These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. Thus does our Lord sum up this whole searching discourse.
Remarks:
(1) There is a principle at the bottom of such traditional practices as are here exposed, without the knowledge of which we cannot rightly improve the teaching of our Lord on the subject. Be it observed, then, that the practices here referred to, though based only on "the tradition of the elders," might seem, even to conscientious Israelites, in the highest degree laudable. It was a ceremonial economy they lived under; and as one principal design of this economy was to teach the difference between clean and unclean by external symbols, it was natural to think that the more vividly and variously they could bring this before their own minds, the more would they be falling in with the spirit and following out the design of that economy. Such are the plausibilities by which most of the symbolical features of the Romish ritual are defended. Nor is it merely as acts of will-worship, without divine warrant, that they are to be condemned, but as tending to weaken the sense of divine authority for what IS commanded by mixing it up with what is purely human, though originally introduced with the best intentions. Examples of this deep principle will readily occur-such as the effect, everywhere seen, of observing a multitude of saints' days in weakening the sense of the paramount claim of "the Lord's Day."
(2) When we read here of the detestable pretexts under which those Jewish ecclesiastics suffered no more their deluded followers, when once they had them committed to some rash pledge, "to do anything for their father or mother," who can help thinking of the clergy of the Church of Rome, who have served themselves heirs to the worst features of Rabbinical Judaism?
(3) If it be true that to multiply human devices for strengthening the force of religious principles in the life tends to draw the attention so far off from the divine law enjoining duty, and to rivet it upon the human device for securing obedience to it, may it not be worthy of the consideration of Christians whether, when sin is committed in spite of these devices, the breach of their own pledges is not apt to trouble them more than that of the divine law, which they were designed to fortify? But we would not press this too far; and there certainly are cases where evil habits, when inveterate, require restraints which in other cases are superfluous. It is to the former only that we refer.
(4) If nothings outward can defile, it is obvious that nothing purely outward can sanctify-as the Church of Rome teaches that Sacraments, for example, do of themselves [`ex opere operate']. "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."