sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee." That, therefore, of all
the sects, was the most strait and strict. Therefore, saith he, in
another place, "I was taught according to the perfect manner of the
law of the fathers." And again, "Touching the law, a Pharisee;" Acts
xxii. 3; xxvi. 4-6; Phil. iii. 5. The Pharisee, therefore, did carry
the bell, and wear the garland for religion; for he outdid, he went
beyond all other sectarians in his day. He was strictest, he was the
most zealous; therefore Christ, in his making of this parable, waived
all other sects then in being, and pitched upon the Pharisee as the
man most meet, by whose rejection he might shew forth and demonstrate
the riches of his mercy in its extension to sinners: "Two men went
up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee:" such a brave man as
you have heard.

2. The Publican also went up thither to pray. The Publican, I told
you before, was an officer: an officer that served the Romans and
himself too; for the Romans at that time were possessors of the land
of Jewry (the lot of Israel's inheritance), and the emperor Tiberius
Caesar placed over that land four governors, to wit, Pilate, Herod,
Philip, and Lysanias; all these were Gentiles, heathens, infidels;
and the publicans were a sort of inferior men, to whom was let out to
farm, and so men that were employed by these to gather up the taxes
and customs that the heathens had laid upon the Jews to be paid to
the emperor; Luke ii. 1; iii. 1, 2, 12, 13.

But they were a generation of men that were very injurious in the
execution of their office. They would exact and demand more than was
due of the people; yea, and if their demands were denied, they would
falsely accuse those that so denied them to the governor, and by
false accusation obtain the money of the people, and so wickedly