Mark 7:1-23 - Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mark 7:3. Oft.—Literally, with the fist, hence vigorously. The idea is, that the Pharisees had inaugurated an elaborate and painstaking ceremonial, which was now adopted by the whole body of the Jews. The Evangelist may possible mean, that it was actually a part of the prescribed ritual to keep the one hand closed while the other was being rubbed with it.

Mark 7:4. Wash.—Either βαπτίσωνται, take a bath, or ῥαντίσωνται, sprinkle water over themselves. Have received to hold.—Accepted as suitable or worthy to retain (or hold fast).

Mark 7:11-13. For true reading and rendering see R. V. When an unnatural son wished, either in a temporary fit of passion, or under the goad of an abiding selfishness, to get quit of the importunity of a destitute father or mother, he had just to say, in reference to whatever was craved, Corban! and then not only was he released from obligation to assist his needy parent, but was actually bound, as by the highest authority, to withhold the desired relief. Nor was it necessary that he should actually make the offering to the service of God; he might keep it himself, or do anything he chose with it, save only that he must not give it to his parent! Could human ingenuity go further in the direction of annulling the Word of God?

Mark 7:18. Are ye so, etc.—Or, What! are ye also void of understanding?

Mark 7:19. It is difficult to determine whether the words purging (or cleansing) all meats are a part of our Lord’s discourse, or an explanatory addition by the Erangelist. The R. V., following Origen, Chrysostom, and Gregory Thaumaturgus, adopts the latter interpretation, reading καθαρίζων for the καθαρίζον of the Textus Receptus; and certainly the ἕλεγε δέ which immediately follows looks like an indication that the quotation of Christ’s words, after being broken off for a moment, is now resumed. “He saith … (and in so saying He cleanseth all meats). And He said further …”—Dr. Jas. Morison, however, while defending καθαρίζων as the true reading, thinks that it “must apparently refer to the draught, which, by receiving the refuse, draws off as it were the impurities of the food, or those elements that remain after the nutritive ingredients have been eliminated and assimilated.”—Mr. J. B. McClellan, on the other hand, decides against καθαρίζων, on the ground that although it has far the greatest external support, yet “as Wordsworth has noted, the itacism of ω and ο is so common in MSS. that this fact ‘is of little weight against the ordinary rules of grammatical construction,’ and, he might have added, against the certain requirements of the sense. It was not by the appeal and explanation to the disciples in our present verse, but by the original declaration to the multitude in Mark 7:15, that our Lord made all meats clean. Hence in the verse before us the masc. καθαρίζων is out of place in regard to our Lord. In every other reference it is grammatically untenable. With all confidence therefore we retain the neut. καθαρίζον, and construct it in apposition with the sentence.”

Mark 7:22. Covetousness.—The word is in the plural—πλεονεξίαι: “for this greedy lust of lawless having runs out on more lines than one: it is a moral monster of several tentacles: like the cuttle-fish, it puts forth many feelers armed with suckers. Avarice is a branch only of the root covetousness. Sometimes this pleonexy, or “amor sceleratus habendi,” is associated with adultery: but in that case it less denotes the lust of impurity than connotes a lawless desire to overreach one’s neighbour; for the adulterer defrauds the husband in seizing what is the husband’s property. In short, love of pleasure, and love of money, and love of power are but so many forms of this “unbridled and unhallowed possessiveness.” Wickedness.—Also in plural: villainies—active wrongdoing of all sorts. Jeremy Taylor explains it as “an aptness to do shrewd turns, to delight in mischief and tragedies; a love to trouble our neighbour and to do him ill offices; crossness, perverseness, and peevishness of action in our intercourse.” An evil eye.—Niggardliness as to one’s own possessions, and envy as to those of others. See Deuteronomy 15:9; Deuteronomy 28:54; Sir. 14:8-10; Tob. 4:7-9; Matthew 6:23; Matthew 20:15. Blasphemy.—Reviling either of God or man. Pride.—An overbearing attitude. Folly.—Senselessness or infatuation. Such is the true nature of all sin.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 7:1-23

(PARALLEL: Matthew 15:1-20.)

The tradition of men.—

I. Traditionalists conspiring against Christ.—

1. Their evil design. See John 7:1.

2. Their cunning method. They sought to bring in our Lord guilty of impiety by teaching His disciples to transgress the tradition of the elders.

II. Traditionalists confounded by Christ.—

1. By shewing that they taught for doctrines the commandments of men which were in opposition to the commandments of God.
2. By shewing the folly of these human traditions.

Lessons.—

1. A sad tendency of human nature—to honour God with the lips while the heart is far from Him.

2. The manifestation of this tendency (Mark 7:8-9).

3. The real source of evil—the human heart.

4. The manifestations of the controlling power of the sinful heart (Mark 7:21-22).

5. Real defilement before God—that of the inner source of evil.—D. C. Hughes.

Christian controversy.—Christ, when on earth, maintained two descriptions of intercourse with the people: the one was of a friendly and social nature, such as a friend maintains with his friend, when a congeniality of mind, combined with a similarity of habit, is found to subsist between them; the other was controversial, when proclaiming the true character, mind, and will of His Heavenly Father in opposition to the false opinions entertained respecting Him by the scribes and Pharisees, who, while altogether uninfluenced by the spirituality of what they taught, nevertheless maintained such strictness in the form and selfish regard for the moral requirements of religion, that, being irreproachable in the sight of men, they vainly conceived they must be equally so in the sight of God, forgetting or being wilfully ignorant that, whilst men judged from the appearance only, His all-seeing eye penetrated within the veil, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. Respecting the first of these two, namely, our Lord’s social and friendly intercourse with men, we may well conceive the meek, the gentle, yet dignified Jesus a guest within the house of one of His disciples, unfolding the nature of God to those in company with Him, announcing Him a Spirit who cannot be deceived, and who claims from His creatures a “worship in spirit and in truth,” which, when rendered, He willingly accepts, and mercifully pardons their transgressions. But though there were some who gladly received Him, and listened with the purest joy to His holy conversation, they were comparatively but few, and for the most part humble in their circumstances; whilst the great majority—the wealthy, the noble, and the learned—stood opposed to Him, ever on the watch to entangle Him in His talk, and find something whereof they might accuse Him to their rulers, and so be rid of One whose arguments they could not meet, and whose positions they could not controvert; yet with the most uncompromising integrity did the Saviour stand His ground, exposing the falsehood, the fraud, the errors, or the hypocrisy of those who from their superior education ought to have been the first to recognise Him as Messiah and submit to His authority, combating wrong notions, rectifying mistaken principles, whenever or by whomsoever advanced. This controversial intercourse in no small degree characterised our Lord’s ministry; nor could it be maintained without incurring all that hatred and opposition which the exposure of falsehood and error is sure to draw down on the person whose sense of moral responsibility would prevail to incite to it; still, disagreeable as is the office of setting those right who have been all their lives wrong, it becomes a solemn obligation, because involving the exercise of that charity or love which will not suffer us to see an immortal being persisting in a course obviously opposed to the will of God without warning him of his danger. With the psalmist the true and faithful servant of Christ can say, “All false ways I utterly abhor.” Receiving his instructions from that Divine Master, he learns “to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,” and “as a good soldier,” serving a good Master, to “endure hardness” in the contention, when others “oppose themselves” and “would pervert the right ways of the Lord,” knowing as he does that “there is no other name under heaven given among men [but Jesus Christ], whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12); nor can any man lay any other foundation on which to build his hopes for admission into heaven hereafter “than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). Thus does the Bible furnish one great saving truth, and one only, which men are called upon to receive, and which, if they reject, they reject at their peril. To proclaim God’s eternal and unalterable truth, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, is charity—love unfeigned. Would it be charity to suffer some dear friend or relative to languish from day to day upon the bed of sickness and not administer the medicine which the physician’s skill had prescribed for a cure, lest it might prove nauseous and unpalatable? Would it be charity if, passing through a town at dead of night, and seeing a house on fire, we should refrain from rousing its inhabitants, through fear of disturbing their slumbers? Or would it be charity if, observing a blind man fearlessly to approach a precipice, we should be silent, suffer him to advance on his destruction, and not tell him of his danger? We protest against such charity as this. We prefer the discharge of our duty, as faithful ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ, commissioned to preach “repentance towards God, and faith in Him who has sent us”; we are ready, in maintaining the Lord’s controversy with His people, to endure the world’s misrepresentation. Nevertheless we do maintain that “our labour is labour of love,” “the work of faith,” the fruit whereof “is charity out of a pure heart.” Our Lord did not shrink from the work which the Father had given Him to do because of the misconstruction put upon His conduct by the enemies-of righteousness, nor was He restrained by the rude rebuffs of an insolent world; no, He loved even His cruel persecutors too well to suffer them to run upon their ruin without telling them the consequences which would inevitably result, should they pass from time to eternity without effecting their reconciliation with God, through Him, the only Mediator. In what moral darkness would the world now be plunged had error and falsehood been progressing for the last eighteen hundred years in a ratio similar to what it had been up to the period of the Saviour’s manifestation in the flesh, to detect and dissipate the fearful gloom by the shining of the glorious gospel of truth into the hearts of His people! An accumulation of falsehood such as dissolved the tie of filial affection and filial duty, on the child’s telling his aged and perhaps destitute parent that it was “Corban, that is to say a gift, by whatsoever” that parent might be profited by him, suffering the son “no more to do ought for his father or his mother”—thus permitting a corrupt and unnatural tradition, derived from sinful and selfish men, virtually to repeal the fifth commandment, given by God Himself, and the unwritten expedient of human policy to supersede the unalterable will of Jehovah, proclaimed with a trumpet’s tongue amidst thunderings and lightnings and smoke, which, the people seeing, removed and stood afar off. Had falsehood thus audaciously advanced, what bonds would have proved strong enough for uniting the relative positions of society, what barriers have restrained the overflowings of ungodliness, or checked the violation of natural affection, when thus sanctioned by uninspired and lawless traditions, usurping the sacred authority of God’s Holy Word? The scribes and Pharisees ranked the foremost in opposing our Lord in all His teaching; their principal error consisted in a superstitious regard for “the traditions of the elders”; and to such a length did they carry their veneration for this description of authority that there was scarcely a passage of any moment in the sacred records that was not frittered away, and its plain and obvious meaning lost in the false glosses put upon it by these unauthorised means, “making the Word of God of none effect” through their traditions: their scrupulous exactness regarding external cleanliness made them unconcerned respecting that which was of higher importance, though hidden and unseen—the heart—and for the cleansing of which one (who, had they remembered him as an elder, it would have been well) evinced such anxiety that he prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Their spring of action, however, arising from a desire to be seen of men rendered them totally indifferent about any and everything not having human applause for its object, so that the heart, the inward part, where God requires truth to dwell, was overlooked and unattended to by them. Such were the practices and such the doctrine which our Lord on the present occasion set Himself to refute, shewing how injurious in its effect was every deviation from the written Word; for however useful the tradition of the elders might be for the well-regulating of society or establishing habits of personal cleanliness, yet it would be infinitely better to forego it altogether, than by adopting it cast a slight upon a much higher authority. To teach for doctrines the commandments of men was a most grievous error, and fraught with the most dangerous consequences, for which reason our Lord fearlessly condemns it, and nobly reproves those who, whilst professing an honour for God’s Word, would sanction a system which directly insulted it. “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites,” etc. Then instancing the case of the fifth commandment, Jesus proceeds to shew that it was not external cleanliness, or the neglect of it—washing the hands on certain occasions, or omitting it—not one sort of meat or another; in fact, “nothing from without a man, entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.” What is in the heart the heart will, like a fountain, be sending up, until changed by Divine grace; for by nature it is a corrupt fountain, and consequently “from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts,” etc. Let us take any of these evil things which abide in the heart of the unconverted and natural man, and observe its process of defilement.

1. Look at covetousness, e.g. the love of money, justly called “the root of all evil.” What can debase the soul more than this all-absorbing lust?—hours, days, weeks, months, and years, nay, a man’s entire life, passed in contrivances whereby to increase his store of gold, involving too often falsehood and deceit in order to attain his object; and when attained, with what complacency does he regard his success! Nor does moderate success satisfy him, verifying the proverb, “Much must have more,”—religion discarded, its ordinances contemned, the Lord’s Day itself polluted, that nothing may impede his unhallowed pursuit of gain. Whence come the murders, the thefts, of which our Lord speaks? Come they not from covetousness? While other evils are partial in their operation, this takes no rest, knows no intermission, will have no repose. If the laws of the land protect the property of the owner from the aggression of the violent, and the penalty attached to the violation of the law restrains the covetous man from unlawfully attacking that which is another’s, yet how near will he approach the forbidden limit! If he is honest, he is hardly so; if he does bear restraint, ’tis with a bad grace: the evil lust of covetousness withers every generous sentiment; the sons and daughters of adversity may pine and die ere the sordid mind of covetousness would be moved to commiserate or relieve; nought is known but self; gold is the idol to whose service not only the bodily energies but the affections of the heart and all the faculties of the mind are devoted.

2. Consider, also, the countless impurities contained under the head “evil thoughts.” You are quite conscious of the vain ideas which run to and fro in the mind throughout the four-and-twenty hours of the day, so vain and evil that we should feel ashamed to speak of them to our nearest or dearest friend, and would be glad were they blotted from our memory the moment they recur to us; yet God searches and knows us, etc. (Psalms 139:1-4).

3. Look, again, at the insidious working of pride, often at the very moment when we think ourselves most humble,—at one time piquing ourselves upon the elegance or beauty of our persons; at another regarding ourselves with the utmost satisfaction on a comparison with some one whom we look down upon as an inferior, either in birth, or fortune, or education, or mental capacity. Examine one or all, or which you will, of “these evil things,” and, oh! what an abyss of defilement forms itself, fed by that corrupt stream which ever flows from that polluted source, an unconverted heart, “deceitful” as it is “above all things, and desperately wicked.” Well might Abraham call himself “sinful dust and ashes,” or Job exclaim, “Behold, I am vile,” or Isaiah, “I am a man of unclean lips”: for who can know the depths of its depravity? Jesus knew them, and in our text declares them. And yet there is nothing over which we can exercise less control than our thoughts: a thought, a foolish or a corrupt thought, rises in the heart, and, like the blood in the natural system, is in an instant propelled through every inlet of the mind, and has fastened itself on us ere we are aware; and such is the strength and subtlety of that fiend who suggests the evil thought, that it not infrequently happens that what we desire to think least about is that which, through his agency, we think most of. I see from this review of my natural corrupt heart, says the newly awakened sinner, that it requires cleansing, must have renewing, must be fully converted, before I should either like heaven or be received in thither. But what can I do? It is not in my power to change my heart, and so produce a new current of thought, which would make me relish the pure and holy enjoyments of the redeemed,—the work is superhuman. Beloved, you are quite right; the work is superhuman. But though powerless in ourselves, though the work of converting the sinner’s heart is superhuman, yet it is not impossible that Christ, by whom God the Father works, having put all things in subjection to Him, having given Him all power in heaven and in earth, power even to bend the stubborn and rebellious heart of His sinful creatures, He can cleanse and purify the fountain, so that the stream of thought shall run pure and holy. What says St. Paul, after confessing himself a wretched being, unable to deliver himself from the body of death, a naturally wicked heart? “I can do all things through Christ strengthening me.” Christ has changed and renewed the hearts of millions. The way in which He accomplishes this important change is worthy of attention. First He sends His Holy Spirit into the heart, whereby the sinner is enabled to take a view of that corrupt stream which flows from it, and upon an examination of the “evil things” spoken of in our text to feel its sinfulness, then acknowledge in prostrate humility those particulars which offend us most to the Lord Jesus Christ, not in the least palliating them, but laying them open to Him in all their fearful aggravations, till we abhor ourselves, and cry, Unclean! unclean! His next influence upon the heart is to make the sinner renounce himself as bankrupt in righteousness, and desire above all things the imputation of Christ’s righteousness as his only hope. From thence he is led to recognise Christ as greater in his behalf than he who seeks his destruction. These feelings grow with his growth and strengthen with his strength, until sin is hated and shunned; and though the remains of indwelling sin may tease and harass the Christian, yet it has altogether lost its supremacy in his heart. Thus is the poor sinner changed by the Holy Spirit from the power of Satan to the power of God, and from rejoicing in the perishing things of time and sense to rejoice in God his Saviour, who has done such great things for him: from that time, also his conversation is in heaven, from whence he also looks for the Saviour.—M. J. Taylor.

Insincerity in worship.—The great sin of hypocrisy, laid by our Saviour to the charge of the Jews in His time, had been charged, long before, upon the same people by Isaiah. A sin thus chargeable upon the same people at various periods of their history may justly be considered as a national sin. But then it must be borne in mind, that it was a sin on account of which it was not competent to the Gentile world, that is, to the great bulk of mankind, to reproach the Jewish nation, or, on account of their own exemption from it, to flatter or felicitate themselves. If the Jew satisfied himself with the outward confession of God and the lip-honour he paid Him, the Gentile world did not pay even that, but offered a debasing worship to idols. So far from being in a condition to look down upon the Jew, the Gentile had a great step to take to be even upon a level with him. The Jew was so far right that he believed in “one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” The Jews’ worship was, in form and externals, such as God Himself had appointed, and their notions of Himself such as He had taught them. How then is it spoken of with disapprobation instead of praise, both by Isaiah in his time and our Saviour in His? There was the outward shew, not the inward feeling; great professions, but little practice; long prayers, and cold hearts. A question then arises whether we of these times and this nation are concerned in our Lord’s remark. Now I hope there is neither flattery nor self-deceit in saying that it is not true of us in the same sense and degree as it was of the Jews. I find what I think to be error, wrongheadedness, an uncharitable and angry spirit, in the language and writings of men, on religious subjects, but little that I can presume to call insincerity. Then, again, the endeavour to make up by high professions and scrupulosity in little things for laxity in great things is a vain endeavour now. Men are disgusted by such attempts. They look with a more indulgent eye upon the open and avowed violator of God’s laws, than upon him who, by a shew of piety, would cover or make up for a selfish and licentious life. But although the sin of hypocrisy should not be chargeable, as a national sin, upon us at this time, in the same degree that it was upon the Jews in our Saviour’s time and in the time of Isaiah, it still remains for each man to ask himself whether it be chargeable upon him as an individual in any degree or sense. I fear we shall find that there is a sense in which it is chargeable upon us all.

1. I lay the case of the blasphemer out of consideration, as one that can consist only with an estranged state of the heart from God, and as one not falling within the range of our Lord’s observation, and I would ask whether we are not oftentimes forgetful of God, when engaged, not in things which He has forbidden, but even in things which He has commanded. When we pray, for example, are we then all of us, are we any of us, so attentive as we ought to be to the work we are about? It is the mind, the serious and attentive mind, that gives life to forms and effect to prayer. It is, no doubt, a difficult thing to keep the attention fixed upon the proper object of worship, and to prevent the intrusion of idle thoughts.
(1) One reason of this may be, that that object is invisible, and “no man hath seen God at any time.” It was, I presume, as an expedient to help attention, and as a resource against the difficulty we speak of, that image-worship came to be so much practised.
(2) Another reason is, that when we are engaged in our ordinary work-day business, we are wont, without ceasing from that business or neglecting it at all, to give the mind leave to range and wander through a variety of subjects. Practice has made us so perfect in those operations whereby we have long earned our bread, that we can perform them correctly with a degree of attention so slight that we are hardly conscious of exerting it. Now this is not only pleasant, but innocent, if the thoughts be employed upon things innocent. But this will not do in worship. If the mind is not in this work it cannot prosper. We can say our prayers, no doubt, as we can do other familiar things, with little exertion of attention, and give the thoughts leave to settle on other subjects; but when we do so we pray in vain, or, more properly speaking, do not pray at all. That is wanting which is essential to prayer—an attentive mind and an awakened heart. It has been recommended to those who lament their proneness to this wandering inattention in prayer not to clothe their private addresses to God with any words—not to say, but as it were to think their prayers to God. This advice proceeds upon the supposition that the method of using thought alone, unclothed in words, may prevent self-deceit, and make us at once perceive that if we are not praying internally, with the understanding and the feelings, we are doing nothing.
2. Again, we may be said to worship God in vain, and to draw nigh to Him with our lips while our hearts are far from Him, if we continue in sin, or intend so to do. The principal subject of a good man’s prayers is grace—the grace of God, and the help of the Holy Spirit to his naturally infirm endeavours to resist temptation. But such prayer is poisoned at its source, if it be not faithful, if it be not accompanied with a faithful and unreserved intention and willingness on the part of him who prays to part with his sins and with whatever causes him to sin.
3. These things make worship vain, and they spring from a defect in the heart, that is, in the disposition with respect to God, which it concerns us before all things to remove. It is to be removed by more positive and earnest endeavours than have yet been used to keep the mind intent upon its work, and by cries for the help of that Holy Spirit which is said to “help our infirmities,” especially in that work.—A. Gibson.

Zeal and diligence in false worship no ground of comfort.—

I. It is a vain and unprofitable sign to support and comfort ourselves by, that we are diligent in the worship of God, if not commanded by Him.—

1. It lieth as a necessary duty upon all to worship and serve God. Now this worship and service may be either internal, or external, or mixed, compounded of both: internal consists in our love of God above all things, faith and hope in Him, obedience to His commands, which Scripture preferreth before all external worship; external is that of adoration and inclination of the body, kissing the hand, bowing the knee, dedicating temples, altars, and offering of sacrifices; mixed is compounded of both these, such as calling upon God’s name by petition and thanksgiving.
2. This worship and service of God is not given to God because He needs it or is made more happy thereby. God is no more better by our worship than the fountain is because a man drinks of it, or the sun because a man seeth by the light of it. Such do not advantage the fountain or the sun, but their own selves. So God hath appointed this worship, not that He might receive good from us, but communicate good to us.
3. Such is the infinite excellency and majesty of God, that we are to tremble and greatly to be ashamed of any worship or service we tender to Him. The angels, that are not conscious to the least sin in themselves, but are pure above the sun, that cannot call themselves dust and ashes, yet cover their faces before God.
4. God only may appoint that worship which He will accept of. The deformity of an ape lieth in being so like a man, and yet not a man; so doth the loathsomeness of all false worship lie in this, that it imitateth the worship of God, but indeed it is not so.

5. Our Lord briefly lays down what is acceptable worship unto Him (John 4:22). To worship God in the spirit is to have a spiritual and holy inward frame of heart in all our addresses to Him. This is worshipping of God in a way the most of men are not acquainted with. Oh, it is a hard matter to have a spiritual man in prayer, hearing, and other worship! And indeed this is the soul and life of the service of God. The other way of worship is in truth, which by some is explained against hypocrisy and guile of spirit; for this God complaineth of, that they drew nigh with their mouths, but their hearts were far from God. Lastly, as a Father, they must worship, though humbly, yet not slavishly and servilely. Seneca speaketh of the superstitious, intimidated person, that while he worships God he provoketh Him.

6. Howsoever worship of God be commanded by Him, yet such is the nature of all moral duties that the obedience to them is required before any instituted worship. “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”; go and learn what that meaneth, saith our Saviour: insomuch that comparatively to obedience God is said not to command these at all.
7. The heart of man is exceeding subtle and ingenious to palliate over all false worship: insomuch that there never were superstitious abuses of God’s worship, but that there have been learned men and wise men to plead for them.

II. Why men addicted to false worship, though they much admire themselves, yet are indeed vain men, and lean upon vain props.—

1. Because always such persons have the bitterest enmity against true godliness.
2. Here is no ground of confidence in these, because they are consistent with the ordinary practice of gross and sinful courses.
3. If a man may not rely or trust on the instituted worship of God, yea, nor on the graces wrought by God’s Spirit in us, then much less in a worship of his own. If thy own graces are not helmet strong enough to repel God’s wrath, then thy own voluntary worship is but as so many cobwebs, when a furious tempest bloweth upon them.
4. These are not to be relied upon, which are vain and unprofitable, and so frustrate of that end we expect. Now the text saith, “In vain do they worship Me”; other duties commanded by God, though they are not pillars to be leaned on, yet they are not vain. God saith not to Jacob, to seek His face in vain, but all this service is lost labour: “Who hath required all these things at your hands?” Now of all things to labour in vain in religious matters is the saddest expense of all. After all that zeal thou art never a whit the nearer heaven, thou art no more endeared to God. Thy state is noways spiritually advantaged: yea, though it be a fruitless labour one way, yet it is not another way; for there is a fruit of these labours, but it is bitterness and wormwood—God is more provoked by thee.
5. That which is a sad curse and fruit of former sins, that can be little comfort to any man that rightly considereth of things. Thus we say it is an absurd thing to be proud of clothes, for in that thou needest clothing it is an argument thou art fallen from integrity and innocency. But in this matter the curse of God is more wonderful upon thee, for all that admiration and applause of false worship is inflicted upon thee as a punishment, because thou hast not received the truth in the love of it.
6. These of all men are in a most unsafe estate (notwithstanding their security), because they are in a most absolute contrariety and indisposition for receiving of Christ, in whom only our souls have rest. Publicans and harlots went to heaven before the Pharisees. Why so? Because the former were sooner convinced of their sin, their undone estate, and so more willingly flying unto Christ.—A. Burgess.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mark 7:1-2. Fault-finding.—Those see most faults in others who have most themselves. None are such critics of small faults as those guilty of grave ones. Beware of fault-finding. He that censures others cures not himself.—R. Glover.

We must not always follow great men.—Those who for their place and calling should be greatest friends and favourers of Christ and His followers are often greatest enemies and readiest to oppose them.

1. See how unfit it is to tie ourselves to the example of great men in the Church in matters of religion—not safe always to follow them, for so we may with them become the worst enemies of Christ and His Church. 2. Admonition to great men in high place in the Church to use their dignity, place, and office to the honour of Christ and good of His Church.—G. Petter.

Mark 7:3-4. Lessons.—

1. It is the manner of hypocrites to tie others to their own practice and example in matters of religion, and to censure all uncharitably who do not conform to them even in trifles.
2. Hypocrites put religion and holiness in outward rites, ceremonies, and superstitious observances, and think that by performance of these they become holy and acceptable before God.
3. Superstition makes wise men become foolish, absurd, and childish, in busying and troubling themselves about trifles and toys.—Ibid.

Rabbinical washings.—The legal washing of the hands before eating was especially sacred to the Rabbinist; not to do so was a crime as great as to eat the flesh of swine. “He who neglects hand-washing,” says the book Sohar, “deserves to be punished here and hereafter.” “He is to be destroyed out of the world, for in hand-washing is contained the secret of the Ten Commandments.” “He is guilty of death.” It was laid down that the hands were first to be washed clean. The tips of the ten fingers were then joined and lifted up, so that the water ran down to the elbows, then turned down so that it might run off to the ground. Fresh water was poured on them as they were lifted up, and twice again as they hung down. The washing itself was to be done by rubbing the fist of one hand in the hollow of the other. When the hands were washed before eating, they must be held upwards; when after it, downwards, but so that the water should not run beyond the knuckles. The vessel used must be held first in the right, then in the left hand; the water was to be poured first on the right, then on the left hand; and at every third time the words repeated, “Blessed art Thou who hast given us the command to wash the hands.”—C. Geikie, D.D.

The “tradition of the elders” was an after-growth of the Captivity, originating not improbably with the Great Synagogue, out of which the Sanhedrin was developed. The reverence and care for Holy Scripture, revived by Ezra, and fostered by later scribes, were handed down from generation to generation, and treated with so much honour that the highest authority was sought for their origin. Some Rabbi, bolder than his predecessors, put forward the theory that God had given to Moses not only the Ten Commandments, but also at the same time a full explanation, even in the minutest detail, of all their applications. This Oral Law, he said, had been revealed by Moses to Aaron and his sons, and the memory of it was cherished and handed on without any loss or diminution in the progress of transmission. As soon as such a view of its origin had gained acceptance with the people, its authority became equally binding upon the conscience with that of the Written Law, and the estimation in which it was held even higher. In lapse of time it received its interpretation at the hands of the Rabbis, and the disquisitions, illustrations, and additions grew into a great body of doctrine; and after the Jewish motto “Commit nothing to writing” had been forgotten, these were all combined in a vast collection, under the title of Gemara, or Talmud. The publication in writing of the Mishnah itself, as the Oral Law was called, had preceded it by two hundred years. It was issued authoritatively by Rabbi Judah, the Holy, at the close of the second century of the Christian era.—Dean Luckock.

There were two familiar sayings among the later Jews which enable us to understand how widely traditionalism must have conflicted with the teaching of Christ. “The words of the elders,” they said, “are of more weight than the words of the prophets”; and, even more startling than this, “The Mosaic Law is as water, the Mishnah as wine, and the Gemara as hippocras” (a richly spiced drink, most highly esteemed).—Ibid.

The traditions of the elders were all, without exception, the product of the later ages of the Jewish dispensation in the time of its decay and fall, when it was at its worst; whereas the opinions and practices which are invidiously called “traditions” in these days, i.e. the opinions and practices of the earliest Fathers of the Christian Church, are the products of the earliest ages of the Christian religion, when it was at its best, and was least contaminated with the influence of the world from without, and kept most pure by godly discipline from within. The opinions of the Fathers on the interpretation of Scripture, when they can be ascertained, are far more likely to be in accord with its real meaning than any opinions or practices of later ages.—M. F. Sadler.

Mark 7:6-9. The external preferred.—It may seem almost incredible that men should leave the simple principles of righteousness for a region so barren and burdensome as that of external observances. But the secret is not difficult to find.

1. External acts can be seen and felt by oneself, and so can give complacency.
2. They can be seen by others, and thus can gain credit.
3. They are easier than walking with God. To approach Him needs the courage of purity and penitence; and to take His guidance requires perpetually the self-denial and consecration of faith.—R. Glover.

The abuse of ceremonies.—It cannot be too carefully noticed that no condemnation is passed upon these rites of purification in themselves. Had the Pharisees recognised their symbolism and deep moral significance, had Jesus been certain that when they washed their hands they thought of or prayed for purity of heart and life, He would have been the last person to rebuke them, however much they multiplied external forms and ceremonies. These are useful as stepping-stones to higher things; but the moment they begin to satisfy in themselves they become snares and lead to superstition.—Dean Luckock.

Mark 7:6-7. The whole Old Testament history was prophetic of Christ and of those around Him in this respect, that everywhere in the continually recurring contest between light and darkness, between truth and error, there were displayed the types of that which, in its highest energy, developed itself in and around Christ.—H. Olshausen, D.D.

Mark 7:9. Irony sometimes lawful.—In that Christ here, by this sharp irony or taunting speech, derides the gross superstition of the scribes and Pharisees, we may gather that it is lawful to deride and scoff at the sins and unlawful practices of others, especially at the gross and notorious sins of the wicked and ungodly. See 1 Kings 18:27; Isaiah 44. Yet some cautions are to be observed for the lawful use of such ironical reproofs of sin.

1. They must proceed from a holy and upright affection in such as use them, viz. from zeal for God’s glory, and hatred of sin, and not from private malice or revenge.
2. They must tend to the right end, viz. God’s glory, and the good of the party reproved, that by such a sharp and taunting reproof he may, if possible, be brought to be ashamed of his sin, and to be touched with remorse for it, as also to grow in dislike and hatred of it: not the disgrace of the person is to be sought, but the disgrace of the sin reproved, and the reformation of the person.
3. Such taunts and ironies are to be used against sin in due manner, i.e. after a grave and serious manner, not with shew of lightness or vanity.—G. Petter.

Mark 7:15. The heart the seat of defilement.—

1. Material processes cannot produce spiritual effects.
2. The true source of spiritual pollution is the heart. The internal translates itself into the external.

3. But the principle itself implies that the body may be defiled. See 1 Corinthians 3:16-17. The sins enumerated by our Lord (Mark 7:21-23) shew themselves in words and deeds, and defile the tongue, the eye, the hand, etc. They who commit them yield their members as servants of iniquity unto iniquity (Romans 6:19).

4. Our Lord did not sanction indifference to the use and abuse of food and drink, to habits of personal cleanliness and filthiness. The principle He lays down witnesses to the contrary. These matters are under our control, and indicate our tastes and tendencies, our desires, choice, will—in one word, our character.
5. No man, however, can put his heart right, or keep it right. For the first is needed the converting, for the second the sustaining and restraining grace of God. True morality needs a supernatural foundation and continuously bestowed Divine energy. The very idea of inward purity points us to the Holy Spirit and the new birth.—J. R. Gregory.

Mark 7:16. An important rule.—This rule must needs be of very great importance to Christians. For our Great Master—

1. Calls the people unto Him on purpose to tell them only this.
2. He requires of them a particular attention.
3. He requires it of every one of them without exception.
4. He exhorts them to endeavour thoroughly to understand it.
5. He lets them know that in order to do it they have need of a singular grace and a particular gift of understanding. It was for want of understanding this rule that the Jews still remained Jews, adhering to a mere external way of worship. It is for the very same reason that numbers of Christians, even to this day, serve God more like Jews than Christians.—P. Quesnel.

Mark 7:17. Dulness in spiritual matters.—

1. See here how great dulness and slowness of capacity there is, even in the best Christians, to conceive spiritual and heavenly matters when they are taught them.
2. The best should not be ashamed to acknowledge their own ignorance in spiritual matters to such as are able to teach them, that so they may be better informed and instructed.
3. It is commendable in Christians to move profitable questions unto their teachers or others.—G. Petter.

Mark 7:18. The Saviour refers to the material things that enter into a man through his mouth. His principle, however, is applicable, on a higher plane of reference, to spiritual things too which come in from without. These, however noxious, cannot of themselves defile a man. “The man within the breast” must act in reference to them before guilt can be contracted.—J. Morison, D.D.

Mark 7:19. Lessons.—

1. The wisdom of God shewn in the frame of man’s body, ordaining every part for necessary ends and uses. See how it should be in the body of the Church: there should be no unprofitable member, but even the meanest should so live as to further the good of the whole (1 Corinthians 12:25).

2. Howsoever the belly serves for necessary use in man’s body, yet it is for such use as is base and vile in comparison of most of the other parts of the body. See then the sin of those who serve and worship their belly, as if they were born for no other end but to eat and drink.—G. Petter.

Mark 7:20-23. Heart-defilement.—This is a hard saying, but our conscience acknowledges the truth of it. We are not the toy of circumstances, but such as we have made ourselves; and our lives would have been pure if the stream had flowed from a pure fountain. However modern sentiment may rejoice in highly coloured pictures of the noble profligate and his pure-minded and elegant victim; of the brigand or the border ruffian full of kindness, with a heart as gentle as his hands are red; and however true we may feel it to be that the worst heart may never have betrayed itself by the worst actions, but many that are first shall be last,—it still continues to be the fact, and undeniable when we do not sophisticate our judgment, that “all these evil things proceed from within.” It is also true that they further “defile the man.” The corruption which already existed in the heart is made worse by passing into action; shame and fear are weakened; the will is confirmed in evil; a gap is opened and widened between the man who commits a new sin and the virtue on which he has turned his back.—Dean Chadwick.

Mark 7:20. Inward corruption.—That which St. James saith of the tongue (Mark 3:6) is much more true of man’s corrupt heart, without the sanctifying grace of God renewing and changing it, and purging it from this natural filthiness and corruption of sin.

1. Labour to see and bewail this great corruption of our own heart. To this end examine and view our own heart often in the glass of God’s law. And we must deal thoroughly in searching out the corruptions of the heart, remembering how deceitful it is, and how hard to know it.
2. See what need for us to get our heart purged and cleansed from this sink and puddle of sin which is in it.
(1) By the power and efficacy of God’s sanctifying Spirit.
(2) By the ministry of the Word.
(3) Get true faith, apprehending God’s saving love and mercy in Christ.
3. See by this how great a work is the work of regeneration and sanctification, whereby the heart must be purged from such a world of wickedness and sea of filthiness. Such a work is not easily done, or soon. The whole time of our life is too little for doing it thoroughly.—G. Petter.

The thoughts.—Nothing seems of less consequence than a thought—so silent, swift, subtle, is it, and yet in that lightning-flash of the brain, in that throb of the heart, in that fiat of the will, in that airy nothing, all the vast things of man’s history, its grandeur and its grief, have their birth. The heart of man is the gateway of strange worlds, and through it are ever gliding thoughts fraught with infinite consequence to the individual and to the race. Let not the Church of God abandon that appeal to reason, to conscience, to the hearts of men, which is the true preaching of the gospel of Christ.—W. L. Watkinson.

Imagination.—Says Jacob Boehme in a deep passage, “All now depends on what I set my imagination upon.” Setting his imagination upon the kingdom of God, upon the highest objects, patterns, and callings of the spiritual universe, the believer conquers successively all selfishness and sensuality, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. All depends upon what we set our imagination—upon the ideals we choose. upon the vivid realisation of those ideals, upon the daily striving toward those ideals, upon the faithful, confiding surrender of the soul to those ideals.—Ibid.

Inward renewal needed.—We need all the faculties and powers of our inward being renewing. We need our conscience to bear us witness in the Holy Ghost; our imagination to eye supremest ideals of light and beauty, and urge its flight thitherto as the eagle seeks the sun; our will by virtue of a Divine strengthening to become imperative and invincible; our affections to be filled, dominated, by the sovereign love of God. Nothing but this new heart and right spirit will meet the case. Let us begin here, and all will be well. Out of the heart shall proceed good thoughts, and out of them all fair and noble characteristics and actions.—Ibid.

Mark 7:21-23. The things that defile.—At the head of the list Christ places the “evil disputings” so fresh in His memory from His encounter with the Pharisees; then adulteries and fornications, the outcome of a corrupt imagination; murders, which proceed from anger; thefts and covetousness, from secret promptings to overreach others and gain more than one has a right to; knaveries and fraud; lasciviousness or reckless insolence, which outrages the decencies of life; the malicious glance and slanderous tongue; the proud and haughty bearing which bespeaks the self-centred man; and last in the list, the comprehensive sin of foolishness, which embraces every senseless, wicked act.—Dean Luckock.

Mark 7:21. Evilthoughts.—Evil thoughts in the heart are like internal diseases of the body, very dangerous and very difficult of cure. Stealthy in effecting a lodgment, but most tenacious in maintaining their hold; singly appearing of little consequence, mere specks of human infirmity upon the soul, but soon spreading and leavening the whole being with their corruption, constituting our character and deciding our eternal state,—we cannot afford to make light of these enemies of our peace. A constant watchfulness against their approach, promptitude in repressing their incursion; the diligent study, the conscientious practice of every method that may help against their power,—this is the bounden duty of every Christian who sincerely desires to keep himself unspotted from the world, or to recover himself from the dominion of past sin. St. Paul speaks of God as “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” and declares that “all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” In the prophet we have God asserting this prerogative (Ezekiel 11:5). And so the psalmist appeals to His omniscience (Psalms 139:1). And thus we are told on the eve of the Deluge, Genesis 6:5-6. The indulgence of an evil thought is as much an offence against God as an injurious speech or a blow is an offence against our neighbour. Even under the Old Testament we have the wise man declaring, Proverbs 24:9. And in the New Testament, in the Sermon on the Mount, our Saviour still more expressly declares that the gospel law reaches to the thoughts and intents of the heart (Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:28). And by this law shall we give account in the end. And it is just that it should be so. The prevailing character of our thoughts is the best index of our spiritual state. For it is not always what we actually do, but what we would do, if we could, what we wish for, and think about, and take delight in—this it is which constitutes our moral character for good or evil, and decides our state before God. Evil thoughts are the beginning and source of all iniquities. We think we are safe. We mean to draw back in time. But some sudden impulse takes us; our resolution gives way, and we fall headlong. And though, by mercy above our deserts, we do stop short of any flagrant act of sin, yet the mere indulgence of evil thoughts imprints a character and stamp upon the heart which years of sorrow and conscientious striving will often fail to obliterate. The soul becomes engrained with evil, and evil becomes connatural to the soul. It acquires a sad facility for uncharitable suppositions. It becomes wonderfully apt at finding fuel for its vanity in the most indifferent circumstances. It will contract fresh stains from objects upon which a purer mind would rest without experiencing any affection of evil; while grosser suggestions will fall upon such a diseased soul like sparks upon tinder, and inflame it into evil passions at once. And this will last on, when those sins have been utterly renounced, when the soul has checked itself in its wilfulness, and has turned sincerely to God, and is striving to walk daily in His fear, and to cleanse itself from iniquity; still will the shadows of his past life darken the repentant sinner’s path, and embarrass his efforts in religion; and in his holiest moments, even upon his knees, before the altar, will some train of evil thought start up suddenly, and take possession of that soul which has been used formerly to delight in them.

1. The most general, perhaps, are vain thoughts. Young people are most open to them, but they are congenial enough to all. We are all too apt to dwell with complacency upon the thing we excel in; we long for an opportunity of displaying our abilities; we please ourselves by imagining how much better we could have acquitted ourselves than a neighbour has done; we plan all sorts of schemes for the future, abandon ourselves to the most extravagant reveries, picture imaginary scenes and positions, and fancy how we should act in them. The habit of indulging such thoughts is weak and foolish indeed, but it is more, it is sinful. It is an artifice for gaining food for our vanity out of an imaginary future, when the ordinary tenor of our daily life yields too humble materials to please us. It dissipates our energies, it injures our religion, and estranges us from God.
2. In close connexion with vain thoughts we must place discontented thoughts. By overrating his ability, and by dreaming of the future, a man gets dissatisfied with his present lowly position, and thinks himself equal to something much more trying and important.
3. Next I may name uncharitable thoughts. We are all too apt to take dislikes, to impute motives, to rehearse over to ourselves the affronts we have received, to take pains to make out that we have been ill used, and be glad when we have fixed upon some reasonable ground for being angry.
4. But I have yet to name the most evil of all those evil thoughts which proceed out of the heart and defile a man; I mean impure thoughts—the most dangerous and the most difficult to conquer of all our inward corruptions; and yet one, it is to be feared, in which too many indulge without much compunction, thinking it enough so long as they abstain from grosser acts of shame. It is to this sort of evil thoughts that Bishop Beveridge’s words seem particularly to belong, when he recalls the experience he had had of the devil’s temptations, and the working of his own corruptions; by which he says: “I find that there is no sin I am betrayed into but what takes it rise from my froward thoughts. These are the tempters that first present some pleasing objects to my view, and then bias my understanding and pervert my will to comply with the suggestions. So that though the Spirit of God is pleased to dart a beam into my heart at the same time, and shew me the odious and dangerous effect of such thoughts, yet, I know not how or why, I find a prevailing suggestion within that tells me it is but a thought, and that so long as it goes no further it cannot do me much hurt. Under this specious colour and pretence I secretly persuade myself to dwell a little longer upon it; and finding my heart pleased and delighted with its natural issue, I give it a little further indulgence, till at last my desire breaks out into a flame, and will be satisfied with nothing less than the enjoyment of the object it is exercised upon.”

5. There are other evil thoughts less under our control. We are liable to be afflicted by blasphemous thoughts, by unbelieving thoughts, and by desponding thoughts, which may indeed owe their origin to past sins, but which may be injected by Satan, or induced by bodily weakness, or arise from ignorance or misapprehension of revealed truth. When our minds are thus disordered, we are not fit judges of our own estate, and our remedy is to have recourse to some discreet and learned minister of God’s Word, and to open our grief.
6. Against the other evil thoughts I mentioned our remedy lies more within our reach, and various rules may be given for resisting them. The first and most obvious is prayer—painstaking, earnest prayer. Avoid all occasions of sinning. Avoid the great snare of having time on your hands. Avoid vicious books. Forbear to read the details of crime in the public prints: they can do you no good; they may corrupt your mind with suggestions of evil. And when evil thoughts assail you, flee them at once. I do not advise any one to argue against them. Your plan is to turn your attention at once to something else; to go and do something, to think of something, different. And accordingly we must store our minds with subjects of meditation; we must get hymns and psalms by heart, or favourite pieces of Scripture; and directly an evil thought assails us, we must begin and say to ourselves one or other of these, and we shall so succeed in foiling the enemy of souls. And when we have sinned in thought, we should take notice of it in our nightly examination, and humble ourselves for it before God. We must strive, we must hope, and we shall overcome. We have the Spirit of God pledged to us to transform our affections and desires, to make us new hearts and new spirits, and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.—C. F. Secretan.

Mark 7:22. An evil eye.—Oh, how can we hope with Job to “see our Redeemer,” with these eyes so vain, so proud, so wanton, so polluted, so prostitute! They had need be well washed with the eye-water of penitent tears, and then with the blood of Christ (Matthew 5:8; Psalms 119:37; 1 John 3:3; Job 31:1).—Bishop Gauden.

The eye the window of the soul.—The mind looks through the eye; so does the heart. Lactantius beautifully compares the eyes to glazed windows, through which the mind beholds. “And therefore,” adds he, “the mind and will are often discerned from the eyes.” Salvianus uses the same comparison of windows, but adds that hence “all wicked desires enter into the heart through the eyes, as through their natural avenues.” But the Saviour unfolds here a far profounder philosophy, when He says that the evil desires arise in the heart, and come looking out wistfully at the eyes.—J. Morison, D.D.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 7

Mark 7:6-7. Externalism in religion.—How many striking examples might be cited where men have united the form of godliness with the mystery of iniquity, under the manifest impression that their great zeal for religious observances atoned for their moral delinquencies, or that the latter were entirely overlooked on account of the approbation they earned by the former! We are told that Ivan the Terrible retired sometimes to a monastery which he had built, for his religious improvement. He rang the bell for matins himself at three o’clock in the morning. “During the services, which lasted many hours, he read, chanted, and prayed with such fervour that the marks of his prostrations remained on his forehead. But at intervals he went to the dungeons to see with his own eyes his prisoners tortured, and always returned, it was observed, with a face beaming with delight.” What a mingling it was of diabolical cruelty with religious service! Christianity, in its corrupt branches, abounds in such absurdities. That is the way they became corrupt—by setting up a false standard of righteousness, by accepting zeal and fidelity in the observance of the forms of worship as a substitute for genuine piety.

Lip-service.—Panchcowrie, a Hindoo convert, thus spoke one day in the market: “Some think they will avert God’s displeasure by frequently taking His name on their lips, and saying, ‘O Excellent God!’ ‘O Ocean of Wisdom!’ ‘O Sea of Love!’ and so on. To be sure, God is all this; but whoever heard of a debt being paid in words instead of rupees! God says to such people, ‘Ye hypocrites, why do you honour Me with your lips when your heart is far from Me?’ ”

Routine service.—Go out with me into the woods, where the white oak is, and where the beech is. Their leaves died last November, but they all hang on the trees yet. The trees have not strength enough to slough them. They always make me think of a great many people. Sap does not run in them any more, but their duties hang on them like dead leaves all over. They would not like to drop their duties—they are not quite in that state yet; but those duties are dry, sapless, and enforced.

Mark 7:9. God’s commandments and human rules.—The experience is a universal one, that God’s commandments suffer from the competition of human rules. The great precepts of God have only an unseen God behind them, but behind the human rules there is generally a class whose pride is gratified by their observance and incensed by their neglect. Accordingly, whenever small rules of outward conduct begin to flourish, the great principles of religion—faith, love, honour—fall into the background. It is so to-day. The Thug in India who confessed to having killed three hundred and twenty people had no pangs of conscience for killing them, but was somewhat distressed on account of having killed a few of them after a hare had crossed his path or a bird whistled in a certain direction. Murder was no crime in his opinion, but the neglect of an omen from Bowany was a grave one. In Hindooism, which is ceremonial throughout, a man may be a most religious man, and yet very wicked. Many in our own country would unscrupulously commit great crimes, and yet be very careful to avoid eating flesh on Good Friday. It seems as if we only had a certain amount of power of attention in us, and, if it goes to little rules, there is none left for great principles.

A hypocritical regard for ceremonial.—A traveller in Russia tells the following of a lady who, leaving a party of companions in St. Petersburg, called a hack and directed the driver to take her home. Instead of following her directions, he drove her to a deserted part of the city, murdered her, and, taking her jewels, threw her body into the canal. As he returned to the city he was arrested. The murdered lady had with her a basket of pie; when asked why he did not eat that, the murderer replied, “It was Lent. How could I think of eating that—it may contain meat; and I am, thank God, a good Christian.” We sometimes express an abhorrence of insignificant things when our hearts are set on the vilest of sins.

Mark 7:10. Honouring parents.—We call the Chinese heathen, and yet they have some customs that would do credit to a Christian people. On every New Year morning each man and boy, from the emperor to the lowest peasant, pays a visit to his mother. He carries her a present, varying in value according to his station, thanks her for all she has done for him, and asks a continuance of her favour another year. They are taught to believe that mothers have an influence for good over their sons all through life.

Mark 7:15. A self-evident truth.—Christ does not stop to prove that these things come out of the heart. He asserts it, and asserts it because it is self-evident. When you see a thing coming forth, you are clear it was there first. One summer I noticed hornets continually flying from a number of decayed logs in my garden. I saw them constantly flying in and out, and I did not think myself at all unreasonable in concluding that there was a hornets’ nest there. And so, if we see the hornets of sin flying out of a man, we suppose at once there is sin within him.

Mark 7:20. Concupiscence.—A gentleman was once extolling loudly the virtue of honesty, saying what a dignity it imparted to our nature, and how it recommended us to the favour of God. “Sir,” replied his friend, “however excellent the virtue of honesty may be, I fear there are very few men in the world who really possess it.” “You surprise me,” said a stranger. “Ignorant as I am of your character,” was the reply, “I fancy it would be no difficult matter to prove even you to be a dishonest man.” “I defy you.” “Will you give me leave, then, to ask you a question or two, and promise not to be offended?” “Certainly.” “Have you never met with an opportunity of getting gains by unfair means? I don’t say, Have you taken advantage of it? but, Have you ever met with such an opportunity? I, for my part, have; and I believe everybody else has.” “Very probably I may.” “How did you feel your mind affected on such an occasion? Had you no secret desire, not the least inclination, to seize the advantage which offered? Tell me without any evasion, and consistently with the character you admire.” “I must acknowledge I have not always been absolutely free from every irregular inclination; but—” “Hold! sir, none of your salvos; you have confessed enough. If you had the desire, though you never proceeded to the act, you were dishonest in heart. This is what the Scriptures call concupiscence. It defiles the soul; it is a breach of that law which requireth truth in the inward parts, and, unless you are pardoned through the blood of Christ, it will be a just ground for your condemnation, when God shall judge the secrets of men.”

Mark 7:21. Origin of sin.—When a young man consulted John Newton touching the origin of evil, the divine replied that he was more anxious to get sin out of the world than to know how it came into the world. But really this saying is not so wise as it seems, for to know where sin takes its rise is of first consequence in attempting its extirpation. In the soul Christ declared that it took its origin, and in the soul Christ sought to deal with it, supplying a spiritual antidote for a spiritual plague.

Sin has its source in the heart.—At present there are two theories in the field to explain the origin of contagious diseases—the parasitic theory, and the theory of the innate character of diseases. The parasitic theory assumes that diseases are originated by microbes first diffused in the atmosphere, and then taken into the system by the air we breathe, the water we drink, the things we touch. The advocates of the innate character of diseases hold, on the contrary, that the disease is spontaneously developed in the patient; the first cause is in morbid changes which are purely chemical, changes produced in the actual substance of the tissues and secretions without any external intervention of microbes—the microbes, where they really exist, being only a secondary phenomenon, a complication, and not the scientific cause which actually determines the disease. Now, whatever may be the exact truth in this biological controversy, it is evident that the first cause of such disease must be sought in a defect of life, a feebleness, a certain untoward disposition and receptivity in the organism itself. The phylloxera devastates the French vineyards because the vines have been exhausted by excessive cultivation; tuberculosis fastens upon man because of obscure conditions of bodily weakness and susceptibility; vigorous plants and robust constitutions defying the foreign destructive bodies which may fill the air—extrinsic influence and excitement counting for little where the intrinsic tendency does not exist. Revelation assumes that the man morally occupies much the same position. Environment brings the opportunity for evil, the solicitation or provocation to evil, so far do evil communications corrupt good manners; but the first cause of all must be found in the heart itself, in its lack of right direction, sympathy, and force; in a word, the scientific cause of sin is the spiritual cause.

Evil thoughts.—A quaint preacher says, “Beware how ye tarry in the painting-chamber of the devil,” by which he warns the young Christian to be on his watch against the way in which Satan seduces the imagination. When evil thoughts and unholy desires intrude into the soul, it is like a fiery dart finding its way into a powder magazine. The only safety is to stamp it out at once. If we let the spark of fire smoulder on, soon all will be wrapped in flames.

The commencements of evil to be rejected.—It is true that no man can determine who shall knock at his door, but every man can determine who shall come in through his door. It is true that no man can say, “I will not have wrong thoughts”; such thoughts will come into a man’s mind without his permission; but it is within the power of every man to say whether or not he will entertain them. If, however, a man entertains evil thoughts, he cannot tell whether the conflagration will or will not spread. A man sits down upon a prairie upon an autumnal day, when everything is dry and parched, and sets fire to the leaves and grass, saying, “I will stamp it out; I merely want a little blaze here for my own use”; but when he attempts to stamp it out, the fire is quicker-footed than he. Though he rushes from side to side and does the best he can to extinguish it, it is not stamped out, but gains on him right and left, and by-and-by it opens its wings and flies all over the prairie, destroying insects, and beasts, and human beings, and property of every kind, travelling like a whirlwind.

Bias of the heart.—The bowl runs as the bias inclines it; the ship moves as the rudder steers it; and the mind thinks according to the predominancy of vice or virtue in it. The heart of man is like the spring of the clock, which causes the wheels to move right or wrong, well or ill. If the heart once set forward for God, all the members will follow after; all the parts, like dutiful handmaids, in their places, will wait on their mistress. The heart is the great workhouse where all sin is wrought before it is exposed to open view. It is the mint where evil thoughts are coined, before they are current in our words or actions. It is the forge where all our evil works as well as words are hammered out. There is no sin but is dressed in the withdrawing-room of the heart, before it appears on the stage of life. It is vain to go about a holy life till the heart be made holy. The pulse of the hand beats well or ill, according to the state of the heart. If the chinks of the ship are unstopped, it will be to no purpose to labour at the pump. When the water is foul at the bottom, no wonder that scum and filth appear at the top. There is no way to stop the issue of sin but by drying up the matter that feeds it.—G. Swinnock.

A bad heart:—A certain little boy in Kansas, only eleven years old, strove hard to be a Christian. Once he stood watching his sister paring the potatoes for dinner. Soon she pared an extra large one, which was very white and very nice on the outside, but when cut into pieces it shewed itself to be hollow and black inside with dry-rot. Instantly Willie exclaimed, “Why, Maggie, that potato isn’t a Christian!” “What do you mean?” asked Maggie. “Don’t you see it has a bad heart?” was the child’s reply. This little Kansas boy had learned enough of the religion of Jesus to know that, however fair the outside may be, the natural heart is corrupt.

Mark 7:22. Beware of covetousness, for, under the guise of being a mere harmless indulgence of natural feeling, it is really the imbibing a dangerous gas, which will eventually choke our spiritual life. Whilst we revel in the chambers of our covetous imagery, and paint the fond desires of our evil hearts in every detail, we accustom ourselves to the growth of sinful longings, we construct an easy gradient, down which we may pass from unholy wishes to wicked deeds. The serpent’s egg may become the venomous reptile.—Dr. Hardman.

Covetous men are condemned to dig in the mines for they know not whom. The spirit of covetousness, which leads to an overvalue and overlove of money, is independent of amount. A poor man may make an idol of his little, just as much as the rich man makes an idol of his much. The Duke of Marlborough, when he was in the last stage of life and very infirm, would walk from the public room, in Bath, to his lodgings on a cold, dark night to save a sixpence in chair hire. At his death he left more than a million and a half sterling, which was inherited by one of his greatest enemies.

Avarice.—It was a true instinct which led Dante to picture avarice as an invincible foe. In his pilgrimage he passed safely by the leopard of pleasure; he feared, yet was not vanquished by, the lion of ambition; but the lean wolf of avarice drove him step by step back to the darkness. Such is the power of covetousness. It is a vice which renews its strength and is tenacious and remorseless.

Evil eye.—There are evidences of the prevalence in Ceylon of that most ancient of all superstitions, the belief in the “evil eye,” which exists in all countries in the universe from China to Peru. Is there any mysterious connexion between the prohibition to “covet” contained in the Decalogue and the horror of the “evil eye” so often alluded to in the Bible?—Sir J. E. Tennant.