a
sinner. His own tears are not the fountain in which his guilt can be
washed away. If there were no Saviour, his penitence would do him no
good; if Christ had not come to save the lost, the lost, though alarmed,
would not have been saved.

If we take care to notice that there was neither merit nor safety in the
man's confession, we may profitably listen to the confession, and learn
what it was.

"He stood afar off." Here we begin to observe external marks of an
inward penitence; he judged and condemned himself. He had the same right
with other worshippers to come near; but a consciousness of his
uncleanness before God compelled him to take the lowest place even among
men. Such was the tenderness of his spirit, that he thought everybody
better than himself. Humility is the exact opposite of pride; as the one
man counted himself better than all, the other counted himself worse
than all. When he obtained a sight of his own vileness before God, his
feeling was that even his brother would be polluted by his presence. As
love of God, when we have tasted his grace, carries love to men after
it, like a shadow; so shame before God, because of sin in his sight,
diffuses humility and modesty through the spirit and conduct in the
ordinary intercourse of life.

He was unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. He looked down to the
earth; but his heart was rising up to heaven the while. His eyes could
not bear at that moment to look, as it were, on the light of the great
white throne; but his soul ascended, and pressed with violence on the
gate of the kingdom. Against that strait gate his spirit is now
striving; the King of glory from within feels the pressure well pleased,
and opens to let the agonizer in. "Smote upon his breast;" it is like
other signs of grace, precious if it is true, worthless when it is
false. A worshipper will not be heard for his much beating, any more
than for his much speaking: but when it is the true external symptom of
a broken heart within, the knocking on his own breast is reckoned a
knocking at the gate of heaven. To him that knocketh at this lower gate,
the highest will be opened.

His prayer was short and suitable; "God be merciful to me, the sinner"
([Greek: to hamartolo]). The contrast continues to the last; as the
Pharisee had compared himself with all mankind, and concluded that he
alone was good; so the Publican in the depth of his shame seems to
count himself the only sinner.

The steps a