No, these Pharisees are not thus troubled; they laugh and jest at those who talk of feeling their sins, and think there is no occasion to make so much ado about religion: it is to be righteous over-much, and the means to destroy yourselves. They think if they do but mean well, and say their prayers, as they call them, it is sufficient: though they may say a prayer, yea, thousands of prayers, and all the while be only offering up the sacrifice of fools. They may call GOD, Father, every day, when it is only mocking of GOD, and offering up false fire unto him; and it would be just for him to serve them, as he did _Nahab_ and _Abihu_, destroy them, cut them off from the face of the earth: but he is waiting to be gracious, and willing to try a little longer, whether you will bring forth any thing more than the leaves of an outward profession, which is not all that the LORD requires: no, he wants the heart; and unless you honour him with that, he does not regard your mouths, when the other is far from him. You may say over your prayers all your lives, and yet you may never pray over one: therefore, while you flatter yourselves you are good enough, and that you are in a state of salvation, you are only deceiving your own souls, and hastening on your own destruction. Come unto him, not as being good enough, but as vile sinners, as poor, and blind, and naked, and miserable, and then JESUS will have compassion.
O ye Pharisees, what fruits do ye bring forth? Why, you are moral, polite creatures; you do your endeavours, you do what you can, and so JESUS is to make up the rest. You esteem yourselves fine, rational, and polite beings, and think it is too unfashionable to pray; it is not polite enough: perhaps you have read some prayers, but knew not how to pray from your hearts; no, by no means: that was being righteous over-much indeed.
But when once you are sensible of your being lost, damned creatures, and see hell gaping ready to receive you; if GOD was but to cut the thread of life, O then, then you would cry earnestly unto the LORD to receive you, to open the door of mercy unto you; your tones would then be changed, you would no more flatter yourselves with your abilities and good wishes: no, you would see how unable you were, how incapable to save yourselves; that there is no fitness, no free will in you: no fitness, but for eternal damnation, no free will but that of doing evil; and that when you would do good, evil is present with you, and the thing that ye would not, that do ye. He knows the secret intent of every heart; and this is a pleasure to you, my dear brethren, who come on purpose to meet with him, though it be in a field. And, however some may esteem me a mountebank, and an enthusiast, one that is only going to make you methodically mad; they may breathe out their invectives against me, yet CHRIST knows all; he takes notice of it, and I shall leave it to him to plead my cause, for he is a gracious Master: I have already found him so, and am sure he will continue so. Vengeance is his, and he will repay it. Let them revile me; let them cast me out of their synagogues, and have my name in reproach, I shall not answer them by reviling again, or in speaking evil against them: no, that is not the Spirit of CHRIST, but meekness, patience, long-suffering, kindness, &c.