ence of the Pharisaic character, under every variety of form,
consists of these two things,--an exact and laborious observance of
external religious duties, and a heart satisfied with itself while it is
devoted to the world. The species is described for all times and places
in the Apocalyptic Epistle to the Church in Sardis: "Thou hast a name
that thou livest, and art dead" (Rev. iii. 1). There is a profession of
godliness wanting its power; Christ's name comes readily to the lip, but
the god of this world possesses the heart and controls the life.

There is encouragement to the Pharisee as well as to the publican to
turn and live. There is no respect of persons with God; the Pharisee was
as welcome to Christ as the publican, if he would come. A Pharisee and a
publican went up to the temple at the same hour to pray; the publican
returned to his own house pardoned and at peace with God, while the
Pharisee went home still unreconciled and under condemnation: but
wherefore? Not that God was more willing to forgive the publican than to
forgive the Pharisee; but because the Pharisee did not ask forgiveness.
He would have obtained it if he had asked it: his self-righteousness was
his ruin.

Thus in the end of this parable, the Lord intimates to the Pharisees
that the outcasts whom they despised are entering the kingdom of heaven
before them. This does not mean that the way is made more easy, the gate
more wide, to the licentious and profane than to the hypocrite,--it
intimates merely that in point of fact the profane were then and there
hastening in through the gate which stood open alike for all, while the
self-righteous were standing aloof. The intimation, moreover, is made,
not in order to keep these Pharisees back, but to urge them forward. The
Lord desires to provoke them to jealousy by them that were no people.
These despised outcasts are going in before you; arise and press in now,
lest the door be shut. It was not because they were publicans and
harlots that they were saved, but because they believed and repented
under the preaching of John; and it was not because the others were
Pharisees that they were still unsaved, but because even with the
example of fellow-sinners repenting and believing before their eyes,
they, thinking themselves righteous, would not repent and believe.

God delights as much to receive a Pharisee as to receive a publican.
When a self-righteous man discovers himself at last to be a whited
sep