He has Himself set us an example of religious fasting; and He has Himself said, when blaming the pharisees for their neglect of the weightier matters of the law, that, while they sinned greatly in leaving these undone, it behoved them also by no means to neglect the others'.

Or was the publican, in reality, a person of exemplary conduct who afflicted himself unnecessarily on account of his spiritual state, and was, in truth, already a saint while he condemned himself as the worst of sinners. Neither of this is there any appearance. The pharisee, who seems to have known him, probably spoke the truth when he described him as a man of bad character. And it is remarkable, that neither does our Lord, notwithstanding his expressions of repentance, speak of him as of one, at present and absolutely in a justified state, but only that he was justified rather than the other, that his character, with all its faults, was less displeasing to God than the vain self praise and uncharitable censure of the pharisee. The publican might be, and probably was, a real sinner; the publican might be, and probably was, of a character offensive to God; and yet the pharisee might, in God's eyes, be still less accepted and acceptable. What then was his fault? He trusted in himself that he was righteous and despised others; and thus he threw away at a single stroke all the blessings which God might else have had in

1 St. Matt. xxiii. 23.

store for his abstinence, his purity, his justice, his attention to the religion of his Father; and by a little foolish self-love, and by a little ill-natured comparison of himself with his neighbour, made vain the endeavours of, perhaps, a long life, and, while he thought that he was standing firmly, made that very flattering thought the occasion of a dismal fall!

Is it necessary that I should go on to explain and vindicate the justice of such a sentence? Will not the common sense of those who hear me teach them, that for even the best of men to boast himself before his Maker, must be to that Maker most offensive, inasmuch as, however good he may be, it is God to whom he owes it all? The pharisee himself, indeed, acknowledged this. He was not so vain, he was not so silly as to be ignorant that of himself he was able to do nothing; and he therefore gives, in words at least, the glory to God, and thanks Him that he was not like other men, an extortioner, unjust, or adulterous. But in this very enumeration of God's favours to him, he shows that he allowed himself to take a pride in them; that, instead of endeavouring after a further progress, he was idly amusing himself with viewing the progress which he had already made; unconscious all the while how much ground his rivals in the race were gaining on him. How much more blameable then, how much more ridiculous (if any thing could be a matter of ridicule in which the souls of men are concerned), must their pretensions

be who reckon up their own good, deeds, not as reasons for thankfulness to God, but as claims to reward or pardon from Him; who talk of the good which they have done, or the harm which they have not done, as if, by its own value, it gave them a title to Heaven, and to come into the presence of their Maker not like His servants but His creditors!

Let us examine this matter a little further! Whoever prides himself on his own good deeds in the sight of God, must suppose one or both of two things; either that those good deeds have of themselves some power to gratify or benefit God, so as that God owes him Heaven in repayment for the advantage which He has received from him, or that those actions for which he expects rewards were, at least, in his own choice to perform or to neglect, and such as if he had neglected them God could have had no reason for punishing him. But how different from the truth are both these suppositions! In the first instance, so highly exalted is God above all our actions and their consequences, that it is plain He needs none of our services; that the obedience of such worms as we are is as nothing in His sight, whom all the cherubim and seraphim serve in their bright and burning stations, who "hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hands," and to whose call the lightenings answer," here we are." It is only from His

'Isaiah xl. 12. Job xxxviii. 35.

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love to us, for our own sakes, and in order to our happiness, that He has made us at all, or has laid any commands upon us. He bids us love each other, and do good to each other, because, by this means, we each of us shall make the other happy or relieve the other's distress. He bids us be sober, be honest, be chaste, be industrious, because it is by an observance of these rules alone that we can keep ourselves in health, in cheerfulness, in plenty, and worldly prosperity. He bids us pray to Him, and give Him thanks, and serve Him, because He thus opens to us a fresh source of strength for the discharge of our duties; of hope and comfort under our necessary calamities; of that spirituality of mind and acquaintance with Heavenly things, which is the purest pleasure a man can meet with here, and the necessary introduction to still purer and brighter happiness hereafter. But in Himself God needs us not! had we never been born, our songs would never be missed in the full chorus of angels; and, were we all now to perish, He could raise up from the dust beneath our feet a better and a worthier race of creatures than we Who then are we, and what are our good deeds, that we should venture to praise them in His presence?

are.

But further, all these things in the performance of which we pride ourselves are, after all, no more than our duty. We are commanded to do them; we are threatened most severely if we neglect them. All the good deeds which we have done

are, therefore, in fact, nothing more than so many instances in which we have not done evil; and who shall say that our not deserving hell, supposing it to be true, would be, in itself an equitable claim on such a vast reward as Heaven: or that our best actions, being such as they are, would not be overpaid by the life and health and happiness of a single day, though we were immediately after to sink into dust and be forgotten? Who then can hope that such good actions as we can perform can reasonably be placed in the balance against our many evil deeds, or free us from the punishment which these last so loudly call for?

For this is another and a still more aweful reason for disclaiming all human merit, and placing our only hopes of pardon in the great mercy of God, by which also the publican in the parable sought and found it. It is not merely the worthlessness of our good deeds, but the number and greatness of our evil deeds, which should fill us with humility and fear in the presence of God; and lead us, instead of claiming reward, to acknowledge ourselves worthy of the severest punishment. We have all sinned, it is in vain to seek to hide it from ourselves, we have all sinned most grievously; if not in those particulars, which the pharisee of whom we have read mentioned, yet in many others which, if less thought of by mankind, are no less strictly forbidden by the Almighty; we are all God's debtors to an infinite amount; and being so, it is surely fitter far to cast ourselves on His mercy