Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/93

 ments of men And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you and understand: there is nothing from without a man that, entering into him, can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile him For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these things come from within, and defile the man." (Mark vii. 1-23.) Here the Lord Jesus asserts what is alike the truth of God, and agreeable to the dictates of sound sense. So Samuel said in the Old Testament.

"Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart." (1 Sam. xvi. 7.) But the scribes and Pharisees treated the Lord Jesus in the spirit of the laws which we have adduced above. They persecuted him unto death, and to the death He willingly went a martyr for the truth, and a sacrifice for the sin of the world. The authors of the oral law had but a short triumph. He rose from the dead, and his doctrine spread through the world, and everywhere announced freedom from the bondage of superstition as well as a hope of everlasting life. And the Jewish nation is at this hour enjoying the fruits of His death and doctrine in their liberty from Rabbinic domination. Many of you now hold some of those principles, the assertion of which was the cause of His death. You believe that moral duties are far beyond ceremonial observances. You believe, many of you, that to eat with unwashen hands is no sin, and have given up the practice. You transgress this commandment of the scribes, and yet you are not excommunicated nor persecuted. For all this you are indebted to Jesus of Nazareth. If the oral law had triumphed, and the doctrine of Jesus been silenced, you would still be living the victims of superstition or persecution. You would have been afraid of being struck with blindness, or haunted with an evil spirit, or even of being rooted out of the world. If a ray of Divine light had visited your understanding, and you had protested against these traditions, you would have had to feel the weight of Rabbinical persecution, like Jesus of Nazareth. You would have been excommunicated like Eleazar, and if God had given you strength to remain faithful, would have died excommunicated, and have had a stone upon your coffin. How is it that now you are free, that you can think and act without any such fear? Is it because the Talmud has altered? No, it is just what it was. The conscientious believers in the Talmud are just the same as their fathers, and as conscientious men, if