Luke xii. 1. In the mean lime, xvhen there were gathered to- gether an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his Dis- ciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
RARELY, if ever, can we find a greater instance of fidelity than in the history before us. Our Lord had been dining with a Pharisee, and, even whilst he was at dinner, he upbraided the whole sect of Pha- risees, and accused them of the vilest hypocrisy. This might have been thought by some a breach of hospitality ; but a sense of his duty to God was para- mount to every other consideration. The Pharisee
had begun with expressing his wonder that our Lord had not washed his hands before he sat down to meat ; for among the Pharisees this ceremony had been magnified into a religious observance. This superstition our Lord had not chosen to sanction : and as among the Pharisees it was accompanied with a scandalous neglect of internal purity, he exposed the folly of it, and condemned in the severest terms all who substituted such a rite in the place of vital godliness. His reproofs, as might be expected, greatly irritated his indignant hearers: yet no sooner had an immense multitude assembled at the door, than he went out to them, and, in the presence of them all, enjoined his Disciples above all things to beware of that grand feature of the Pharisaic character, hypocrisy3.
This caution, so boldly and so strongly given, deserves our attention, no less than that of the Dis- ciples to whom it was spoken. We propose, therefore,
I. To consider the evil against which our Lord cau- tioned them —
The nature of hypocrisy is far from being generally understood. Many would suppose, that conduct which was notoriously evil, would, from its notoriety, be exempt from the charge of hypocrisy; and that there could be no hypocrisy, where the person was not conscious that he was deceiving others. But that term, according to the Scripture use of it, is very extensive : and under it may be included many dif- ferent forms or degrees of hypocrisy.
1. That which is known both to ourselves and
others —
[Hypocrisy consists in acting contrary to our professions : and this we may do in such an open and shameless way as to manifest clearly to others, no less than to ourselves, that we are dissemblers with God.
How is it with the great mass of those who disregard reli- gion ? Do they cast off the Christian name also ? Do they not rather account themselves Christians ; and would they not
a See chap. xi. 37 to the end. irpuTov in the text, seems better to be construed with irpoviyjiTE.