The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…

The third reason is contained in the seventh verse: If ye know what this is, I will have mercy ¹& not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the innocents Here our Saviour Christ, as before he had defended his Disciples by testimonies out of the Law: so now excuseth them by the witness of the Prophets, and •iteth a place out of Hosea. chap. 6. 6. as if he should say: What works doth the Sabbath forbid? are they not the works of our ordinary calling? What works doth the Sabbath command? To sacrifice only? No: but to do the works of mercy also, which is the end of all our sacrifices. Why then seeing the law doth not forbid the duties of love to be done, will ye deny this work of mercy to my Disciples, that when they faint, they might not be refreshed? That this place of the Prophet is thus to be construed, that the Lord will not have sacrifice alone, but mercy withal, we may prove it by other places of the scriptures, as 1. Cor. 1 17. Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel: where the Apostle meaneth, that he was not chiefly and only sent to baptize, but to preach also. So that the place is to be understood in the way of comparison, that when one of the things cannot be conveniently done without the other be undone; then mercy, which is better than sacrifice, must be preferred, as being the issue whither Sacrifice is referred. And in this respect, though simply in themselves considered, and in respect of the persons to whom they are performed; the first table of the Law, and the duties thereof are to be preferred before the second table, and the duties thereof: yet in comparison, when one of these must of necessity be left undone, because both cannot be done together: seeing the Lord most alloweth of our obedience, when testimony thereof is witnessed by practise to his Saints, and in the exercises of love, we perform that in trueth, which otherwise we labour for but by means, the Lord desireth mercy, and not Sacrifice, and the knowledge of his will more then burnt offerings. So that herein the Disciples do not only not break, but keep the Sabbath. This argument Christ useth, Mark. 3. 4. where he being reproved, because on the Sabbath day he healed the man that had a withered hand, said to his accusers, Is it lawful to do a good deed on the Sabbath day, or to do evil? to save the life, or to kill?