men, shewing that it was lawful and right when hungry, even to
eat the shoe bread that belonged only to the priests, and told them that
he was Lord of the Sabbath day. Here he shows too, that he was with his
[38]disciples passing to the synagogue to teach; they ask him if it was
lawful to heal on the Sabbath day. He asks them if they had a sheep fall
into the ditch on the Sabbath, if they would not haul him out? How much
better then is a man than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on
the Sabbath days; and immediately healed the man with a withered hand.
Matt. xii: 1-13. On another Sabbath day, while he was teaching, he
healed a woman that had been bound of satan eighteen years, and when the
ruler of the synagogue began to find fault, he called him a hypocrite,
and said "doth not each one of you on the Sabbath day loose his ox or
his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering; and all his
adversaries were _ashamed_." Luke xiii: 10-17. The xiv. chapter of Luke
is quoted to prove that he broke the Sabbath because he went into the
Pharisees house with many others on the Sabbath day to eat bread. Here
he saw a man with the dropsy and he asked them if it was lawful to heal
on the Sabbath day. 'And they held their peace and he took him and
healed him,' and asked them 'which of them having an ox or an ass fall
into the pit, would not straitway pull him out on the Sabbath day; and
they could not answer him again.' 1-6 v. And 'he continued to teach
them, by showing them when they made a feast to call the poor, the
maimed, the lame, the blind, and then they should be blessed.' Read the
chapter, and you will readily see that he took this occasion, as the
most befitting, to teach them by parables, what their duty was at
weddings and feasts, in the same manner as he taught them in their
synagogues.

There is still another passage, and I believe the only one, to which
reference has been made, (except where he opened the eyes of a man that
was born blind,) for proof that he broke the Sabbath. It is recorded in
John v: 5-17. Here Jesus found a man that had been sick thirty-eight
years, by the pool of Bethesda, 'he saith unto him rise, take up thy bed
and walk,--therefore did they persecute Jesus and sought to slay him,
because he had done these things on the Sabbath day.' 16 v. 'But Jesus
answered them, my Father worketh hitherto and I work.' If they did not
work every hour and moment of time, it would be impossible for ma