not necessarily the blessings that some suppose. They are apt to produce pride in those that possess them, and thus to contract our spirits; and stint our sympathies with mankind; and, at all events, they render ever needful the words of the apostle, "Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be ready to distribute." Money lays the heart. open to many temptations and corruptions; it presents great facilities for sin; and the rare fact is still what it was in the days of the apostles, that not many rich, or noble, are called. Let us not regret that we are poor in this world's wealth if we are rich toward God; if we have the enduring riches, we have that which neither thief can steal, nor moth consume, nor rust corrupt. Let us take up our cross, and follow Christ here, and ours shall be at the last day an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away. Especially you that are Christians, and yet rich, convert a portion of your riches to the service of Christ. Make friends of the unrighteous mammon; lay it out in extending the kingdom of God. Death may not tear up your parchment, and your title-deeds, but it will remove you from them'; and therefore make friends now of the unrighteous mammon. Let the glories of the future shed some of their rays on the possessions of the present. In our disposal of what we now have, let us act as those that must give an account; and having rightly managed the worldly mammon, let us see in this a foreshadow of our introduction to the true righteousness and riches of the kingdom of glory.

169

LECTURE XII.

THE TWO WORSHIPPERS.

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. 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.-LUKE xviii. 7-14.

Ir is plain that this parable has no national relation, as far as the Jewish nation, distinct and separate from the Gentile, is concerned. It is a parable written not for a nation, or for a century, or for a sect, or a party, but for all nations, for all ages, for man in every land, and under every variety of religious circumstance. It is obvious, from the very structure of the parable, that the relationship of Jew and Gentile was not in the Saviour's mind at the moment. It was spoken not to the Pharisee as such, or to the publican as such, but to the great classes of which these are the types in every age, and who are described by our Lord himself in the 9th verse. "He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." It is very strange, but true, that they who have the least righteousness always trust the most in such as they have, as if they were inwardly conscious that they had very little, and that there

fore they must make the most of it. It is a scarcely less. remarkable fact, that they who are the most self-righteous, the most confident, having the greatest trust and confidence in their own excellency and virtue, are the very parties that despise, and proceed from despising to persecute, and from persecuting to imprison, and from imprisoning to burn others.

Now in order to teach the two classes of which these were the types, a great practical lesson, our Lord does not do as we are often apt to do-proclaim abstract truthsbut he paints a true picture; he does not present to them metaphysical or abstract disquisitions upon the sin of selfrighteousness and despising others, but he sketches a beautiful and expressive parable; he takes a chapter from human history, that has an echo in the human heart, and bequeaths it to all in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican.

"Two men went up into the temple to pray," created by the same God, breathing the same atmosphere, basking in the same sunbeam, drenched in the same showers, walking on the same earth, nursed, cradled, living and dying, and soon to be buried with kindred dust! What manifold points of identity were theirs!-they were men. Yet what practical divergence!-the spirit of the Pharisee moving off at a tangent in one direction, and the spirit of the publican moving downward in an opposite direction. You ask, perhaps, who were the Pharisees? I need not give a disquisition on their character. I would dwell rather on the spirit than on the history of the sect. They were called Pharisees from Pharash, a Hebrew word, which means "to separate," or "separation." They were no doubt the most popular sect among the Jews; they built their claims exclusively on conformity to outward ceremonies; they believed that an outward ceremonial, beauti

fully performed, was at least as acceptable to God as inward purity-that long prayer was a greater virtue than a pure and holy life; they preferred fasts to virtues; and holy vestments, they believed, were more beautiful in God's sight than clean hearts; they wore long phylacteries-a sort of long robe, on which they had passages from the law, and every inch of which was a sort of "Noli me tangere," or "Touch me not"-a "Stand aside, I am holier than thou, for I am a Pharisee." The publicans were the tax-gatherers, or farmers of revenue for Cæsar. They collected money from the people, and as they were obliged to be rigid, because they were officers acting ministerially, they were extremely hated by those who did not like to pay taxes; and they were still more hated by the Jews, because they were the representatives of Cæsar's power; and ever as the tax-gatherer appeared at their doors, it was a dark shadow, reminding them of their subjection, and proving to us that the sceptre had passed away from Israel, and that Judah was a slave. The publicans, therefore, were especially detested. Hence we read of "publicans and sinners," or, as it might be translated, I think, fairly enough, (the Greek conjunction zat having often the sense of "even," "publicans, even sinners." The two words became convertible. We know they were generally a profligate and degraded race of men. This publican was one that had no phylactery to wrap around him, and so to feel that he was holy; he had no splendid ceremonies which he had complied with, and which made him think he had made an atonement for his sins; he had nothing but his own naked heart, his own conscious depravity, his own self-convicted alienation and apostasy from God-nothing but shame and sin were his, he had nothing on which he could hook a thought of self-glory, or self-praise. The Pharisees were, to use a modern expression, the Brahmins

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of India, and the publicans were the Pariahs. The Pharisees were, to give another antitype, the Romanists and Tractarians of England, and the publicans were the heathens in our streets and alleys, or the men that either never hear the gospel, or that know its name, and live in the gross disregard of it. These were types of two great classes-classes which, whether designated or not, are found everywhere in human society.

Now, in watching the points of identity between these men selected for the parable, let me notice that both acknowledged the duty and the privilege of prayer. The two men, the Pharisee and the publican, went into the temple to pray. Does not this seem to indicate that there is in every congregation a great mixture, which indeed we know-Pharisees here and publicans there. If every heart could be laid bare, and the true state and character of every man unfolded, what a heterogeneous mixture would our best congregation appear! Bowed knees, and unbent hearts; devout countenances, and undevout souls; in the same temple, holy men in rags, and saints in suffering, and sinners consciences-struck; these different classes beneath the same roof, but not in the same church, or clothed with the same righteousness; using the very same psalm in praise, and concurring apparently in the very same words in prayer, and yet, many neither praising nor praying; men like Christians, and professing to be Christians, and yet not so; men that you would not expect. to be Christians, who have the deepest, purest, holiest thoughts within them, whose life is fact, whose conduct never is pretension, who would rather be than seem, and be better than they seem to be.

These two went into the temple and prayed. We read of the Pharisee, and let us take his character first, "he stood and prayed thus with himself." Some, and indeed