be to " make an end of sins, and to bring in everlasting right- eousness." If he should refer them to any other tribunal, to whomsoever he referred them, whether to the Roman or Jewish authorities, they would equally find matter of accusation against him ; either of sanctioning the usurpation of the Romans on the one hand, or of setting himself against it, on the other : so that, whatsoever he should say or do, they would lower him in the estimation of the people, and open a way for his destruction.]
And how did he escape the snare —
[At first he declined giving any answer at all; but stooped down, and wrote upon the ground. What he wrote, we know not : nor are we told precisely what he meant by that significant action0: but his enemies, conceiving that they had gained their point, became more and more urgent for a decisive answer: he therefore addressed himself to their consciences ; and as, in the case of idolatry, the law required that the witnesses should be the first in stoning the offender to death, so he bade the person that was without sin among them begin to inflict the punish- ment of death upon her. He did not by this intend, that under the Gospel dispensation human laws should not be executed by any who were not themselves without sin ; but he deter- mined to confound these vile hypocrites, who, under a mask of zeal against sin, were perpetrating the greatest of all sins. To give time for his word to operate on their consciences, he stooped down and wrote again : and behold, these accusers, self-condemned in their own minds, and fearful lest their own secret abominations should be exposed to public view, with- drew as privately as they could ; the elder part among them, as being most fearful of exposure, retiring first, and gradually the younger also following their example ; so that in a little time not a single accuser was left. What an evidence was here of the power of conscience, when awakened by the Spirit of God, and armed against the sinner by a Divine power ! Truly, the blindest must see, the most obdurate must feel, the most impudent must blush, and the most confident be con- founded, when once the voice of conscience is distinctly heard: and we cannot but think it a good way of silencing a con- tentious and subtle adversary, to make a direct attack upon his conscience, and to fix his attention upon what has passed within his own bosom.
c The words " as though he heard them not," are printed in italics to shew that they are not in the original : and certainly they had bet- ter not have been inserted ; because it was manifest that he did hear them. But by this action he might intend to intimate, that they should take heed to what was written : or perhaps he wrote the very sen- tence which he afterwards pronounced.