ed no peace;
they produced no holiness. It would be a great error to suppose that
the Pharisees were hypocrites in the ordinary sense of the term--that
is, pretending to be anxious about religion when they knew that they
felt no anxiety. They _were_ anxious, in their way. They heard a
startling free announcement of forgiveness by a man. To them it
appeared license given to sin. If this new teacher, this upstart--in
their own language, "this fellow--of whom every man knew whence he
was," were to go about the length and breadth of the land, telling
sinners to be at peace; telling them to forget the past, and to work
onwards; bidding men's consciences be at rest; and commanding them not
to _fear_ the God whom they had offended, but to _trust_ in Him--what
would become of morality and religion? This presumptuous Absolver
would make men careless about both. If the indispensable safeguards of
penalty were removed, what remained to restrain men from sin?

For the Pharisees had no notion of any other goodness than that which
is restrained; they could conceive no goodness free, but only that
which is produced by rewards and punishments--law-goodness,
law-righteousness: to dread God, not to love and trust Him, was their
conception of religion. And this, indeed, is the _ordinary_ conception
of religion--the ordinary meaning implied to most minds by the word
religion. The word religion means, by derivation, restriction or
obligation--obligation to do, obligation to avoid. And this is the
negative system of the Pharisees--scrupulous avoidance of evil, rather
than positive and free pursuit of excellence. Such a system never
produced anything but barren denial. "_This_ is wrong;" "_that_ is
heresy;" "_that_ is dangerous."

There was another class of men who denied human power of absolution.
They were called Scribes or writers--pedants, men of ponderous
learning and accurate definitions; from being mere transcribers of the
law, they had risen to be its expounders. They could define the exact
number of yards that might be travelled on the Sabbath-day without
infringement of the law; they could decide, according to the most
approved theology, the respective importance of each duty; they would
tell you, authoritatively, which was the _great_ commandment of the
law. The Scribe is a man who turns religion into etiquette: his idea
of God is that of a monarch, transgression against whom is an offence
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