20. Hypocrites and self-righteous people much more commonly
attending religious meetings — there be a proportional care to abound in moral duties — such as acts of righteousness, truth, meekness, forgiveness, and love towards our neighbor. These are of much greater importance in the sight of God, than all the externals of His worship. Our Saviour was particularly careful that men be well aware of this. Mat 9.13, "But go and learn what this means: I will have mercy and not sacrifice." And Mat 12.7, "But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless." The internal acts and principles of the worship of God, or the worship of the heart — in the love and fear of God, trust in God, and resignation to God, etc. — are the most essential and important of all duties of religion whatsoever. For the essence of all religion consists in this. But there are two sorts of external manifestations or expressions of this inward religion.
One sort includes outward acts of worship — such as meeting in religious assemblies; attending sacraments and other outward institutions; honoring God with gestures, such as bowing, or kneeling before him; or with words, in speaking honorably of Him in prayer, praise, or religious conference. The other sort includes the expressions of our love to God, by obeying his moral commands; expression of self-denial, righteousness, meekness, and Christian love, in our behavior among men.
The latter have vastly greater importance in the Christian life. God takes little account of the former, in comparison to the others. They are abundantly more insisted on by the prophets in the Old Testament, and by Christ and his apostles in the New. When these two kinds of duties are spoken of together, the latter are preferred ever more greatly, as in Isa 1.12-18; Amos 5.21 f.; Mic 6.7-8; Isa 58.57; Zec 7.1-10; Jer 2.1-7, and Mat 15.3f. Often, when the times were very corrupt in Israel, the people abounded in the former kind of duties. But at such times, they were always notoriously deficient in the latter, as the prophets complain about in Isa 58.1-4; Jer 6.13 cf. 20. Hypocrites and self-righteous people much more commonly