fuggefts to us. Let us, in the first place, confider the character of the pharifee, whose vices are not expressly mentioned, but are left to be collected from the general strain of the hiftory. There is no reafon to think that he was among the most corrupt of that fect. We may fuppofe that he was no stranger to thofe virtues which the pharifee claims in the xviiith chapter of Luke, and that he was unftained by those vices, from which he glories in being free. He might have thanked God that he was neither an extortioner, nor unjust, nor an adulterer; that he fafted twice in the week, and gave tithes of all that he had. Fraud and oppreffion he had never countenanced; and we may allow that the ordinary uprightnefs of his behaviour was irreproachable. Ye men of the world, would ye defire a better character, or wifh for a more blameless reputation? Strangers to the lovely and alluring form of virtue, you mistake for it a lifelefs image, which only bears a resemblance in a few features. From the history now before us, let us examine this character more minutely, and point out its defects.

First, The unjuft fufpicion which the pharifee's heart fuggefted, at feeing our Saviour receive the kindness of the penitent, without fhewing any marks of displeasure, evidently discovers a high degree of pride and felf-confidence. The whole history also shews that he had no fenfe of his own imperfection, nor the least apprehension of his own demerit. There is not a vice more unbecoming human nature, confidering its frailty and imperfection, than an overweening opinion of ourselves; as if we were exempted from follies and faults. When it is observed in the ordinary tranfactions of life, it is a proof of great weakness. But in the concerns of virtue and religion, it plainly discovers that we have no just and elevated sentiments of the ftandard of virtue; that we think of the fupreme Being, the fource and centre of all perfection, in a manner that is unworthy of his purity and holiness ; and that the culture and improvement of our own hearts and temper are the leaft object of our attention. With refpect to our fellow-creatures, this temper has the worst effect. gradually weakens and confines our virtue, and, at last, almost destroys the fentiments of humanity,

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humanity, kindness, generofity and compaffion. If it should not happen entirely to corrupt and deprave the heart, it at least deadens all the best and most amiable affections of our nature, and prevents the exercise of every great and exalted virtue. Will the man who has indulged and cherished his pride, till it has become the prevailing and ruling paffion of his heart, and blinded him to every frailty and fault in himself, be ready to forgive injuries? Will he return good for evil? Will he be patient under afflictions? Will he bear oppofition? Will he fpare the wretch that has incurred his refentment, and lies at his mercy? Will he fhed the foothing tear of pity, or speak the words of kindness to quiet the distress of a troubled heart? Will he bind up the wounds of his poor inferior, and wine and oil into them to heal them? pour Ah, no! Triumphing in the virtues, at whofe defects the heaven-born foul would blush; and glorying in his being free from flagrant vices, he defpifes his fellow-fervant, and even approaches Heaven with an affured countenance, and fays to the humble and fearful, but devout worshipper, Stand by, I am holier than thou. This pride and felf-confidence,

fidence, by which man is most directly allied with the fpirits who fell, is thus not only heinous in itself, but may properly be confidered as a fource of many other vices. Like a plentiful, but impure fountain, it emits a variety of ftreams equally turbid and impure. Being the quality most remarkable in the pharifaical character, the indignation which our mild and charitable Saviour expreffes against this fect, may fhew its enormity. By affuming an appearance of a confcious fuperiority, of a high regard for virtue, of a detestation of the abandoned, it screens itself from the cenfure of the world, and not rarely from the knowledge of the very man who is a prey to it. Thus being a foe equally powerful, fecret and pernicious, its attacks cannot be too cautioufly nor diligently guarded against. And the declarations in the gofpel, that are fo frequently repeated against this vice, are a moft awful and alarming warning to Christians to attend particularly to their characters, and not to reft fatisfied, as men are but too apt to do, if their confciences reproach them with no positive guilt. 2dly, I have the longer infifted upon this vice, because I confider it as the fource from which

which others discovered to us in this history do flow; and as they are capable of being diftinguished from it, let us particularly attend to them. It appears then, in the fecond place, that he was either devoid of the virtue of humanity and compaffion, or that the vice, which has been already named, had fo overpowered him, that it prevented its exercise. When the penitent came into the house, she discovers the strongest and most evident fymptoms of forrow and distress.This language, which is the language of nature, never fails to rouse, and to intereft the heart; and to be ignorant of it, or inattentive to it, is the fureft fign of an unfeeling foul. Yet the forrowful appearance, the tears and the humble conduct of the penitent, so far from attracting the attention, and exciting the pity of the pharifee, only afford occafion for a captious and ungenerous reflection. Knowledge of the world, and the false appearances that are to be met with in it, may render a man cautious and difcerning: but if it steels the heart against every tender and compaffionate feeling for a real sufferer, though almost the most worthless of men, let my foul remain in ignorance. The woman here

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