"
In one word, then, the sin of these Pharisees, the unpardonable sin,
which ruins all who give themselves up to it, was bigotry; calling
right wrong, because it did not suit their party prejudices to call
it right. They were fancying themselves very religious and pious,
and all the while they did not know right when they saw it; and when
the Lord came doing right, they called it wrong, because He did not
agree with their doctrines. They fancied they were the only people
on earth who knew how to worship God perfectly; and yet while they
pretended to worship Him, they did not know what He was like. The
Lord Jesus came down, the perfect likeness of God's glory, and the
express pattern of His character, helping, and healing, and
delivering the souls and bodies of all poor wretches whom He met; and
these Pharisees could not see God's Spirit in that; and because it
was certainly not their own spirit, called it the spirit of a devil,
and blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Right and Love.
This was bigotry, the flower and crown of all sins into which man can
fall; the worst of all sins, because a man may keep from every other
sin with all his might and main, as the Pharisees did, and yet be led
by bigotry into almost every one of them without knowing it; into
harsh and uncharitable judgment; into anger, clamour, and railing;
into misrepresentation and slander; and fancying that the God of
truth needs the help of their lying; perhaps, as has often happened,
alas! already, into devilish cruelty to the souls and bodies of men.
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