18:9 He spake this parable - Not to hypocrites; the Pharisee here mentioned was no hypocrite, no more than an outward adulterer: but he sincerely trusted in himself that he was righteous, and accordingly told God so, in the prayer which none but God heard.

Luke 18:9 Parallel Commentaries

September the Fourteenth the Sense of Want
"This man went down to his house justified rather than the other." --LUKE xviii. 9-14. The Master sets the Pharisee and publican in contrast, and His judgment goes against the man who has made some progress in moral attainments, and favours the man who has no victories to show, but only a hunger for victory. The dissatisfied sinner is preferred to the self-satisfied saint. The Pharisee had gained an inch, but had lost his sense of the continent. The publican had not pegged out an inch of moral …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

On the Words of the Gospel, Luke xviii. 1,"They Ought Always to Pray, and not to Faint," Etc. And on the Two who Went up Into
1. The lesson of the Holy Gospel builds us up unto the duty of praying and believing, and of not putting our trust in ourselves, but in the Lord. What greater encouragement to prayer than the parable which is proposed to us of the unjust judge? For an unjust judge, who feared not God, nor regarded man, yet gave ear to a widow who besought him, overcome by her importunity, not inclined thereto by kindness. [3531] If he then heard her prayer, who hated to be asked, how must He hear who exhorts us to …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

Confession and Absolution
I. Brethren, let us imitate the publican, first of all in his CONFESSION. There has been a great deal of public excitement during the last few weeks and months about the confessional. As for that matter, it is perhaps a mercy that the outward and visible sign of Popery in the Church of England has discovered to its sincere friends the inward and spiritual evil which had long been lurking there. We need not imagine that the confessional, or priestcraft, of which it is merely an offshoot, in the Church …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858