and anise, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgement, mercy and faith, or rather fidelity these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." The paying tithe of mint and cummin was only put as an instance; the observation is general, that while they were scrupulous to the least tittle about the outward ordinances and observance of the law, they hoped to pass over the more substantial part of it, and what our Saviour calls "the weightier matters of the law;" justice, mercy, and fidelity. This was their conduct; and how does our Saviour treat it? He calls it no better than hypocrisy, and promises it nothing but woe: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites."

But our Saviour goes on: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye make clean the outside of the platter, but within ye are full of extortion and excess." About the outside of the cup, or that part of their conduct which was open and shown to the world, which consisted of specious performances, and acts of outward devotion and piety, they were wonderfully studious and exact; while they were full of excess within, neither careful to observe the rules of honesty or humanity in their dealings with others, nor to moderate and keep within bounds their lusts and passions. “Thou blind Pharisee," proceeds our Saviour-blind as mistaking altogether the true nature and design of religion-" cleanse first that which is within the cup, that the outside of it may be clean also ;" begin at the right end, and

bestow the chief and first care in setting to rights thy heart-thy moral principles and practice; and then all thy outward piety will become thee it will no longer be a hollow treacherous sanctity, but a real and acceptable purity. Much the same with this is what our Saviour goes on with in the next verse: "Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness even so ye also out, wardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity;" and then condemning them for their persecution of the prophets, which does not directly belong to this subject, he concludes with an expression, which is so exceeding strong, as he scarcely (only once, I believe,) used on any other occasion, and which shows his absolute dislike and detestation of this pride of character : Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"

There is another passage in the same Gospel, which is much to our present purpose. It is in the 15th chapter, and upon this occasion. The Pharisees came to Jesus with a complaint against his disciples for eating bread with unwashen hands a point they were very exact in, not out of cleanliness, but on a religious account, and because it openly transgressed the tradition of the elders. Our Saviour, after retorting upon this charge of transgressing the tradition of their elders, by showing them that they by their traditions made vain the commandments of

God, makes this remark upon the particular complaint before him: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth;" and after these words explains himself more fully to his disciples, as follows: "Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man ;" and specifies what vices they are which proceed out of the heart; "evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, blasphemies—these are they that defile a man; but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man." It appears from hence, that the Pharisees accounted the breach of their religious ceremonies and observances to be the greatest guilt and defilement that a man could incur; that our Saviour, on the contrary, maintained that these were no defilement in comparison; that it was immorality and vice which spoil the inward principle; and that evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, and so forth, were the pollutions most real and most odious to God. So then, whether he met with those who thought all righteousness and religion consisted in forms and observances, or with those who thought there was no vice like the breach of such things; with both he dealt very freely, and told them that the first and great point to perform towards men was to love mercy and justice, and the first and great care to avoid actual vices ;-that in the sight and esteem of God, their strictness in matters of outward religion was but hypocrisy without

some real virtue, and that the vices they were to fear and guard against were the defilements of sin.

There is one other declaration of our Saviour's to the same effect, and so clear as to need no sort of explanation. We find it in the 12th chapter of St. Mark. A certain Scribe came to our Saviour to ask him which was the first commandment of all. Our Saviour's answer is explicit: "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment, and the second is like unto it—namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. The Scribe replied-Well, master, thou hast said the truth; for there is one God, and there is none other but he, and to love him with all the heart, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." From this incomparable piece of conversation, which we shall do well to read over to ourselves, it appears that a person who had so far overcome the common prejudices of his countrymen as to acknowledge the superior excellency of the love of God and our neighbour to the most ostentatious acts of outward worship-burnt offerings and sacrifice that a

person of this turn and temper of mind was not far from the kingdom of God.

From all these texts laid together, we may venture to deliver it positively as our Saviour's doctrine, and, consequently as a matter of absolute certainty to us, that all hopes and attempts to please or pacify God, by outward piety and devotion, so long as we take upon us to transgress the laws of virtue and morality, are vain and groundless; and his repeating this doctrine so often, and on so many different occasions, shows the stress he laid upon it, and how solicitous he was to have it rightly understood.

I will add to these a passage from the Old Testament, and which goes to prove that acts of worship, done in the manner and with the views we are speaking of, that is, to atone or make up for the neglect or breach of moral duties, are so far from being at all pleasing or acceptable to God, that they are regarded by him only as so much mockery of himare odious and abominable to him. It is in the 1st chapter of Isaiah, and God is himself speaking to the Jews by the mouth of that prophet: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, and of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths,