John viii. 10, 11. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee : go and sin no more.
IT is surprising to see in what a variety of ways the wickedness of the human heart will betray itself: sometimes in the commission of gross iniquity, and sometimes in apparent indignation against it : some- times in open hostility against Christ, and sometimes in hypocritical professions of regard for him. Who that had seen the zeal of the Scribes and Pharisees against an adulterous woman, would not have thought them the purest of the human race ? Who that had heard their citations of Moses' law, and their respectful application to Christ as an authorized expositor of that law, would not have supposed that they truly feared God, and desired to perform his holy will ?
Who would have imagined that the whole was only a murderous plot against the life of Christ ? Yet so it was. These accusers had no indignation against the sin of adultery, nor any love to the law of Moses, nor any zeal for the honour of God: they were actu- ated solely by an inveterate hatred of Christ, and a determination to find, if possible, some occasion against him, that they might accuse him. Their pro- fessed object was, to punish the woman ; but their real object was, to lay a snare for his life.
We forbear to notice, that in some old manuscript copies this short history is not recorded, because there can be no doubt of its authenticity; and the very care with which the early Christians examined the authenticity of every part of Scripture, is a strong proof of the genuineness of the New Testament, as it has been handed down to us.
That which we wish you particularly to observe, is,
I. In what manner Christ extricated himself — The snare laid for him was well contrived —
[The Scribes and Pharisees brought him a woman, who had been taken in the very act of adultery, and was therefore incapable of uttering a word in her own defence. The law of Moses had prescribed that all who were guilty of that crime should be put to death. If the woman were not absolutely married, but only espoused, she was still to be put to death, and that by stoning a. Hence, it should seem, the particular death to which adulterers in general were condemned, was that of stoningb. But the point which they referred to our Lord's decision, was, whether they should execute the law, or not. Now there were but four things which our Lord could do : either he might acquit the woman, or condemn her, or dismiss the matter without any attention to it, or refer them to another tribunal ; but whichever of these he should do, they would make it a ground of accusation against him : if he should acquit her, they would represent him as an enemy to Moses, and a patron of iniquity : if he should condemn her, they would accuse him to the Romans as resisting the government of Caasar, and encouraging sedition : if he should dismiss the matter, they would say he shewed no zeal for the honour of God, whom he pretended to call his Father, and had no pre- tensions to the office of the Messiah, whose first object would
a Lev. xx. 10. Deut. xxii. 22—24. b Ezek. xvi. 38, 40.