The Pharisee and the Publican

And the third is, Because of the infinite distance that is betwixt God and us, which is intimated by these words, “For God is in heaven, and thou upon earth.”

The Publican therefore shewed great wisdom, holy shame, and humility, in this brave gesture of his, namely, in his standing afar off when he went up into the temple to pray.  But this is not all.

Secondly, The Publican, in standing afar off, left room for an Advocate and high-priest, a Day’s-man, to come betwixt, to make peace between God and his poor creature.  Moses, the great mediator of the Old Testament, was to go nigher to God than the rest of the elders, or those of the people; Exod. xx. 21.  Yea, the rest of the people were expressly commanded to worship, “standing afar off.”  No man of the sons of Aaron that had a blemish was to come nigh.  “No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire.  He shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God;” Lev. xxi. 21.

The Publican durst not be his own mediator; he knew he had a blemish, and was infirm, and therefore he stands back; for he knew that it was none of him that his God had chosen to come near unto him, to offer “the fat and the blood;” Ezek. xliv. 13–15.  The Publican, therefore, was thus far right; he took not up the room himself, neither with his person nor his performances, but stood back, and gave place to the High-priest that was to be intercessor.

We read, that when Zacharias went into the temple to burn incense, as at the time his lot was, “The whole multitude of the people were praying without;” Luke i. 9, 10.  They left him where he was, near to God, between God and them, mediating for them; for the offering of incense by the chief-priest was a figurative making of intercession for the people, and they maintained their distance.

It is a great matter in praying to God, not to go too far, nor come too short, in that duty, I mean in the duty of prayer; and a man is very apt to do one or the other.  The Pharisee went so far; he was too bold; he came into the temple making such a ruffle with his own excellencies, that there was in his thoughts no need of a Mediator.  He also went up so nigh to God, that he took up the room and place of the Mediator himself; but this poor Publican, he knows his distance, and keeps it, and leaves room for the High-priest to come and intercede for him with God.  He stood afar off: not too far off; for that is the room and place of unbelievers; and in that sense this saying is true, “For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish;” Psalm lxxiii. 27; that is, they whose unbelief hath set their hearts and affections more upon their idols, and that have been made to cast God behind their backs, to follow and go a-whoring after them.

Hitherto, therefore, it appears, that though the Pharisee had more righteousness than the Publican, yet the Publican had more spiritual righteousness than the Pharisee; and that though the Publican had a baser and more ugly outside than the Pharisee, yet the Publican knew how to prevail with God for mercy better than he.

As for the Publican’s posture of standing in prayer, it is excusable, and that by the very Father of the faithful himself: for Abraham stood praying when he made intercession for Sodom; Gen. xviii. 22, 23.  Christ also alloweth it, where he saith, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses;” Mark xi. 25.  Indeed there is no stinted order prescribed for our thus behaving of ourselves in prayer, whether kneeling, or standing, or walking, or lying, or sitting; for all these postures have been used by the godly.  Paul “kneeled down and prayed;” Acts xx. 36.  Abraham and the Publican stood and prayed.  David prayed as he walked; 2 Sam. xv. 30, 31.  Abraham prayed lying upon his face; Gen. xvii. 17,18.  Moses prayed sitting; Exod. xvii. 12.  And indeed prayer, effectual fervent prayer, may be, and often is, made unto God under all these circumstances of behaviour: for God has not tied us up to any of them; and he that shall tie himself, or his people, to any of these, doth more than he hath warrant for from God: and let such take care of innovating; it is the next way to make men hypocrites and dissemblers in those duties in which they should be sincere.

True, which of those soever a man shall choose to himself for the present, to perform this solemn duty in, it is required of him, and God expects it, that he should pray to him in truth, and with desire, affection, and hunger, after those things that with his tongue he maketh mention of before the throne of God.  And indeed without this, all is nothing.  But alas! how few be there in the world whose heart and mouth in prayer shall go together?  Dost thou, when thou askest for the Spirit, or faith, or love to God, to holiness, to saints, to the word, and the like, ask for them with love to them, desire of them, hungering after them?  Oh! this is a mighty thing! and yet prayer is no more before God, than as it is seasoned with these blessed qualifications.  Wherefore it is said, that while men are praying, God is searching of the heart, to see what is the meaning of the Spirit (or whether there be the Spirit and his meaning in all that the mouth hath uttered, either by words, sighs, or groans), because it is by him, and through his help only, that any make prayers according to the will of God; Rom. viii. 26, 27.  Whatever thy posture therefore shall be, see that thy prayers be pertinent and fervent, not mocking of thine own soul with words, while thou wantest, and art an utter stranger to, the very vital and living spirit of prayer.

Now, our Publican had and did exercise the very spirit of prayer in prayer.  He prayed sensibly, seriously, affectionately, hungering, thirsting, and with longing after that for which with his mouth he implored the God of heaven; his heart and soul was in his words, and it was that which made his prayer PRAYER; even because he prayed in PRAYER; he prayed inwardly as well as outwardly.

David tells us, that God heard the voice of his supplication, the voice of his cry, the voice of his tears, and the voice of his roaring.  For indeed are all these acceptable.  Affection and fervent desire make them sound well in the ears of God.  Tears, supplications, prayers, cries, may be all of them done in formality, hypocrisy, and from other causes, and to other ends, than that which is honest and right in God’s sight: for God would search and look after the voice of his tears, supplications, roarings, prayers, and cries.

And if men had less care to please men, and more to please God, in the matter and manner of praying, the world would be at a better pass than it is.  But this is not in man’s power to help and to amend.  When the Holy Ghost comes upon men with great conviction of their state and condition, and of the use and excellency of the grace of sincerity and humility in prayer, then, and not till then, will the grace of prayer be more prized, and the specious, flounting, complimentary lips of flatterers, be more laid aside.  I have said it already, and will say it again, that there is now-a-days a great deal of wickedness committed in the very duty of prayer; by words of which men have no sense by reaching after such conclusion and clenshes therein, as make their persons be admired; by studying for, and labouring after, such enlargements as the spirit accompanieth not the heart in.  O Lord God, make our hearts upright in us, as in all points and parts of our profession, so in this solemn appointment of God!  “If I regard iniquity in my heart,” said David, “the Lord will not hear my prayer.”  But if I be truly sincere, he will; and then it is no matter whether I kneel, or stand, or sit, or lie, or walk; for I shall do none of these, nor put up my prayers under any of these circumstances, lightly, foolishly, and idly, but to beautify this gesture with the inward working of my mind and spirit in prayer; that whether I stand or sit, walk or lie down, grace and gravity, humility and sincerity, shall make my prayer profitable, and my outward behaviour comely in his eyes, with whom (in prayer) I now have to do.

And had not our Publican been inwardly seasoned with these, Christ would have taken but little pleasure in his modes and outward behaviour: but being so honest inwardly, and in the matter of his prayer, his gestures by that were made beauteous also; and therefore it is that our Lord so delightfully delateth upon them, and draweth them out at length before the eyes of others.

I have often observed, that which is natural and so comely in one, looks odiously when imitated by another.  I speak as to gestures and actions in preaching and prayer.  Many, I doubt not, but will imitate the Publican, and that both in the prayer and gestures of the Publican, whose persons and actions will yet stink in the nostrils of him that is holy and just, and that searcheth the heart and the reins.

Well, the Publican stood and prayed; he stood afar off, and prayed, and his prayers came even to the ears of God.

“And the Publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven,” &c.

We are now come to another of his postures.  He would not, says the text, so much as lift up his eyes to heaven.  Here, therefore, was another gesture added to that which went before; and a gesture that a great while before had been condemned by the Holy Ghost himself.  “Is it such a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul?  Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush?” Isa. lviii. 5.

But why condemned then, and smiled upon now?  Why?  Because done in hypocrisy then, and in sincerity now.  Hypocrisy, and a spirit of error, that he shall take no pleasure in them; but sincerity, and honesty in duties, will make even them comely in the sight of men—may I not say before God?  The Rechabites were not commanded of God, but of their father, to do as they did; but, because they were sincere in their obedience thereto, even God himself maketh use of what they did, to condemn the disobedience of the Jews; and, moreover, doth tell the Rechabites at last, that they should not want a man to stand before him for ever.  “And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath commanded you; therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before me for ever.”

He would not lift up his eyes to heaven.  Why?  Surely because shame had covered his face.  Shame will make a man blush and hang his head like a bulrush; shame for sin is a virtue, a comely thing; yea, a beauty-spot in the face of a sinner that cometh to God for mercy.

God complains of the house of Israel, that they could sin, and that without shame; yea, and threateneth them too with sore repeated judgments, because they were not ashamed; it is in Jer. viii.  Their crimes in general were, they turned every one to his course, as the horse runneth into the battle.  In particular, they were such as rejected God’s word; they loved this world, and set themselves against the prophets, crying, “Peace, peace,” when they cried, “Judgment, judgment!”  And were not ashamed when they had committed abomination; “Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the Lord;” ver. 12.  Oh! to stand, or sit, or lie, or kneel, or walk before God in prayer, with blushing cheeks for sin, is one of the most excellent sights that can be seen in the world.

Wherefore the church taketh some kind of heart to herself in that she could lie down in her shame; yea, and makes that a kind of an argument with God to prove that her prayers did come from her heart, and also that he would hear them; Jer. iii. 22–25.

Shame for sin argueth sense of sin, yea, a right sense of sin, a godly sense of sin.  Ephraim pleads this when under the hand of God: I was (saith he) “ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.”  But what follows?  “Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord;” Jer. xxxi. 19, 20.

I know that there is a shame that is not the spirit of an honest heart, but that rather floweth from sudden surprisal, when the sinner is unawares taken in the act—in the very manner.  And thus sometimes the house of Israel were taken: and then, when they blushed, their shame is compared to the shame of a thief.  “As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets.”

But where were they taken, or about what were they found?  Why, they were found “saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, thou hast brought me forth.”  God catched them thus doing; and this made them ashamed, even as the thief is ashamed when the owner doth catch him stealing his horse.

But this was not the Publican’s shame.  This shame brings not a man into the temple to pray, to stand willingly, and to take shame before God in prayer.  This shame makes one rather to fly from his face, and to count one’s self most at ease when farthest off from God; Jer. ii. 26, 27.

The Publican’s shame, therefore, which he demonstrated by hanging down his head, was godly and holy, and much like that of the prodigal, when he said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;” Luke xv. 21.  I suppose that his postures were much the same with the Publican’s, as were his prayers, for the substance of them.  O however grace did work in both to the same end! they were both of them, after a godly manner, ashamed of their sins.

“He would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.”

He could not, he would not: which yet more fully makes it appear, that it was shame, not guilt only, or chiefly, though it is manifest enough that he had guilt; by his crying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”  I say, guilt was not the chief cause of hanging down his head, because it saith, he would not; for when guilt is the cause of stooping, it lieth not in the will, or in the power thereof, to help one up.

David tells us, that when he was under guilt, his iniquities were gone over his head: as an heavy burden, they were too heavy for him; and that with them he was bowed down greatly.  Or, as he says in another place, “Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up;” Psalm xxxviii.; xl.  I am not able to do it: guilt disableth the understanding, and conscience; shame makes all willingly fall at the feet of Christ.

He would not.  He knew what he was, what he had been, and should be, if God had not mercy upon him; yea, he knew also that God knew what he was, had been, and would be, if mercy prevented not; wherefore, thought he, Wherefore should I lift up the head?  I am no righteous man, no godly man, I have not served God, but Satan; this I know, this God knows, this angels know, wherefore I will not lift up the head.  It is as much as to say, I will not be an hypocrite, like the Pharisee: for lifting up of the head signifies innocency and harmlessness of life, or good conscience, and the testimony thereof, under and in the midst of all accusations.  Wherefore this was the counsel of Zophar to Job—“If,” saith he, “thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hand towards him; if iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.  For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be steadfast, and shalt not fear;” Job xi. 13–15.

This was not the Publican’s state: he had lived in lewdness and villany all his days; nor had he prepared his heart to seek the Lord God of his fathers; he had not cleansed his heart nor hands from violence, nor done that which was lawful and right.  He only had been convinced of his evil ways, and was come into the temple as he was, all foul, and in his filthy garments, and amidst his pollutions; how then could he be innocent, holy, or without spot? and, consequently, how could he lift up his face to God?  I remember what Abner said to Asahel, “Turn thee aside (said he) from following me, wherefore should I smite thee to the ground? how then should I hold up my face to Joab, thy brother?”  2 Sam. ii. 22.

As if he had said, If I kill thee, I shall blush, be ashamed, and hang my head like a bulrush the next time I come into the company of thy brother.

This was the Publican’s case: he was guilty, he had sinned, he had committed a trespass; and now being come into the temple, into the presence of that God whose laws he had broken, and against whom he had sinned, how could he lift up his head? how could he do it?  No, it better became him to take his shame, and to hang his head in token of guilt; and indeed he did, and did it to purpose too, for he would not lift up, no not so much as his eyes to heaven.

True, some would have done it; the Pharisee did it; though if he had considered that hypocrisy and the leaning to his own righteousness had been a sin, he would have found as little cause to have done it as did the Publican himself.  But, I say he did it, and sped therein; he went down to his house, as he came up into the temple, a poor unjustified Pharisee, whose person and prayer were both rejected; because, like the whore of whom we read in the Proverbs, after he had practised all manner of hypocrisy, he comes into the temple and wipes his mouth, and saith, “I have done no wickedness;” Prov. xxx. 20.  He lifts up his head, his face, his eyes, to heaven; he struts, he vaunts himself; he swaggers, he vapours, and cries up himself, saying, “God I thank thee that I am not as other men are.”

True, had he come and stood before a stock or stone, he might have said thus, and not have been reprehended; for such are gods that see not, nor hear, neither do they understand.  But to come before the true God, the living God, the God that fills heaven and earth by his presence, and that knows the things that come into the mind of man, even every one of them; I say, to come into his house, to stand before him, and thus to lift up his head and eyes in such hypocrisy before him, this was abominable, this was to tempt God, and to prove him, yea, to challenge him to know what was in man, if he could, even as those who said, “How doth God (see) know? can he judge through the dark cloud?”  Job xxii. 13; Psalm lxxiii. 11.

But the Publican—no—he would not do this; he would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.  As who should say, O Lord, I have been against thee a traitor and a rebel, and like a traitor and a rebel before thee will I stand.  I will bear my shame before thee in the presence of the holy angels; yea, I will prevent thy judging of me by judging myself in thy sight, and will stand as condemned before thee before thou passest sentence upon me.

This is now for a sinner to go to the end of things.  For what is God’s design in the work of conviction for sin, and in his awakening of the conscience about it?  What is his end, I say, but to make the sinner sensible of what he hath done, and that he might unfeignedly judge himself for the same.  Now this our Publican doth; his will therefore is now subjected to the word of God, and he justifies him in all his ways and works towards him.  Blessed be God for any experience of these things.

“He would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.”  He knew by his deeds and deservings that he had no portion there; nor would he divert his mind from the remembering, and from being affected with the evil of his ways.

Some men, when they are under the guilt and conviction of their evil life, will do what they can to look any way, and that on purpose to divert their minds, and to call them off from thinking on what they have done; and by their thus doing, they bring many evils more upon their souls; for this is a kind of striving with God, and a shewing a dislike to his ways.  Would not you think, if when you are shewing your son or your servant his faults, if he should do what he could to divert and take off his mind from what you are saying, that he striveth against you, and sheweth dislike of your doings?  What else mean the complaints of masters and of fathers in this matter?  “I have a servant, I have a son, that doth contrary to my will.”  “O but why do you not chide them for it?”  The answer is, “So I do; but they do not regard my words; they do what they can, even while I am speaking, to divert their minds from my words and counsels.”  Why, all men will cry out, “This is base; this is worthy of great rebuke; such a son, such a servant, deserveth to be shut out of doors, and so made to learn better breeding by want and hardship.”

But the Publican would not divert his mind from what at present God was about to make him sensible of, no, not by a look on the choicest object; he would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.  They are but bad scholars whose eyes, when their master is teaching of them, are wandering off their books.

God saith unto men, when he is teaching them to know the evil of their ways, as the angel said to the prophet when he came to shew him the pattern of the temple, “Son of man,” says he, “behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither;” Ezek. xl. 4.  So to the intent that God might shew to the Publican the evil of his ways, therefore was he brought under the power of convictions, and the terrors of the law; and he also, like a good learner, gave good heed unto that lesson that now he was learning of God; for he would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.

Looking downwards doth ofttimes bespeak men very ponderous and deep in their cogitations; also that the matter about which in their minds they are now concerned hath taken great hold of their spirits.  The Publican hath now new things, great things, and long-lived things, to concern himself about: his sins, the curse, with death, and hell, began now to stare him in the face: wherefore it was no time now to let his heart, or his eyes, or his cogitations, wander, but to be fixed, and to be vehemently applying of himself (as a sinner) to the God of heaven for mercy.

Few know the weight of sin.  When the guilt thereof takes hold of the conscience, it commands homewards all the faculties of the soul.  No man can go out or off now: now he is wind-bound, or, as Paul says, “caught:” now he is made to possess bitter days, bitter nights, bitter hours, bitter thoughts; nor can he shift them, for his sin is ever before him.  As David said, “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me,”—in my eye, and sticketh fast in every one of my thoughts; Psalm li. 3.

“He would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast.”  This was the third and last of his gestures; he “Smote upon his breast,” to wit, with his hand, or with his fist.  I read of several gestures with the hand and foot, according to the working and passions of the mind.  It is said, “Balak smote his hands together,” being angry because that Balaam had blessed and not cursed for him the children of Israel.

God says also, that he had smitten his hands together at the sins of the children of Israel.  God also bids the prophet stamp with his feet, and smite with his hand upon his thigh (Num. xxiv. 10; Ezek. xxii. 13; vi. 11; xxi. 12), upon sundry occasions, and at several enormities; but the Publican here is said to smite upon his breast.  And,

1.  Smiting upon the breast betokeneth sorrow for something done.  This is an experiment common among men; and indeed, therefore (as I take it), doth our Lord Jesus put him under this gesture in the act and exercise of his repentance, because it is that which doth most lively set it forth.

Suppose a man comes to great damage for some folly that he has wrought, and he be made sorrowful for (being and) doing such folly, there is nothing more common than for such a man (if he may) to walk to and fro in the room where he is, with head hung down, fetching ever and anon a bitter sigh, and smiting himself upon the breast in his dejected condition: “But smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.”

2.  Smiting upon the breast is sometimes a token of indignation and abhorrence of something thought upon.  I read in Luke, that when Christ was crucified, those spectators that stood to behold the barbarous usage that he endured at the hands of his enemies, smote their breasts and returned.  “And all the people (says Luke) that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts and returned;” Luke xxiii. 48.  Smote their breasts; that is, in token of indignation against, and abhorrence of, the cruelty that was used to the Son of God.

Here also we have our Publican smiting upon his breast in token of indignation against, and abhorrence of, his former life; and indeed, without indignation against, and abhorrence of, his former life, his repentance had not been good.  Wherefore the apostle doth make indignation against sin, and against ourselves, one of the signs of true repentance; 2 Cor. vii. 11; and his indignation against sin in general, and against his former life in particular, was manifested by his smiting upon the breast, even as Ephraim’s smiting upon the thigh was a sign and token of his: “Surely (says he), after that I was turned, I repented: and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth;” Jer. xxxi. 19.  Man, when he vehemently dislikes a thing, is very apt to shew a dislike to that thing by this or another outward gesture; as in snuffing or snorting at it, or in deriding; or, as some say, in blowing of their noses at it; Ezek. viii. 17; Mal. i. 13.  But the Publican here chooseth rather to use this most solemn posture; for smiting upon the breast seems to imply a more serious, solemn, grave way or manner of dislike, than any of those last mentioned do.

3.  Smiting upon the breast seems to intimate a quarrel with the heart, for beguiling, deluding, flattering, seducing, and enticing of him to sin; for as conviction for sin begets in man (I mean if it be thorough) a sense of the sore and plague of the heart, so repentance (if it be right) begets in man an outcry against the heart; forasmuch as by that light, by which repentance takes occasion, the sinner is made to see that the heart is the fountain and well-spring of sin.  “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, covetousness,” &c.; Mark vii. 21–23.  And hence it is that commonly young converts do complain so of their hearts, calling them wicked, treacherous, deceitful, desperate ones.