Besides, my friends, there is, I know too well, a great danger in making too much of these little outward ceremonies, especially with children and young people. For the heart of man is just as fond as it ever was of idolatry, and superstition, and will-worship, and voluntary humility, and paying tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, while it neglects the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and judgment: and, therefore, there is very great danger, if we make too much of these ceremonies, harmless and even good as many of them may be, of getting to rest in them, and thinking that God is pleased with them themselves. Whereas, what God looks at is the heart, the spirit, the soul; and whether it is right or wrong, proud or humble, hard or loving: and if we think so much of the outward and visible form, that we forget the inward and spiritual grace, for which it ought to stand, then we lay a snare for our own souls to turn them away from the worship of the living God, and break the second commandment. Much more, if we pride ourselves on being more reverent than our neighbours in these outward forms, and look down on, and grudge at, those who do not practise them; for then we turn our humility into pride, and our reverence to Christ into an insult to him; for the true way to honour Christ is to copy Christ. No one really honours and admires Christ’s character who does not copy him; and to esteem ourselves better than others, to say in our hearts, ‘Stand by, for I am holier than thou,’ to offend and drive away Christ’s little ones, and wound the consciences of weak brethren by insisting on things against which they have a prejudice, is to run exactly counter to Christ and the mind of Christ, and to be more like the Pharisees than the Lord Jesus. That is not surely esteeming others better than ourselves: that is not surely looking not merely on our own things, but also on the things of others; that is not fulfilling the law of love; that is not following St. Paul’s example, who gave up, he says, doing many things which he thought right, because they offended weaker spirits than his own. ‘All things,’ he says, ‘are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.’ ‘Ay,’ says he, ‘I would eat no meat while the world standeth, if it cause my brother to offend.’