The Disciples Pluck the Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-Day

    The occasions of many of the miracles of our Lord were providential. While their great object was to prove Jesus to be the Christ, they were often performed in such circumstances as to instruct his disciples in other truths. The occasion of several of them seems evidently to have been to show the true nature of the Sabbath. In the fact here recorded, we have an occasion afforded to our Lord to condemn the Pharisaical notions of the Sabbath; and show those works that are not inconsistent with its most sacred observance. Jesus and his company happened on the Sabbath to go through the corn-fields: it happened, also, that his disciples were hungry, and that, in consequence, they plucked the ears of corn, and ate. This gave occasion to the Pharisees to complain, and to Jesus to expound to them the true nature of the Sabbath. Whoever reads the account of the works of our Lord will see much of these providential leadings in his life. A similar Providence presented before and afforded with the withered hand on a Sabbath; him the man an opportunity for that answer so confounding to his adversaries.

    In like manner, in every age, the Providence of Jesus often brings his people into situations that afford them an opportunity of manifesting the difference between religion and superstition, between enlightened obedience to the authority of God, and a bigoted attachment to human additions to the Divine law. The Lord's day is a most precious appointment for the disciples of Christ, but they do not honour it aright who speak of it in a way that would condemn the conduct of the Lord of the Sabbath.