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Desmond raised his eyebrows. He had noticed the fragments in the fender: the faint suggestion of chlorodyne that still clung in the air. "My dear Lenox, I am sorry for that. And the remedy? You must have tried something before now?" "Yes. Drugged tobacco: opium, a good strong mixture," the other answered bluntly. "You may as well have it straight. You're an understanding fellow; and no Pharisee."
'You're a horrid little Pharisee and as wild as a young colt. Contrary to received canons, the visitor seemed to find something reassuring in the latter reflection, for she kissed the small, self-righteous face. 'You just ought to have seen Sara this morning! Cecil chuckled, with a generous admiration in family achievements. 'We waked up early, and Sara said, "Let's go mountaineering."
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.
Luke pictures our Lord not as a severe ascetic but as a man of human sympathies and social instincts, mingling freely with his fellow men, worshiping with them in their synagogues and eating with them in their homes. No domestic scene in the life of our Lord is sketched with more detail than that of the Sabbath feast in the house of a Pharisee.
The Pharisee here must needs come down, for God is greater than all. Also, he hath said, that no flesh shall glory in his presence; and that he will have mercy, and not sacrifice. And again, that it is not, nor shall be, in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that sheweth mercy. What hope, help, stay, or relief then is there left for the merit-monger?
Why have we not a catalogue of some holy men that were so in their own eyes, and in the judgment of the world? Alas! if, at any time, any of them are mentioned, how seemingly coldly doth the record of scripture present them to us? Nicodemus, a night professor, and Simon the Pharisee, with his fifty pence, and their great ignorance of the methods of grace, we have now and then touched upon.
"I am not," saith he, "as other men;" that is, in unconversion, in a state of sin, wrath, and death: and this must be his meaning, for the religion of the Pharisee was not grounded upon any particular natural privilege: I mean not singly, not only upon that, but upon a falling in with those principles, notions, opinions, decrees, traditions, and doctrines that they taught distinct from the true and holy doctrines of the prophets.
The Pharisee was such an one, he rested in the law, he made his boasts of God, and trusted to himself that he was righteous; And all this proceeded of that blindness and ignorance that the law had possessed his mind withal; for it is not granted to the law to be the ministration of life and light, but to be the ministration of death, when it speaks; and of darkness, when trusted unto, that the Son of God might have the pre-eminence in all things: Therefore 'tis said, "When the heart shall turn to him, the vail shall be taken away."
The conclusion is true, forasmuch as the Pharisee mentioned in the parable is not so spoken of, for the only sake of that sect of men, but to caution, forewarn, and bid all men take heed, that they by doing as he, procure not his rejection of God, and be sent away from his presence unjustified.
His words are full of warning for his followers in all ages; religion ever tends to become a matter of form and ritual; hypocrisy is often unconscious; its practice is almost universal. A Pharisee whose heart was foul with sinful thoughts wondered that Jesus had sat down to eat without first washing his hands according to the Jewish ritual.
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