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and some of them too naturally lead to profaneness and incontinence.

3. There is yet another corruption which specially marks the Pharisaic system. In the general, the righteousness of this sect, though strict in its kind, was merely external; consisting chiefly in a multitude of ceremonious practices. Such were the divers washings, the rigors of outward Sabbath observance, and the abstinence from meats which God had not prohibited. Most of these precisians were, doubtless, attentive to the claims of social equity and the forms of religious worship, like him who went up into the temple and told his Maker that he was no extortioner, nor unjust, nor an adulterer; that he fasted twice a week, and gave tithes of all that he possessed. But even this laudable part of their external righteousness was vitiated by pride, and by their dependence on it for acceptance and salvation. Their language was, to the Most High, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men;" to their fellow-man, "Stand aside, for I am holier than thou." Hence they had their name of Pharisee, or separatist. On the same account we find them presuming to rebuke the immaculate Saviour for holding intercourse with those whom they considered as sinners. “This man,” said they in contempt, "receiveth sinners and eateth with them." Their proud confidence in an external righteousness our blessed Master reprehends in the severest manner. Take but one example: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye

also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" (Matthew xxiii, 23-33.)

In fine. The righteousness of the Pharisees was, in the first place, debased by the mixture of much superstition and of unrequired observances. Secondly, it was vitiated by the want of spirituality. Thirdly, it was abused, even when scriptural in its matter, by their trusting in it for salvation.

Now, brethren, are there none among you like those Pharisees? none who, "being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God?" None who hope to be saved, either in whole or in part, for the sake of their regular conduct and moral life? None who boast of the extraordinary attention which they pay to public worship, to family or closet prayer, to the reading of the Scriptures, and other duties and who depend on these for acceptance with God? O take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." BY GRACE we must be saved through faith. Mark, not even our penitence, and faith, and holiness can in the least merit heaven.

Let us endeavor, by serious meditation and by earnest prayer, to apply to our own edification what has now been delivered. Let us ever remember that we are answerable to God for every word, and thought, and action; that God has afforded to us all such means of conversion, and such a degree of his preventing and helpful grace, that we may, if we will, come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved: in one

word, that nothing in heaven or earth, in time or eternity, can prevent our happiness but our willful continuance in sin and rejection of Christ. But let us at the same time keep in mind that God will not force us to be saved. He will not pardon, or sanctify, or preserve, or glorify us against our will. Nor will he do this without the utmost desire on our part to obtain his favor and image, and to be found of him in peace.

With these solemn truths in view, let us apply to the revealed will of God concerning us. Let us endeavor to be BIBLE CHRISTIANS; not moulding our religion according to the fashion of the day, or the varying maxims and customs of the world; but aiming at scriptural holiness, and determined that the word of God shall be our rule. Let us guard, however, against the least appearance of self-righteousness. Let us be careful not to depend on anything we have or are; but, considering ourselves as poor sinners and as hell-deserving rebels, let as ascribe all our salvation, from first to last, to the free and undeserved grace of God in Christ crucified. "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but UNTO THY NAME GIVE GLORY, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake!"

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XXIII.

THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES AND OF THE

SADDUCEES.

PART II.

TAKE HEED AND BEWARE OF THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES AND OF THE SADDUCEES.-Matthew xvi, 6.

HAVING already endeavored to explain the leaven of the Pharisees, and to show its dangerous tendency, it now remains for us to consider, as was proposed, the leaven of the Sadducees.

Next to the Pharisees, the Sadducees were the most celebrated of the Jewish sects; comprising, for the most part, persons of the first rank and of wealth. Their heresy likewise may be described under three heads:

1. They denied the fallen and depraved state of mankind; disputed the doctrine of hereditary corruption, and maintained that the will of man is, by nature, and without any special grace of God, as free to good as to evil. Of consequence, they saw no necessity for the quickening and renewing influences of the Holy Spirit. In short, their opinions on this head were nearly, if not exactly, similar to those of the ancient Pelagians and the modern Socinians.

Such is the pride of the carnal mind, and the opposition of the unregenerate heart to the humbling doctrines of revela tion, that there are many real Sadducees on the points now under consideration who nevertheless profess to be Christians, and in terms acknowledge the Bible to be the word of God. This is the more strange, because the language of Holy Scripture is so express, copious, and pointed that one would think it impossible for even a cursory reader to misapprehend its

meaning. We are informed that our first parents were created in the image of God, that is, as an inspired apostle enables us to explain it, “in righteousness and true holiness." (Ephesians iv, 24.) In order to try their faith and exercise their obedi ence, God gave them one particular and positive law, simple in its nature, and easy to be understood. It consisted merely in a command not to eat of a certain tree, which stood in the midst of the garden where they lived. Tempted, however, by. Satan, who used the serpent as his instrument, they hearkened to his persuasions and ate of the forbidden tree. The consequence was, that they lost the favor and likeness of their Maker, and became subject to death. This is the account of the fall, as given in the pages of Moses.

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Now, such as was the parent-stock, such must also the branches be. Accordingly the Scriptures continually declare that the transgression of our first parents has resulted in the general corruption and depravity of their offspring. The very first-born son of our great progenitor murdered his brother; so that we have proof of violence and hatred almost coeval with the existence of mankind. The new-created earth was stained with human blood. Later in the sacred record we read: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." (Genesis vi, 5, 11, 12.) In the days of David, likewise, we are told that "God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Psalm liii, 2, 3.) To pass over all the intermediate space, let us hear our Lord's account of this fearful matter: "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." (Matthew xv, 19.) St. Paul confirms the same humiliating doctrine, and applies it, still more pointedly, to all the Gentile nations. The account which he gives of those na

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