These publicans, on the other hand, were not in any way a religious set of people; they did not pretend, like the Pharisees, to be so, nor were they in point of fact. They were called publicans because they collected the public taxes; they were blamed by the people, and with good reason, for extorting money unjustly from the poor. Their business was really, in those times, a proximate occasion of sin; this was the reason why St. Matthew, who was a publican before our Lord called him to be an apostle, never went back to his business again, as St. Peter did to his innocent occupation as a fisherman. The publican of this parable also, no doubt, had either made up his mind to give up his sinful life or was endeavoring to do so.
Both of these men, the Pharisee and the publican, were sinners. In that they were alike; the difference between them was that the publican acknowledged that he was a sinner and was trying to amend his life, while the Pharisee thought that he was perfect, or that, if he had any faults, they were such as no one could avoid, and which his Maker would readily overlook, especially in a person of his exalted piety.
Now, I said in the beginning that there were not supposed to be any Pharisees nowadays: but I think that we shall find that there are some people of this kind, even among us Christians; and perhaps, if we go down very deep into our own consciences, we shall even find that we are Pharisees ourselves.
Some of these Pharisees make excellent confessions. They show a care in their examination of conscience equal to that of the saints; they have the most accurate knowledge of every fault, and are willing to go into every detail, if they are permitted to do so. This delicacy of perception of sin is a quality which certainly commands our admiration; but there is a circumstance which prevents this admiration from being quite unlimited. This circumstance is that the faults which they are so keenly alive to are not their own. They are those of other people with whom they live, or of whom they hear through some person of the same sort of sensitive conscience that they themselves have.
The world, in the eyes of these sensitive people, certainly has a melancholy aspect. Everybody is doing wrong, and nobody is doing right—nobody, that is, except themselves. They, thank God! are not so bad. They are innocent sufferers, enduring a continual martyrdom at the hands of these wicked people who live in the same house or close by. Their only consolation here below is to tell their friends how much they suffer, and how much others suffer, from these sinners. Others, it is true, may deserve it, but they themselves certainly never have. They wish that they were dead and out of reach of their persecutors. The most curious thing is that one of their great causes of annoyance is the way that other people will carry stories; this is the story that they spend their lives in carrying.
Perhaps you think this picture is overdrawn. I hope it is. And I do not believe that many people are such thorough Pharisees as these whom I have described. But there is too much, a great deal too much, of the Pharisaic spirit about us all.
And not nearly enough of the spirit of the publican—of humility, contrition, and purpose of amendment. How shall we acquire this spirit By looking into our own conscience, unpleasant as it may be, and letting those of our neighbors alone. If we sincerely examine our own hearts we shall not thank God that we are not like others, but rather pray to him that we may, before we die, have something like the perfection that many others have already reached; and ask him, as the publican did, to have mercy on us sinners—on us poor sinners, who are trying to be so no more.
That is the way, and the only way, that we sinners can get into the company of the saints; not by fancying ourselves there already. If we wish, then, to reach that blessed company, let us start on this way at once, for there is no time to lose.