William Burkitt on Matthew 23:27

Here we have a woe denounced against the Pharisees for cheating and deceiving the people with an outward shew, and external appearance of piety and religion: their lives were seemingly very religious but their hearts were full of hypocrisy and all impurity, like sepulchres painted without, and full of rottenness within.

Whence, Learn, That the great design of hypocrisy is to cheat the world with a vain and empty shew of piety. The ambition of the hypocrite is to be thought good, not to be so; he is the world's saint, not God's.