Judge yourselves; mend your lives;
Leave other folks alone.


But if a man, hearing this sermon, begins to say to himself, Such a
man as I am--so full of faults as I am--what right have I in church?
So selfish--so uncharitable--so worldly--so useless--so unfair (or
whatever other faults the man may feel guilty of)--in one word, so
unlike what I ought to be--so unlike Christ--so unlike God whom I
come to worship. How little I act up to what I believe! how little I
really believe what I have learnt! what right have I in church? What
if God were saying the same of me as he said of those old Jews, 'Thy
church-going, thy coming to communion, thy Christmas-day, my soul
hateth; I am weary to bear it. Who hath required this at thy hands,
to tread my courts?' People round me may think me good enough as men
go now; but I know myself too well; and I know that instead of saying
with the Pharisee to any man here, 'I thank God that I am not as this
man or that,' I ought rather to stand afar off like the publican, and
not lift up so much as my eyes toward heaven, crying only 'God, be
merciful to me a sinner.'

If a man should think thus, my friends, his thoughts may make him
very serious for awhile; nay, very sad. But they need not make him
miserable: need still less make him despair.

They ought to set him on thinking--Why do I come to church?

Because it is the fashion?

Because I want to hear the preacher?