of that requirement, namely, because the Jewish Church was representative, and by representatives was kept in connection with heaven: hence a violation of those representatives tended to destroy that connection, which, nevertheless, was not only of the utmost consequence to themselves, but upon it depended the preservation of the whole human race. Hence the absolute necessity of keeping those representatives inviolate, by the severest enactments.
But when the Jewish Dispensation was brought to its end, and the Lord came into the world, then those representative ordinances were abrogated. For when He who is the antitype comes, then the type or representative ceases. Moreover, it was no longer necessary that connection with heaven should be maintained by means of representatives, for the Lord Himself in his Humanity was now the bond of connection. All things were united in Him, for He was the first and the last. He was on the earth as to his body, He was in heaven as to his spirit, and above all heavens as to his essential Divinity. Thus earth, heaven, and the Divine were made one in him.
This being the case, the representatives of the Jewish Church were now abrogated, and among them the Sabbath so far as related to its merely representative character. Hence, the strict and severe commandments in regard to the external observance of the Sabbath were now no longer binding. This the Lord showed by various acts in seeming violation of the Sabbath, and for which the Pharisees, as we read, often rebuked him. Thus he healed the sick on the Sabbath-day: he
