LUKE XVIII. 14. ift part.

I tell you, this man went down to his houfe juftified rather than the other :

THE

HESE words are the judgment which our SAVIOUR has left upon the behaviour and different degrees of merit in the two men, the Pharifee and Publican, whom he reprefents, in the foregoing parable, as going up into the temple to pray, in what manner they discharged this great and folemn duty, will best be seen from a confideration of the which each is faid to have prayer, addreffed to God upon the occafion.

The pharifee, inftead of an act of humiliation in that aweful presence before which he ftood,-with an air of triumph and felf-fufficiency, thanks God that he had not made him like others-extortioners, adulterers, unjuft, or even as this publican. The publican is reprefented as ftanding afar off, and with a heart touched with humility from a just sense of his own unworthinefs, is faid only to have fmote upon his breaft, faying

GOD be merciful to me a finner. I tell you, adds our SAVIOUR, this man went down to his houfe juftified rather than the other.

Though the juftice of this determination strikes every one at first fight, it may not be amifs to enter into a more particular examination of the evidence and reasons upon which it might be founded,

not

not only because it may place the équity of this decifion in favour of the publican in a stronger light, but that the fubject seems likely to lead me to a train of reflections not unfuitable to the folemnity of the season*.

The pharifee was one of that fect, who, in our SAVIOUR's time, what by the aufterity of their lives-their public alms-deeds, and greater pretences to piety than other men, had gradually wrought themselves into much credit and reputation with the people: and indeed, as the bulk of thefe are easily caught with appearances, their character feems to have been admirably well fuited to fuch a purpose.—If you looked no farther than the outward part of it, you would think it made up of all goodness and perfection; an uncommon fanctity

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* Preached in Lent.

of

of life, guarded by great decorum and feverity of manners,-profufe and frequent charities to the poor many acts of religion, much obfervance of the law--much abstinence--much prayer.

It is painful to fufpect the appearance of fo much good--and would have been fo here, had not our bleffed SAVIOUR left us their real character upon record, and drawn up by himself in one word that the fect were like whitened fepulchres, all fair and beautiful without, and enriched there with whatever could attract the eye of the beholder; but, when fearched within-fide, were full of corruption and of whatever could fhock and disgust the fearcher. So that with all their affectation and piety, and more extraordinary strictness and regularity in

9.

their

their outward deportment, all was irregular and uncultivated within-and all these fair pretences, how promising soever, blasted by the indulgence of the worst of human paffions,-pridefpiritual pride, the worst of all pridehypocrify, felf-love, covetousness, extortion, cruelty and revenge. What pity it is that the facred name of religion fhould ever have been borrowed, and employed in fo bad a work, as in covering over fuch a black catalogue of vices or that the fair form of virtue should have been thus difgraced and for ever drawn into fufpicion, from the unworthy uses of this kind to which the artful and abandoned have often put her. The pharifee feems to have had not many fcruples of this kind, and the prayer he makes ufe of in the temple is

a true picture of the man's heart, and M 4 fhews