CONTEMPLATION XV. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. while the rich is chambered up to sleep out his surfeit. Out of these grounds is the woman brought to Christ: not to the Mount of Olives, not to the way, not to his private lodging, but to the temple; and that not to some obscure angle, but into the face of the assembly. WHAT a busy life was this of Christ's! He spent the night in the Mount of Olives, the day in the temple; whereas the night is for a retired repose, the day for company: his retiredness was for prayer, his compa- They pleaded for her death: the punishmonableness was for preaching. All nightment which they would onwards inflict, was he watches in the mount; all the morning her shame; which must needs be so much he preaches in the temple. It was not for more, as there were more eyes to be witpleasure that he was here upon earth: his nesses of her guiltiness. All the brood of whole time was penal and toilsome: how sin affects darkness and secrecy, but this do we resemble him, if his life were all pain more properly: the twilight, the night, is for and labour, ours all pastime? the adulterer. It cannot be better fitted than to be dragged out into the light of the sun, and to be proclaimed with hootings and basins. O the impudence of those men who can make merry professions of their own beastliness, and boast of the shameful trophies of their lust! He found no such fair success the day before the multitude was divided in their opinion of him; messengers were sent, and suborned to apprehend him, yet he returns to the temple. It is for the sluggard or the coward to plead a lion in the way; upon the calling of God, we must overlook and contemn all the spite and opposition of men: even after an ill harvest we must sow, and after denials, we must woo for God. This Sun of righteousness prevents that other, and shines early with wholesome doctrines upon the souls of his hearers; the auditory is both thronged and attentive, yet not all with the same intentions. If the people came to learn, the Scribes and Pharisees came to cavil and carp at his teaching; with what a pretence of zeal and justice yet do they put themselves into Christ's presence! As lovers of chastity and sanctimony, and haters of uncleanness, they bring to him a woman taken in the flagrance of her adultery. And why the woman rather, since the man's offence was equal, if not more; because he should have had more strength of resistance, more grace not to tempt? Was it out of necessity? perhaps the man, knowing his danger, made use of strength to shift away, and violently break from his apprehenders. Or was it out of cunning, in that they hoped for more likely matter to accuse Christ, in the case of the woman than of the man? for that they supposed his merciful disposition might more probably incline to compassionate her weakness rather than the stronger vessel? Or was it rather out of partiality? was it not then, as now, that the weakest soonest suffers, and impotency lays us open to the malice of an enemy? Small flies hang in the webs, while wasps break through without control; the wand and the sheet are for poor offenders, the great either out-face or out-buy their shame: beggarly drunkard is haled to the stocks, Methinks I see this miserable adulteress, how she stands confounded amidst that gazing and disdainful multitude! how she hides her head, how she wipes her blubbered face and weeping eyes! In the meantime, it is no dumb-show that is here acted by these Scribes and Pharisees; they step forth boldly to her accusation: "Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act." How plausibly do they begin! Had I stood by and heard them, should I not have said, What holy, honest, conscionable men are these! what devout clients of Christ! with what reverence they come to him! with what zeal of justice! when he that made and ransacks their bosom tells me, "All this is done but to tempt him." Even the falsest hearts will have the plausiblest mouths: like to Solomon's courtezan, "Their lips drop as an honeycomb, and their mouth is smoother than oil; but their end is bitter as wormwood." False and hollow Pharisees! he is your Master whom ye serve, not he whom ye tempt: only in this shall he be approved your Master, that he shall pay you your wages, and give you your portion with hypocrites. The act of adultery was her crime: to be taken in the very act, was no part of her sin, but the proof of her just conviction : yet her deprehension is made an aggravation of her shame. Such is the corrupt judgment of the world: to do ill, troubles not men, but to be taken in doing it; unknown filthiness passes away with ease; it is the notice that perplexes them, not the guilt. But, O foolish sinners, all your packing and secrecy cannot so contrive it, but that ye shall be taken in the manner; your conscience takes you so, the God of heaven takes you so; and ye shall once find, that your conscience is more than a thousand witnesses, and God more than a thousand consciences. They that complain of the act, urge the punishment: "Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned." Where did Moses bid so? Surely the particularity of this execution was without the book? Tradition and custom enacted it, not the law. Indeed, Moses commanded death to both the offenders, not the manner of death to either. By analogy it holds thus: it is flatly commanded in the case of a damsel betrothed to a husband, and found not to be a virgin; in the case of a damsel betrothed, who being defiled in the city, cried not tradition and custom made up the rest; obtaining out of this ground, that all adulterers should be executed by lapidation. The ancienter punishment was burning; death always, though in divers forms. I sname to think, that Christians should slight that sin which both Jews and Pagans held ever deadly. What a mis-citation is this! "Moses commanded." The law was God's, not Moses's. If Moses were employed to mediate betwixt God and Israel, the law is never the more his he was the hand of God to reach the law to Israel, the hand of Israel to take it from God. We do not name the water from the pipes, but from the spring. It is not for a true Israelite to rest in the second means, but to mount up to the supreme original of justice. How reverent soever an opinion was had of Moses, he cannot be thus named without a shameful undervaluing of the royal law of his Maker. There is no mortal man whose authority may not grow into contempt: that of the everliving God cannot but be ever sacred and inviolable. It is now with the gospel, as it was then with the law: the word is no other than Christ's, though delivered by our weakness; whosoever be the crier, the proclamation is the King of heaven's. While it goes for ours, it is no marvel if it lie open to despite. How captious a word is this! Moses said thus, "What sayest thou?" If they be not sure that Moses said so, why do they affirm it? and if they be sure, why do they question that which they know decided? They would not have desired a better advantage, than a contradiction to that received lawgiver. It is their profession, "We are Moses' disciples," and "we know that God spake to Moses." It had been quarrel enough to oppose so known a prophet. Still I find it the drift of the enemies of truth, to set Christ and Moses together by the ears, in the matter of the Sabbath, of circumcision, of marriage and divorce; of the use of the law, of justification by the law, of the sense and extent of the law, and where not? but they shall never be able to effect it: they two are fast and indissolubie friends on both parts for ever; each speaks for other, each establishes other; they are subordinate, they cannot be opposite; Moses faithful as a servant, Christ as a son. A faithful servant cannot but be officious to the Son. The true use we make of Moses is, to be our schoolmaster to teach us, to whip us unto Christ; the true use we make of Christ is, to supply Moses: "By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses." Thus must we hold in with both, if we will have our part in either: so shall Moses bring us to Christ, and Christ to glory. Had these Pharisees, out of simplicity, and desire of resolution in a case of doubt, moved this question to our Saviour, it had been no less commendable, than now it is blameworthy. O Saviour, whither should we have recourse, but to thine oracle? thou art the Word of the Father, the Doctor of the church: while we hear from others, what say fathers? what say councils? let them hear from us, "What sayest thou?" But here it was far otherwise: they came not to learn, but to tempt, and to tempt that they might accuse like their father the devil, who solicits to sin that he may plead against us for yieldance. Fain would these colleaguing adversaries draw Christ to contradict Moses, that they might take advantage of his contradiction. On the one side they saw his readiness to tax the false glosses which their presumptuous doctors had put upon the law, with an 'I say unto you;" on the other, they saw his inclination to mercy and commiseration in all his courses, so far as to neglect even some circumstances of the law as to touch the leper, to heal on the Sabbath, to eat with known sinners, to dismiss an infamous but penitent offender, to select and countenance two noted publicans; and hereupon they might perhaps think that his compassion might draw him to cross this Mosaical institution. What a crafty bait is here laid for our Saviour! such as he cannot bite at, and not be taken. It seems to them impossible he | should avoid a deep prejudice either to his justice or mercy. For thus they imagine: either Christ will second Moses in sentencing this woman to death, or else he will cross Moses in dismissing her unpunished. If he commands her to be stoned, he loses the honour of his clemency and mercy; if he appoints her dismission, he loses the honour of his justice. Indeed, strip him of either of these, and he can be no Saviour. O the cunning folly of vain men, that hope to beguile Wisdom itself! Silence and neglect shall first confound those men, whom after his answer will send away convicted. Instead of opening his mouth, our Saviour bows his body; and instead of returning words from his lips, writes characters on the ground with his finger. O Saviour, I had rather silently wonder at thy gesture, than inquire cuririously into the words thou wrotest, or the mysteries of thus writing; only herein I see thou meanest to show a disregard to these malicious and busy cavillers. Sometimes taciturnity and contempt are the best answers. Thou that hast bidden us "Be wise as serpents," givest us this noble example of thy prudence. It was most safe that these tempters should be thus kept fasting with a silent disrespect, that their eagerness might justly draw upon them an ensuing shame. The more unwillingness they saw in Christ to give his answer, the more pressing and importunate they were to draw it from him. Now, as forced by their so zealous irritation, our Saviour rouseth up himself and gives it them home, with a reprehensory and stinging satisfaction: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her;"- -as if his very action had said, I was loath to have shamed you, and therefore could have been willing not to have heard your ill-meant motion; but since you will needs have it, and by your vehemence force my justice, I must tell you, there is not one of you but is as faulty as she whom you accuse; there is no difference, but that your sin is smothered in secrecy, hers is brought forth into the light. Ye had more need to make your own peace by an humble repentance, than to urge severity against another. I deny not but Moses hath justly from God imposed the penalty of death upon such heinous of fences, but what then would become of you? if death be her due, yet not by those your unclean hands; your hearts know you are not honest enough to accuse. Lo, not the bird, but the fowler, is taken. He says not, Let her be stoned; this had been against the course of his mercy: he says not, Let her not be stoned; this had been against the law of Moses. Now he so answers, that both his justice and mercy are entire; she dismissed, they shamed. It was the manner of the Jews, in those heinous crimes that were punished with lapidation, that the witnesses and accusers should be the first that should lay hands upon the guilty: well doth our Saviour, therefore, choke these accusers with the conscience of their so foul incompetency. With what face, with what heart, could they stone their own sin in another person? 66 Honesty is too mean a term. These Scribes and Pharisees were noted for extraordinary and admired holiness: the outside of their lives was not only inoffensive, but saint-like and exemplary. Yet that allseeing eye of the Son of God, which "found folly in the angels," hath much more found wickedness in these glorious professors. It is not for nothing, that his eyes are like a flame of fire." What secret is there which he searches not? Retire yourselves, O ye foolish sinners, into your inmost closets, yea, (if you can) into the centre of the earth: his eye follows you, and observes all your carriages; no bolt, no bar. no darkness, can keep him out. No thief was ever so impudent as to steal in the very face of the judge; O God, let me see myself seen by thee, and I shall not dare to offend. Besides, notice, here is exprobration. These men's sins, as they had been secret, so they were forgotten. It is long since they were done; neither did they think to have heard any more news of them. And now, when time and security had quite worn them out of thought, he, that shall once be their Judge, calls them to a backreckoning. One time or other shall that just God lay our sins in our dish, and make us possess the sins of our youth. "These things thou didst, and I kept silence, and thou thoughtst that I was like unto myself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thee." The penitent man's sin lies' before him for his humiliation; the impenitent's, for his shame and confusion. The act of sin is transient; not so the guilt; that will stick by us, and return upon us, either in the height of our security, or the depth of our misery, when we shall be least able to bear it. How just may it be with God to take us at advantages, and then to lay his arrest upon us when we are laid | up upon a former suit! It is but just there should be a requisi- | their sins from the mouth of Christ, than tion of innocence in them that prosecute they are gone. Had they been sincerely the vices of others. The offender is worthy touched with a true remorse, they would of stoning, but who shall cast them: how ill have rather come to him upon their knees, would they become hands as guilty as her and have said, Lord, we know and find that own! what do they but smite themselves, thou knowest our secret sins; this argues who punish their own offences in other thy divine omniscience. Thou that art able men? Nothing is more unjust or absurd, to know our sins, art able to remit them. than for the beam to censure the mote, the O pardon the iniquities of thy servants! oven to upbraid the kiln. It is a false and Thou that accusest us, do thou also acquit vagrant zeal that begins not first at home. us! But now, instead hereof, they turn their back upon their Saviour, and haste away. Well did our Saviour know how bitter and strong a pill he had given to these false justiciaries: and now he will take leisure to see how it wrought. While, therefore, he gives time to them to swallow it, and put it over, he returns to his old gesture of a seeming inadvertency. How sped the receipt? An impenitent man cares not how little he hath, either of the presence of God, or of the mention of his sins. O fools! if ye could run away from God, it were somewhat; but, while ye move in him, what do ye? whither go ye? ye may run from his mercy; ye cannot but run upon his judgment. Christ is left alone; alone in respect of these complainants, not alone in respect of the multitude. There yet stands the mournful adulteress: she might have gone forth with them, nobody constrained her stay; but that which sent them away, staid her I do not see any of them stand out with Christ, and plead his own innocency; and yet these men, which is very remarkable, placed the fulfilling or violation of the law only in the outward act. Their hearts misgave them, that if they should have stood out in contestation with Christ, he would have utterly shamed them, by displaying-conscience. She knew her guiltiness was their old and secret sins; and have so convinced them by undeniable circumstances, that they should never have clawed off the reproach; and therefore, "when they heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last." There might seem to be some kind of mannerly order in this guilty departure; not all at once, lest they should seem violently chased away by this charge of Christ; now their slinking away "one by one," may seem to carry a show of a deliberate and voluntary discession. The eldest first: the ancienter is fitter to give than take example; and the younger could think it no shame to follow the steps of a grave foreman. O wonderful power of conscience! man can no more stand out against it, than it can stand out against God. The Almighty, whose substitute is set in our bosom, sets it on work to accuse. It is no denying, when that says we are guilty; when that condemns us, in vain are we acquitted by the world. With what bravery did these hypocrites come to set upon Christ! with what triumph did they insult upon that guilty soul! Now they are thunder-struck with their own conscience, and drop away confounded; and well is he that can run away farthest from his own shame. wicked man needs to seek out of himself for a judge, accuser, witness, tormentor. No No sooner do these hypocrites hear of | publicly accused, and durst not be by herself denied: as one that was therefore fastened there by her own guilty heart, she stirs not till she may receive a dismission. Our Saviour was not so busy in writing, but that he read the while the guilt and absence of those accusers; he that knew what they had done, knew no less what they did, what they would do. Yet, as if the matter had been strange to him, "he lifts up himself, and says, Woman, where are thy accusers ?" How well was this sinner to be left there! Could she be in a safer place than before the tribunal of a Saviour? might she have chosen her refuge, whither should she rather have fled? O happy we, if, when we are convinced in ourselves of our sins, we can set ourselves before that Judge who is our Surety, our Advocate, our Redeemer, our Ransom, our Peace! Doubtless, she stood doubtful betwixt hope and fear: hope, in that she saw her accusers gone; fear, in that she knew what she had deserved: and now, while she trembles in expectation of a sentence, she hears, "Woman, where are thy accusers?" Wherein our Saviour intends the satisfaction of all the hearers, of all the be- · holders, that they might apprehend the guiltiness, and therefore the unfitness of the accusers; and might well see there was no warrantable ground of his farther proceeding against her. Two things are necessary for the execution of a malefactor-evidence, sentence; the one from witnesses, the other from the judge. Our Saviour asks for both. The accusation and proof must draw on the sentence; the sentence must proceed upon the evidence of the proof: "Where are thy accusers? hath no man condemned thee?" Had sentence passed legally upon the adulteress, doubtless our Saviour would not have acquited her: for, as he would not intrude upon others' offices, so he would not cross or violate the justice done by others. But now, finding the coast clear, he says, "Neither do I condemn thee." What, Lord! dost thou then show favour to foul offenders? art thou rather pleased that gross sins should be blanched, and sent away with a gentle connivancy? Far, far be this from the perfection of thy justice. He that hence argues adulteries not punishable by death, let him argue the unlawfulness of dividing of inheritances; because, in the case of the two wrangling brethren, thou saidst, "Who made me a divider of inheritances?" thou declinedst the office, thou didst not dislike the act, either of parting lands, or punishing offenders. Neither was here any absolution of the woman from a sentence of death, but a dismission of her from thy sentence, which thou knewest not proper for thee to pronounce. Herein hadst thou respect to thy calling, and to the main purpose of thy coming into the world, which was neither to be an arbiter of civil causes, nor a judge of criminal, but a Saviour of mankind: not to destroy the body, but to save the soul. And this was thy care in this miserable offender: "Go, and sin no more." How much more doth it concern us to keep within the bounds of our vocation, and not to dare to trench upon the functions of others! How can we ever enough magnify thy mercy, who takest no pleasure in the death of a sinner? who so camest to save, that thou challengest us of unkindness for being miserable: "Why will ye die, O house of Israel?" But, O Son of God, though thou wouldst not then be a judge, yet thou wilt once be: thou wouldst not in thy first coming judge the sins of men, thou wilt come to judge them in thy second. The time shall come, when upor that just and glorious tribunal thou shalt judge every man according to his works. That we may not one day hear Go, ye cursed," let us now hear "Go, sin no more." thee say, thee say, CONTEMPLATION XVI. — THE THANKFUL PENITENT. ONE while I find Christ invited by a publican, now by a Pharisee. Wherever he went, he made better cheer than he found, in a happy exchange of spiritual repast for bodily. Who knows not the Pharisees to have been the proud enemies of Christ; men over-conceited of themselves, contemptuous of others, severe in show, hypocrites in deed, strict sectaries, insolent justiciaries ; yet here one of them invites Christ, and that in good earnest. The man was not, like his fellows, captious, not ceremonious: had he been of their stamp, the omission of washing the feet had been mortal. No profession hath not yielded some good: Nicodemus and Gamaliel were of the same strain. Neither is it for nothing that the Evangelist, having branded this sect for despising the counsel of God against them. selves, presently subjoins this history of Simon the Pharisee, as an exempt man. O Saviour, thou canst find out good Pharisees, good publicans, yea, a good thief upon the cross; and that thou mayest find, thou canst make them so. At the best, yet he was a Pharisee, whose table thou here refusedst not. So didst thou, in wisdom and mercy, attemper thyself, as to "become all things to all men, that thou mightst win some." Thy harbinger was rough; as in clothes, so in disposition, professedly harsh and austere: thyself wert mild and sociable: so it was fit for both. He was a preacher of penance, thou the author of comfort and salvation: he made way for grace, thou gavest it. Thou hast bidden us to follow thyself, not thy forerunner. That, then, which politics and time-servers do for earthly advantages, we will do for spiritual; frame ourselves to all companies, not in evil, but in good, yea, in indifferent things. What wonder is it, that thou, who camest down from heaven to frame thyself to our nature, shouldst, whilst thou wert on earth, frame thyself to the several dispositions of men? Catch not at this, O ye licentious hypocrites, men of all hours, that can eat with gluttons, drink with drunkards, sing with ribalds, scoff with profane scorners, and yet talk holily with the religious, as if ye had hence any colour of your changeable con. formity to all fashions. Our Saviour never sinned for any man's sake, though for our sakes he was sociable, that he might keep us from sinning. Can ye so converse with |