the Lord in His concluding question intimates that the trial will be so severe that only the most genuine faith will stand the test.1

CCCLXXXVII.

THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.

St. Luke xviii. 9-12.

And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

This Parable, like the last, has its moral prefixed to it; the sign, as it were, set up over the entrance. As that taught us that Prayer must be persevering, so this teaches us that it must also be humble. The lesson is first read, and then exhibited to us as in a picture. The Lord holds up even to His Disciples, who were in some danger of falling into it, a state of mind which must be shunned, and illustrates it by an example. He puts also a second figure into the picture, to heighten the contrast, and to shew the contrary state of mind which must be cultivated. As He drew in two strokes the portrait of an unjust Judge, so in two strokes He draws this of a self-righteous Pharisee. Self-complacency is generally accompanied by contempt for others, who perhaps are after all not so bad as we imagined, who it may be are even better than ourselves. Spiritual pride blinds us both to our own faults and to other men's merits. We think more highly of ourselves, more harshly of them, than we ought to think. The Temple of the Jews was always open, as some of our Churches are, for private prayer. The Pharisee seems to have put himself more prominently forward than he need

1 St. Matt. xxiv. 22.

have done, calling attention to himself, to get a character for great devotion; which in those days obtained men credit.1 He stood by himself; "separatist in spirit as in name; desiring to put a distance between himself and other worshippers. "Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou." So the Prophet by anticipation draws their portrait. He gives thanks not so much that he is good, as that he alone is; not for the good he sees in himself, but for the evil he imagines in others. He knew this man was a Publican, one of the abhorred class of Taxgatherers, and so jumped to the unwarrantable conclusion that he was an extortioner and all the rest. How disgusting too his egotism! We too often hear this "I." There was not one word of prayer in all he said. His whole business in the Temple seems to have been to tell God what a good man he is. He boasts that he observes two self-appointed fasts a week, for which he had no doubt the reward he looked for; and that besides paying the due tithe of the fruit of the field and the increase of his cattle, he tithes even the very herbs in his garden,' to which trifles the Law with all its minuteness did not descend.

1 St. Matt. vi. 5.

2 This seems to be the construction

of the original.

Abp. Trench. Phares, and so Pharisee, comes from a word signifying to separate. See Suicer.

Is. lxv. 5.

St. Bernard, quoted in Abp. Trench. "How horrible a thing does the Pharisee's untimely scorn appear, when we think of it, mingling as a harshest discord with the songs... of angels, which at this very moment hailed the lost who was found, the sinner who repented."—Ib.

St. Matt. vi. 16. It needs no excuse for treating these parables as histories, as virtually they often were.

7 St. Matt. xxiii. 23. "Turning those very precepts concerning fasting and paying of tithes, which were given to men, the first to waken in them the sense of inward poverty and need, the second to bring them to feel that whatever they had, they were debtors for it to God, and stewards of His,-turning even these into occasions of self-exaltation."Abp. Trench.

And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

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In contrast with that Pharisaic pride, we have now the humility of the penitent Publican. He does not put himself forward as those who chose the chief seats in the synagogues. He takes the lowest room. He feels himself unworthy to gather up so much as the crumbs under the Table, unworthy to draw nigh to that Sanctuary which was the symbol of the Divine presence and glory. It is as though a suppliant should feel himself unworthy to come into the presence-chamber of the King, and so humbly stand at the door to present his petition. Not able to keep away, yet not daring to draw nigh, and so standing afar off; and though not venturing, through the sad sense of sin, to lift up so much as his eyes, yet lifting up his heart with his voice to God in the heavens.3 But though standing afar off, yet was he not far off from God; for the Lord is nigh to them that are of a contrite heart. He smote upon his breast, which was a sign of grief, unconscious expression of the misery of which he was too conscious. And this was the substance of his prayer of humble access, God be merciful to me the sinner. "As the Pharisee had singled himself out as the most eminent of saints, . . . . so the Publican singles himself out as the chief of sinners .... For who at that moment when he is first truly convinced of his sins, thinks Lit. Be reconciled. A significant word.

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1 St. Matt. xxiii. 6.

2 St. Luke xiv. 10.

Ezra ix. 6, 15; Esth. iv. 16;

v. 1, 2: Eze. xxxvi. 31.

5 So in the original.

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any other man's sins can be as great or dreadful as his own?" The Lord, who is Judge Himself, tells us with authority, using a Jewish mode of speech,-who was justified and who not.2 The one went down to his house from that Court of the Temple (for the Temple was set on an hill) acquitted, and the other not; the acknowledged sins of the one remitted, the hidden sins of the other retained. The Lord appends a second moral to His parable, which we have heard before, and which it was needful to repeat."

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CCCLXXXIX.

AT THE FEAST OF DEDICATION.

St. John x. 22-24.

And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.

The Feast of Dedication was a Festival founded by the famous Jewish Captain, Judas Maccabæus. He purified the Temple after its profanation by the impious and cruel Antiochus Epiphanes, and in commemoration of that event 1 Abp. Trench.

2 By this comparative mode of speech the Jews meant to convey an absolute negative.

3 Pss. xxxii. 1-5; li. 3, 9, 17. In the Publican's Prayer we have this Penitential Psalm in epitome.

4 St. John. xx. 23. For (as St. Augustine says in effect) he too had sins; but he was like a patient who should dissemble his own disease to the physician, and display another's. No wonder that that other should be the one healed. St. Luke v. 30-32. St. Luke xiv. 11.

Compare St. Luke i. 51-53. Alford notes how well this Parable, which forms the Holy Gospel for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, harmonizes with the Epistle of that day. Abp. Trench repeats the story of Grotius, that being overtaken on a journey by what proved to be a mortal sickness, the minister who visited him on his death-bed took occasion to remind him of the conduct of the Publican in this Parable. "I am that Publican," he replied, and so expired.

71 Macc. iv. 36 ff.

founded this religious festival, about one hundred and sixtyfive years before the coming of our Lord. Here was an instance of a religious festival imposed on the nation by human authority.1 It was not of Divine appointment. It was instituted only by man. And yet the Lord observed it. For thus it became Him to fulfil all righteousness. And does it not become us to do the like? For such ordinances we have the highest sanction. And "the Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies," so long as she ordains nothing contrary to God's Word. Two things the sacred Historian here tells us. He gives us another note of time and place. He tells us it was at Jerusalem, because, unlike those greater Festivals which might be held only in the Holy City, this might also be celebrated in other parts of the country. And he tells us that the time was winter, in order, it might be, to explain why the Lord should be found in that particular part of the Temple.3 The Porch that was called Solomon's consisted of a long cloister or colonnade, covered in and sheltered from the weather, a general place of resort at such a season. It was the only portion too of the original building of Solomon which had escaped the conquering arm of the King of Babylon. Here the Jews are represented as crowding round and encircling Him, and, with an air of injured innocence asking Him, after His recent miracle, a needless question. As though He had not told them times enough already. As though His miracles, done in His Father's name, had not proclaimed Him in trumpet-tones the Son of God. As though they who had spoken blasphemously against His works, would be likely to give any credence to His words.

1 See Hooker, Eccl. Pol. V. lxx. 6. On the general question, we may recall Abp. Whitgift's Canon, as gathered from his works, in his reply to Cartwright and the Puritans, who demanded Scripture authority for every detail of Ecclesiastical polity: -Let nothing be done contrary to an express command; let all things be done to edifying. Within these limits the Church is left to herself.

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