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"There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness." This text can be so fitly applied to none as the Pharisee, and to those that tread in the Pharisee's steps, and that are swallowed up with his conceits, and with the glory of their own righteousness.
But none of those kind things were done to Jesus when He came to that Pharisee's house. Presently Jesus and Simon began to eat. In that country, people often lay down to eat. Broad settees, or couches, were put round the table, and the visitors used to lie down in rows on these settees. Their heads were near the table, and their feet were the other way.
Like the penitent psalmist, his iniquities have taken hold on him, so that he is 'not able to look up. Keen consciousness of sin, true sorrow for sin, earnest desire to shake off the burden of sin, lowly trust in God's pardoning mercy, are all crowded into his brief petition. The arrow thus feathered goes straight up to the throne; the Pharisee's prayer cannot rise above his own lips.
In these words many things are worth the noting. As, First, The Pharisee's definition of righteousness; the which standeth in two things: 1. In negatives; 2. In positives. In negatives; to wit, what a man that is righteous must not be: "I am no extortioner, no unjust man, no adulterer, nor yet as this Publican."
Our Lord's parable is the answer to the Pharisee's thought, and in it Jesus shows Simon that He knows him and the woman a great deal better than he did. There are three things to which briefly I ask your attention the common debt, in varying amounts; the common insolvency; and the love, like the debt, varying in amount. Now, note these things in order. I. There is, first of all, the common debt.
Mercy standeth not at the Publican's badness, nor is it enamoured with the Pharisee's goodness: It suffereth not the law to take place on both, though it findeth them both in sin, but graciously embraceth the most unworthy, and leaveth the best to shift for himself.
And such was the Pharisee's prayer, only he wanted substantial ground for his thanksgiving; to wit, he wanted proof of that he said, "he was not as other men were," except he had meant, as he did not, that he was even of the worst sort of men: For even the best of men by nature, and the worst, are all alike. "What, then? are we better than they?" said Paul, "No, in no wise."
But, I say, there are some that so affect the Pharisee's mode, that they cannot be well if in some sort or other they be not in the practice of it, not knowing what they say, nor whereof they affirm; but these are greatly addicted to hypocrisy and desire of vain-glory, especially if the sound of their words be within the reach of other men's ears.
She took with her a phial of ointment, the costliest that she possessed, found an entrance into the Pharisee's house, and walked behind backs to the feet of Jesus, as he reclined at table on an elevated cushion. Arrived there, she is incapable of accomplishing her purpose. The thought of the greatness of her sin, and the greatness of the compassion of Jesus, broke her heart.
"Do you ever see the other side to any question?" asked Shelton. "I suppose not. You always begin to act before you stop thinking, don't you?" Crocker grinned. "He's a Pharisee, too," thought Shelton, "without a Pharisee's pride. Queer thing that!" After walking some distance, as if thinking deeply, Crocker chuckled out: "You 're not consistent; you ought to be in favour of giving up India."
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