Without this foundation first laid, how much kindness in the progress of a benevolent man’s life is unavoidably cast away? and sometimes where it is as senseless as the exposing a tender plant to all the inclemencies of a cruel season, and then going with sorrow to take it in, when the root is already dead. I said, therefore, this was the foundation of almost every kind of charity, — and might not one have added, of all policy too? since the many ill consequences which attend the want of it, though grievously felt by the parties themselves, are no less so by the community of which they are members; and moreover, of all mischiefs seem the hardest to be redressed. — Insomuch, that when one considers the disloyal seductions of popery on one hand, and on the other, that no bad man, whatever he professes, can be a good subject, one may venture to say, it had been cheaper and better for the nation to have bore the expence of instilling sound principles and good morals, into the neglected children of the lower sort, especially in some parts of Great-Britain, than to be obliged, so often as we have been within this last century, to rise up and arm ourselves against the rebellious effects which the want of them have brought down even to our doors. And in fact, if we are to trust antiquity, the truth of which in this case we have no reason to dispute, this matter has been looked upon of such vast importance to the civil happiness and peace of a people, that some commonwealths, the most eminent for political wisdom, have chose to make a publick concern of it; thinking it much safer to be entrusted to the prudence of the magistrate, than to the mistaken tenderness or natural partiality of the parent.
It was consistent with this, and bespoke a very refined sense of policy in the Lacedaemonians, (though by the way, I believe, different from what more modern politics would have directed in like circumstances) when Antipater demanded of them fifty children, as hostages for the security of a distant engagement, they made this brave and wise answer,
“They would not, — they could not consent: — they would rather give him double the number of their best up-grown men”
— Intimating, that however they were distressed, they would chuse any inconvenience rather than suffer the loss of their country’s education; and the opportunity (which if once lost can never be regained) of giving their youth an early tincture of religion, and bringing them up to a love of industry and a love of the laws and constitution of their country. — If this shews the great importance of a proper education to children of all ranks and conditions, what shall we say then of those whom the providence of GOD has placed in the very lowest lot of life, utterly cast out of the way of knowledge, without a parent — sometimes may be without a friend to guide and instruct them; but what common pity and the necessity of their sad situation engages: — where the dangers which surround them on every side are so great and many, that for one fortunate passenger in life, who makes his way well in the world with such early disadvantages and so dismal a setting out, we may reckon thousands who every day suffer shipwreck, and are lost for ever.
If there is a case under Heaven which calls out aloud for the more immediate exercise of compassion, and which may be looked upon as the compendium of all charity, surely it is this: and I’m persuaded there would want nothing more to convince the greatest enemy to these kinds of charities that it is so, but a bare opportunity of taking a nearer view of some of the more distressful objects of it.
Let him go into the dwellings of the unfortunate, into some mournful cottage, where poverty and affliction reign together. There let him behold the disconsolate widow — sitting — steeped in tears; — thus sorrowing over the infant, she knows not how to succour —
“O my child, thou art now left exposed to a wide and a vicious world, too full of snares and temptations for thy tender and unpractised age. Perhaps a parent’s love may magnify those dangers. — But when I consider thou art driven out naked into the midst of them, without friends, without fortune, without instruction, my heart bleeds beforehand for the evils which may come upon thee. GOD, in whom we trusted, is witness, so low had his providence placed us, that we never indulged one wish to have made thee rich, — virtuous we would have made thee; — for thy father, my husband, was a good man and feared the Lord, — and though all the fruits of his care and industry were little enough for our support, yet he honestly had determined to have spared some portion of it, scanty as it was, to have placed thee safely in the way of knowledge and instruction — But alas! he is gone from us, never to return more, and with him are fled the means of doing it: — For, Behold the creditor is come upon us, to take all that we have.”
— Grief is eloquent, and will not easily be imitated. — But let the man, who is the least friend to distresses of this nature, conceive some disconsolate widow uttering her complaint even in this manner, and then let him consider, if there is any sorrowlike this sorrow, wherewith the Lord has afflicted her? or, whether there can be any charity like that, of taking the child out of the mother’s bosom, and rescuing her from these apprehensions. Should a heathen, a stranger to our holy religion and the love it teaches, should he, as he journeyed, come to the place where she lay, when he saw, would he not have compassion on her? GOD forbid, a christian should this day want it; or at any time look upon such a distress, and pass by on the other side.
Rather, let him do, as his Saviour taught him, bind up the wounds, and pour comfort into the heart of one, whom the hand of GOD has so bruised. Let him practise what it is, with Elijah’s transport, to say to the afflicted widow — See, thy son liveth! — liveth by my charity, and the bounty of this hour, to all the purposes which make life desirable, — to be made a good man, and a profitable subject: on one hand to be trained up to such a sense of his duty, as may secure him an interest in the world to come; and with regard to this world, to be so brought up in it, to a love of honest labour and industry, as all his life long to earn and eat his bread with joy and thankfulness.
“Much peace and happiness rest upon the head and heart of every one who thus brings children to CHRIST — May the blessing of him that was ready to perish come seasonably upon him. — The Lord comfort him, when he most wants it, when he lays sick upon his bed; make thou, O GOD! all his bed in his sickness; and for what he now scatters, give him, then, that peace of thine which passeth all understanding, and which nothing in this world can either give or take away.”
Amen.
SERMON VI. PHARISEE AND PUBLICAN IN THE TEMPLE.
LUKE xviii. 14. 1st Part.
I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified rather than the other: —
THESE words are the judgment which our SAUIOUR has left upon the behaviour and different degrees of merit in the two men, the pharisee and publican, whom he represents in the foregoing parable as going up into the temple to pray; in what manner they discharged this great and solemn duty, will best be seen from a consideration of the prayer, which each is said to have addressed to GOD upon the occasion.
The pharisee, instead of an act of humiliation in that awful presence before which he stood, — with an air of triumph and self-sufficiency, thanks GOD that he had not made him like others — extortioners, adulterers, unjust, or even as this publican. — The publican is represented as standing afar off, and with a heart touched with humility from a just sense of his own unworthiness, is said only to have smote upon his breast, saying — GOD be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, adds our SAVIOUR, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.
Though the justice of this determination strikes every one at first sight, it may not be amiss to enter into a more particular examination of the evidence and reasons upon which it might be founded, not only because it may place the equity of this decision in favour of the publican in a stronger light, but that the subject seems likely to lead me to a train of reflections not unsuitable to the solemnity of the season.
The pharisee was one of that sect, who, in our SAVIOUR’s time, what by the austerity of their lives — their public alms-deeds, and greater pretences to piety than other men, had graduall
y wrought themselves into much credit and reputation with the people: and indeed as the bulk of these are easily caught with appearances, their character seems to have been admirably well suited to such a purpose — If you looked no farther than the outward part of it, you would think it made up of all goodness and perfection; an uncommon sanctity of life, guarded by great decorum and severity of manners, — profuse and frequent charities to the poor, — many acts of religion, much observance of the law — much, abstinence — much prayer. —
It is painful to suspect the appearance of so much good — and would have been so here, had not our blessed SAVIOUR left us their real character upon record, and drawn up by himself in one word — that the sect were like whitened sepulchres, all fair and beautiful without, and enriched there with whatever could attract the eye of the beholder; but, when searched withinside, were full of corruption and of whatever could shock and disgust the searcher. So that with all their affectation of piety, and more extraordinary strictness and regularity in their outward deportment, all was irregular and uncultivated within — and all these fair pretences, how promising soever, blasted by the indulgence of the worst of human passions; — pride — spiritual pride, the worst of all pride — hypocrisy, self-love, covetuousness, extortion, cruelty and revenge. What pity it is that the sacred name of religion should ever have been borrowed, and employed in so bad a work, as in covering over such a black catalogue of vices — or that the fair form of virtue should have been thus disgraced and for ever drawn into suspicion, from the unworthy uses of this kind, to which the artful and abandoned have often put her. The pharisee seems to have had not many scruples of this kind, and the prayer he makes use of in the temple is a true picture of the man’s heart, and shews with what a disposition and frame of mind he came to worship. —
GOD! I thank thee that thou hast formed me of different materials from the rest of my species, whom thou hast created frail and vain by nature, but by choice and disposition utterly corrupt and wicked.
Me, thou hast fashioned in a different mould, and hast infused so large a portion of thy spirit into me, lo! I am raised above the temptations and desires to which flesh and blood are subject — I thank thee that thou hast made me thus — not a frail vessel of clay, like that of other men — or even this publican, but that I stand here a chosen and sanctified vessel unto thee.
After this obvious paraphrase upon the words, which speaks no more than the true spirit of the pharisee’s prayer, — you will naturally ask what reason was there for all this triumph — or what foundation could he have to insult in this manner over the infirmities of mankind — or even those of the humble publican who stood before him? — why, says he, I give tithes of all that I possess. — Truly a very indifferent account of himself — and if that was all he had to offer in his own behalf, GOD knows, it was but a weak foundation to support so much arrogance and self-conceit; because the observance of both the one and the other of these ordinances might be supposed well enough to be consistent with the most profligate, of life and manners.
The conduct and behaviour of the publican appears very different — and indeed as much the reverse to this, as you could conceive. But before we enter upon that, as I have spoke largely to the character of the pharisee, ‘twill be but justice to say a word or two in general to his. — The publican was one of that order of men employed by the Roman emperors in levying the taxes and contributions which were from time to time exacted from Judea as a conquered nation. Whether, from the particular fate of that employment, owing to the fixed aversion which men have to part with what is their own, or from whatever other causes it happened — so it was, that the whole set of men were odious, insomuch that the name of a publican was a term of reproach and infamy amongst the Jews.
Perhaps the many instances of rigour to which their office might direct them — heightened sometimes by a mixture of cruelty and insolence of their own — and possibly always made to appear worse than they were by the loud clamours and misrepresentations of others — all might have contributed to form and •ix this odium. But it was here no doubt, as in all other classes of men, whose professions expose them to more temptations than that of others — that there are numbers who still behave well, and who, amidst all the snares and opportunities which lye in their way, — pass through them, not only with an unblemished character, but with the inward testimony of a good conscience.
The publican in all likelihood was one of these — and the sentiments of candour and humility which the view of his condition inspired, are such as could come only from a heart and character thus described.
He goes up into the temple to pay his sacrifice of prayer — in the discharge of which, he pleads no merit of his own — enters into no comparison with others, — or justification of himself with GOD, but in reverence to that holier part of the temple where his presence was supposed more immediately to be displayed — he keeps afar off — is afraid to lift up his eyes towards heaven — but smites upon his breast, and in a short but fervent ejaculation — submissively begs GOD to have mercy upon his sins. O GOD! how precious! how amiable! is true humility? what a difference in thy sight does it make to consist betwixt man and man! Pride was not made for a creature with such manifold imperfections — religious pride is a dress which still worse becomes him — because, of all others, ’tis that to which he has least pretence — the best of us fall seven times a day, and thereby add some degree of unprofitableness to the character of those who do all that is commanded them — was I perfect therefore, says Job, I would not know my soul, I would be silent, I would be ignorant of my own righteousness, for should I say I was perfect, it would prove me to be perverse. From this introduction I will take occasion to recommend this virtue of religious humility which so naturally falls from the subject, and which cannot more effectually be enforced, than by an enquiry into the chief causes which produce the opposite vice to it — that of spiritual pride — for in this malady of the mind of man — the case is parallel with most others of his body, the dangers of which can never rightly be apprehended; or can remedies be applied either with judgment or success, till they are traced back to their first principles, and the seeds of the disorder are laid open and considered. And first, I believe, one of the most general causes of spiritual pride, is that which seems to have misled the pharisee — a mistaken notion of the true principles of his religion. He thought, no doubt, that the whole of it was comprehended in the two articles of paying tythes and frequent fasting, and that when he had discharged his conscience of them — he had done all that was required at his hands, and might with reason go, and thank GOD that he had not made him like others. — It is not to be questioned, but through force of this error, the pharisee might think himself to be, what he pretended, a religious and upright man. — For however he might be brought to act a double and insincere part in the eyes of men upon worldly views — it is not to be supposed — that when he stood by himself, apart in the temple, and no witnesses of what passed between him and his GOD — that he should knowingly and wilfully have dared to act so open and barefaced a scene of mockery in the face of Heaven. This is scarce probable — and therefore it must have been owing to some delusion in his education, which had early implanted in his mind false and wretched notions of the essentials of religion — which as he grew up had proved the seeds of infinite error, both in practice and speculation. —
With the rest of his sect, he had been so principled and instructed as to observe a scrupulous nicety and most religious exactness in the lesser matters of his religion — its frequent washings — its fastings and other external rites of no merit in themselves — but to be exempted, from the more troublesome exactness in the weightier matters of the law, which were of eternal and unchangeable obligation. So that, they were in truth blind guides — who thus would strain at a gnat and yet swallow a camel, and as our SAVIOUR reproves them from a familiar instance of domestic inconsistency — would make clean the outside of the cup and platter — yet suffer the inside —
the most material part, to be full of corruption and excess. From this knowledge of the character and principles of the pharisee, ’tis easy to account for his sentiments and behaviour in the temple, which were just such as they would have led one to have expected.
Thus it has always happened, by a fatality common to all such abuses of religion as make it to consist in external rites and ceremonies more than inward purity and integrity of heart. — As these outward things are easily put in practice — and capable of being attained to, without much capacity, or much opposition to flesh and blood — it too naturally betrays the professors of it, into a groundless persuasion of their own godliness and a despicable one of that of others, in their religious capacities, and the relations in which they stand towards GOD: which is the very definition of spiritual pride.
When the true heat and spirit of devotion is thus lost and extinguished under a cloud of ostentatious ceremonies and gestures, as is remarkable in the Roman church — where the celebration of high mass, when set off to the best advantage with all its scenical decorations and finery, looks more like a theatrical performance, than that humble and solemn appeal which dust and ashes are offering up to the throne of GOD, — when religion I say, is thus clogged and bore down by such a weight of ceremonies — it is much easier to put in pretentions to holiness upon such a mechanical system as is left of it, than where the character is only to be got and maintained by a painful conflict and perpetual war against the passions. ’Tis easier, for instance, for a zealous papist to cross himself and tell his beads, than for an humble protestant to subdue the lusts of anger, intemperance, cruelty and revenge, to appear before his maker with that preparation of mind which becomes him. The operation of being sprinkled with holy water, is not so difficult in itself, as that of being chaste and spotless within — conscious of no dirty thought or dishonest action. ’Tis a much shorter way to kneel down at a confessional and receive absolution — than to live so as to deserve it — not at the hands of men — but at the hands of GOD — who sees the heart and cannot be imposed on. — The atchievement of keeping lent, or abstaining from flesh on certain days, is not so hard, as that of abstaining from the works of it at all times — especially, as the point is generally managed amongst the richer sort with such art and epicurism at their tables — and with such indulgence to a poor mortified appetite — that an entertainment upon a fast is much more likely to produce a surfeit than a fit of sorrow.
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 81