we shall " stumble at the word, being disobedient." 

 (1 Ptt. ii. 8.) Our opposition may injure ourselves and others. 

 But it cannot alter, in one iota, the Will of God. Even 

 ^' unto them which be disobedient, the Stone which the build- 

 ers disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.'' 

 (1 Pet. ii. 7.) Whoever then may disallow it, Christ our 

 Lord " is Lord even of the Sabbath day." 



