and apply them that they may please themselves; and some men will
pray, but will refuse such words and thoughts in prayer as will not
please themselves.

O how many men speak all that they speak in prayer, rather to
themselves, or to their auditory, than to God that dwelleth in
heaven. And this I take to be the manner, I mean something of the
manner, of the Pharisee's praying. Indeed, he made mention of God,
as also others do; but he prayed with himself to himself, in his own
spirit, and to his own pleasing, as the matter of his prayer doth
manifest. For was it not pleasant to this hypocrite, think you, to
speak thus well of himself at this time? Doubtless it was. Also
children and fools are of the same temper with hypocrites, as to
this: they also love, without ground, as the Pharisee, to flatter
themselves in their own eyes; "But not he that commendeth himself is
approved."

"God, I thank thee, I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this Publican," &c.

Thus he begins his prayer; and it is, as was hinted before, a prayer
of the highest strain. For to make a prayer all of thanksgiving, and
to urge in that prayer the cause of that thanksgiving, is the highest
manner of praying, and seems to be done in the strongest faith, &c.,
in the greatest sense of things. And such was the Pharisee's prayer,
only he wanted substantial ground for his thanksgiving; to wit, he
wanted proof of that he said, He was not as other men were, except he
had meant, he did not, that he was even of the worst sort of men:
For even the best of men by nature, and the worst, are all alike.
"What, then, are we better than they? (saith Paul), No, in nowise;"