peculiar importance; for, as a comparison is insti- tuted between their righteousness and ours, we are concerned to have the clearest knowledge of that by which our estimate must be formed. Their character was a mixture of good and evil. They had much which might be considered as righteousness; and at the same time they had great defects. Their righteousness, such as it was, was seen ; their defects were unseen : their righteousness consisted in acts ; their defects, in motives and principles : their righteousness was that which rendered them objects of admiration to men ; their defects made them objects of abhorrence to God.
Let us begin with viewing the favourable side of their character. And here we cannot do better than refer to the account which the Pharisee gives of him- self, when addressing the Most High God ; and which our Lord particularly adverts to, as characterizing the more distinguished members of their community. After thanking God that he was '^ not as other men are," he first tells us what he had ?iof done : he was " not an extortioner," nor could be accused by any man of demanding, on any account whatever, more than was his due. He was " not unjust" in any of his dealings, but, whether in commercial transactions, or in any other way, lie had done to all as he would be done unto^ " Nor was he an adulterer:" common as the crime of adultery was among the Jews, and great as his advantages had been for insinuating himself into the affections of others, he had never availed himself of any opportunity to seduce his neighbour's wife. In short, he had avoided all those evils, which the generality of publicans and sinners committed without remorse.
He next proceeds to specify what he had done. He had " fasted twice every week," in order to fulfil the duties of mortification and self-denial. He had been so scrupulously exact in paying his tithes, that not even "mint, or rue," or the smallest herb in his
=^ Such as " oppressing the hireling in his wages," Sec. The ex- pression must of course be confined to acts of justice.