such a man is a hypocrite: but there is another kind of
hypocrite, and a more common one by far; and that is, the hypocrite
who not only deceives others, but deceives himself likewise; the
hypocrite who (as one of the wisest living men puts it) is
astonished that you should think him hypocritical.

I do not say which of these two kinds is the worse. My duty is to
judge no man. I only say that there are such people, and too many
of them; that we ourselves are often in danger of becoming such
hypocrites; and that this was the sort of people which the Pharisees
for the most part were. Hypocrites who had not only deceived
others, but themselves also; who thought themselves perfectly right,
honest, and pious; who were therefore astonished and indignant at
Christ's calling them hypocrites.

How did they get into this strange state of mind? How may we get
into it?

Consider first what a hypocrite means. It means strictly neither
more nor less than a play-actor; one who personates different
characters on the stage. That is the one original meaning of the
word hypocrite.

Now recollect that a man may personate characters, like a play-
actor, and pretend to be what he is not, for two different objects.
He may do it for other people's sake, or for his own.

1. For other people's sake. As the Pharisees did, when they did
all their works to be seen of men; and therefore, naturally, gave
their attention as much as possible to outward forms and ceremonies,
which could be seen by men.

Now, understand me, before I go a step further, I am not going to
speak against forms and ceremonies. No man less: and, above all,
not against the Church forms and ceremonies, which have grown up,
gradually and naturally, out of the piety, and experience, and
practical common sense of many generations of God's saints. Men
must have forms and ceremonies to put them in mind of the spiritual
truths which they cannot see or handle. Men cannot get on without
them; and those who throw away the Church forms have to invent fresh
ones, and less good ones, for themselves.

All, I say, have their forms and ceremonies; and all are in danger,
as we churchmen are, of making those forms stand instead of true
religion. In the Church or out of the Church, men are all tempted
to have, like the Pharisees, their traditions of the elders, their
little rules as to conduct, over and above what the Bible and the
Prayer-book have commanded; and all are te