The Pharisee and the Publican | Page 7

who always counted themselves a free people, and could
never abide to be in bondage to any. And this was something of the
reason, that they were so generally by all the Jews counted so vile and
base, and reckoned among the worst of men, even as our informers and
bum-bailiffs are with us at this day.
But that which heightened the spirit of the people against them, and
that made them so odious and filthy in their eyes, was for that (at least
so I think) these publicans were not, as the other officers, aliens,
heathens, and Gentiles, but men of their own nation, Jews, and so the
brethren of those that they so abused. Had they been Gentiles, it had
not been wondered at.
The Publican then was a Jew, a kind of a renegade Jew, that through
the love that he had to unjust gains, fell off in his affections from his
brethren, adhered to the Romans, and became a kind of servant to them
against their brethren, farming the heathenish taxations at the hand of
strangers, and exacting of them upon their brethren with much cruelty,
falsehood, and extortion. And hence, as I said, it was, that to be a
publican, was to be so odious a thing, so vile a sinner, and so grievous a
man in the eyes of the Jews. Why, this was the Publican! he was a Jew,
and so should have abode with them, and have been content to share
with his brethren in their calamities; but contrary to nature, to law, to
religion, reason, and honesty, he fell in with the heathen, and took the
advantage of their tyranny to poll, to rob, and impoverish his brethren.
But for proof that the Publican was a Jew.
1. Publicans are, even then, when compared with, yet distinguished
from, the heathen; "Let him be to thee as an heathen man and a
publican," Matt. xviii.; which two terms, I think, must not here be
applied to one and the self-same man, as if the heathen was a publican,
or the publican a heathen; but to men of two distinct nations, as that
publican and harlot is to be understood of sinners of both sexes. The
Publican is not an harlot, for he is a man, &c., and such a man as has
been described before. So by publicans and sinners, is meant publicans
and such sinners as the Gentiles were; or such as, by the text, the
Publican is distinguished from: where the Pharisee saith he was not an

extortioner, unjust, adulterer, or even as this Publican. Nor can he by
"heathen man" intend the person, and by the term publican, the office
or place, of the heathen man; but by publican is meant the renegade
Jew, in such a place, &c., as is yet further manifested by that which
follows. For -
2. Those publicans, even every one of them that by name are made
mention of in the New Testament, have such names put upon them; yea,
and other circumstances thereunto annexed, as doth demonstrate them
to be Jews. I remember the names of no more but three, to wit,
Matthew, Levi, and Zaccheus, and they were all Jews.
(1.) Matthew was a Jew, and the same Matthew was a publican; yea,
and also afterwards an apostle. He was a Jew, and wrote his gospel in
Hebrew: he was an apostle, and is therefore found among the twelve.
That he was a publican too, is as evident by his own words; for though
Mark and Luke, in their mentioning of his name and apostleship, do
forbear to call him a publican (Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. l6); yet when this
Matthew comes to speak of himself, he calls himself Matthew the
publican (Matth. x. 3); for I count this the self-same Matthew that Mark
and Luke make mention of, because I find no other Matthew among the
apostles but he: Matthew the publican, Matthew the man so deep in
apostacy, Matthew the man of that ill fame among his brethren. Love,
in Mark and Luke, when they counted him among the apostles, did
cover with silence this his publican state (and it is meet for Peter to call
Paul his beloved brother, when Paul himself shall call himself the chief
of sinners); but faithfulness to the world, and a desire to be abased, that
Christ thereby, and grace by him, might be advanced, made Matthew,
in his evangelical writings, call himself by the name of Matthew the
publican. Nor has he lost thereby; for Christ again to exalt him (as he
hath also done by the apostle Paul), hath set, by his special providence,
the testimony that this Matthew hath given of his birth, life, death,
doctrine, and miracles, in the