“I am not as this Publican.” Modesty should have commanded thee to have bit thy tongue as to this. What could the angels think, but that revenge was now in thine heart, and but that thou comest up into the temple rather to boast of thyself and accuse thy neighbour, than to pray to the God of heaven; for what petition is there in all thy prayer, that gives the least intimation that thou hast the knowledge of God or thyself? Nay, what petition of any kind is there in thy vain-glorious oration from first to last? Only an accusation drawn up, and that against one helpless and forlorn; against a poor man, because he is a sinner; drawn up, I say, against him by thee, who canst not make proof of thyself that thou art righteous; but come to proofs of righteousness, and thou art wanting also. What, though thy raiment is better than his, thy skin may be full as black; yea, what if thy skin be whiter than his, thy heart may be yet far blacker. Yea, it is so, for the truth hath spoken it; for within, you are full of excess and all uncleanness; Matt. xxiii. Pharisee, these are transgressions against the second table, and the Publican shall be guilty of them; but there are sins also against the first table, and thou thyself art guilty of them. The Publican, in that he was an extortioner, unjust and an adulterer, made it thereby manifest that he did not love his neighbour; and thou by making a god, a saviour, a deliverer, of thy filthy righteousness, dost make it appear, that thou dost not love thy God; for as he that taketh, or that derogateth from his neighbour in that which is his neighbour’s due, sinneth against his neighbour; so he that taketh or derogateth from God, sinneth against God. Now, then, though thou hast not, as thou dost imagine, played at that low game as to derogate from thy neighbour; yet thou hast played at that high game as to derogate from thy God; for thou hast robbed God of the glory of salvation; yea, declared, that as to that there is no trust to be put in him. “Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness;” Psalm lii. 7. What else means this great bundle of thy own righteousness, which thou hast brought with thee into the temple? yea, what means else thy commending of thyself because of that, and so thy implicit prayer, that thou for that mightst find acceptance with God? All this, what does it argue, I say, but thy diffidence of God? and that thou countest salvation safer in thine own righteousness than in the righteousness of God? and that thy own love to, and care of thy own soul, is far greater, and so much better, than is the care and love of God? And is this to keep the first table; yea, the first branch of that table, which saith, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God?” for thy thus doing cannot stand with love to God?