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 Go, and sin no more 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 rHKACIIED BKFORE THE 
 
 C|iirc| |)enitentran) g^^Mcuiton 
 
 ST. JAMES'S CHIJECH, PICCADILLY 
 
 THURSDAY, APRIL Q6, 1800 
 
 W. THOMSON, D.D. 
 
 PEOYOST OE T5E QTJEEN'S COLLEGE, OXEOED 
 
 PEINTED POR THE ASSOCIATION BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE & CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 ISGO
 
 SEEMON. 
 
 John, viii. 9. 
 
 And tlietj zvhich heard it, being convicted by their oicn con- 
 science, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even 
 unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the icoman 
 standing in the midst. 
 
 The remarkable history before us ought not perhaps to be 
 quoted Avithout drawing attention to some unusual difficulties 
 which surround it ; but many of my hearers are aware of 
 them ; and I doubt not that the opinion of Augustine gives 
 the true account of them. This narrative is a real portion of 
 the apostolic .account of our Lord's life ; but a misunder- 
 standing- of the passage, a misplaced fear lest it should seem 
 to o-ive encouragement to a great sin, led some to exclude it 
 from the transcripts of the gospels which they made. By 
 deo-rees the truth and worth of the passage prevailed, under 
 God's blessing, over these groundless scruples, and it was 
 restored to its i)lace. This would account for its absence 
 from some manuscripts, and for the variations where it is 
 inserted. And those who study it carefully will see how 
 strono- is the light of divine wisdom in it, will discern in it 
 the odour of the gospel morality, will i-ecognise it as a divine 
 word, and will thank God that it has been preserved to us. 
 The story is short. A woman taken in sin is brought 
 by some of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were about to 
 accuse her before the Council, to Jesus as to a teacher of the 
 law, for his opinion upon her crime and its punishment. 
 The law against this crime was very severe. But the 
 national practice had become deplorably lax. There is 
 evidence that many of the Rabbins were at this time living 
 in tliis very sin. The rigour of the law could be no longer 
 enforced, when the guardians of the law were betraying 
 it. Tlie men who brought the woman to the Lord were 
 not acting in the discharge of any duty. They would 
 have professed that their zeal for God was the reason
 
 for their taking on tliem the office of accuser?!. They were 
 zealots for God's law, so they thought, as Phinehas the 
 son of Eleazar had been, who executed judgment in a similar 
 case. But they were before One who knew all hearts, and 
 did not mistake for zeal that malicious pleasure at another's 
 downfill, which had pushed them on to be accusers. The 
 question which they proposed, proves that the law and 
 practice were In conflict. " Moses in the law commanded us 
 that such should be stoned ; but what sayest thou ? " They 
 discreetly suppress the difficulty. They do not say loliy any 
 doubt has arisen about the execution of a plain command. 
 They do not add that adulterous judges could hardly punish 
 adultery with death. If He shall pronounce for her ac- 
 quittal then He is a declared subverter of the law of Moses. 
 If He shall decide for the exact rigour of the law, then He 
 contradicts the merciful tone of His own preaching, and 
 weakens His Influence with the people, to whom He has 
 come as a teacher of mercy and love. Knowing that they 
 sought to tempt Plim, not to learn from Him, our Lord 
 acted as one would whom their words did not concern at all ; 
 He stooped down and wrote on the ground. For He was not 
 come to dictate to the Council its duties, nor to execute the 
 bitter retribution of the law ; but to seek and to save the 
 lost. They knew that the question was not one for Him. If 
 He had said '•' kill " or '' spare," would the judges have obeyed 
 Him ? So He wrote on the ground, wrapt not in simulated 
 but in real meditation. But they would not be silenced so ; 
 they courted His rebuke by further questions. On which 
 " He lifted up Himself and said unto them. He that is 
 without sin among you," or rather, " He that is without the 
 sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her." He 
 neither acquitted nor condemned the woman ; he left her to 
 her earthly judges, for His hour for judging the world was 
 not come ; but by a few plain words He sent a light Into 
 tlie dark consciences of these hardened men. The punish- 
 ment of stoning was one for the accusers and witnesses to 
 carry out, that they might show by a terrible act their 
 abhorrence of the sin. When she is sentenced to stoning, 
 which of you shall be the first to show your abhorrence of 
 this sin by casting the first stone against her life ? Then for 
 the first time did tlieir hypocrisy become patent to them- 
 selves, because another saw it. Being convicted by their 
 consciences they went out one by one, from the first to the 
 last, from the well-known member of the Council down to 
 the Idle spectator who had found his way thither from 
 curiosity. When the Lord looked up from His meditation a 
 second time, He was alone with the sinful 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." Do not let us suppose tliat a great sin is here 
 treated lightly ; God forbid ! The condemnation spoken of is 
 the condemnation under Moses' law. If the accusers withdrew 
 the charge, it was not the Son of Man who would break the 
 bruised reed or quench the smoking flax. " Neither do I 
 condemn thee ! " It is not mine to punish with temporal 
 punishments, but to snatch from eternal torments. Go and 
 sin no more ! Go and use the life, which was forfeit to the 
 law, in repentance and purity. Neither do I condemn thee ; 
 for I spare the life of the sinner. Go and sin no more, for 
 the sin is abomination in the sight of God. 
 
 It was thus that the Lord Jesus rebuked a great hypocrisy. 
 And if we say that this same hypocrisy prevails amongst us, 
 that it is the chief hindrance to the good work in which you, 
 my friends, are engaged, we shall say what all thoughtful 
 persons are beginning to perceive clearly. Whilst great 
 exertions are being made to snatch from the edge of the pit 
 some of those who are falling into it, we are told by many 
 that there is a peril in success, that the places of those we 
 rescue will be filled by new victims, that so long as the 
 morals of men are what they are, it is vain to expect that 
 women will not perish in sin. And tliere is a terrible truth 
 in that suggestion. The reformation of the lost in one sex 
 cannot be carried on effectually unless an improvement in 
 the other moves hand in hand with it. Nowhere in this 
 earth will yovi find greater injustice than that by which the 
 blame for sins of this kind is apportioned between the two 
 sexes. A woman in an evil hour leaves her home and all its 
 peace, to follow the fortunes of one who has won her foolish 
 ear w^ith lying professions. From the moment that the door 
 closes on her flight, a voice in her heart tells her she can 
 never return. But shall she not find Avith him, for whom 
 she has exchanged all that a woman holds dear, a shelter and 
 protection strong and safe in proportion to the sacrifice she 
 makes to reacli them ? Vain hope ! The tender mercies of 
 the wicked are cruel. After a few short days or weeks, the 
 dream is over. The betrayer goes back to his home, leaving 
 the woman who has darkened her life for him to shame, to 
 debt, to desolation. For one of them life shall be one long 
 punisiunent; to the other no visible consequences follow upon 
 this episode of sin. He has a wife, of whom his victim 
 never heard, and who perhaps will never liear of his victim. 
 His home remains to him, though he has abused it. H's 
 Avord passes cm-rent, though he is steeped in lying. He sits 
 in judgment on the petty pilferer, who has done to death the 
 life's happiness of a woman. He throws himself into his 
 
 \ ./
 
 old amusements, with his old keenness of enjoyment ; and 
 she sits apart in the clinging sackcloth of her own dishonour, 
 which changes the very light of day to darkness. Happy 
 is it for her if some Christian voice is raised to comfort her, 
 and to arrest her from plunging further into guilt, and to 
 guide her to One who Avoukl not, even for this sin, see her 
 perish, but bids her go and sin no more. 
 
 It would be easy to draw a picture of this kind from 
 fancy ; but I have confined myself to the bare record of a 
 case known to me. And some of those who hear me will be 
 able to match it with other stories of enormous wrong. We 
 cannot shut our eyes to the fact that two sin, and one bears 
 the whole punishment. Society is ready to cast stones at 
 the guilty one, but the guilt belongs mainly to it, and the 
 stones should fall back upon its own head. Oftentimes it 
 seems to our poor eyes as though God the king of all the 
 earth had forgotten to be just; but nowhere is there a 
 greater trial to our faith than here. Yet let us not doubt 
 that there is a God that judgeth the earth. Death dogs the 
 heels of sin. Not without punishment even here is the man 
 who has played the traitor to another's soul; somewhere in 
 the armour of his selfishness remorse will find a chink, if not 
 now, at least in the hours of sorrow and decline. But what 
 shall be hereafter ? "A day of wrath, a day of trouble and 
 distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of dark- 
 ness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness." 
 (Zeph. i. 15). The way of God is equal ; He will not suffer 
 the strong to devour the souls of the weak ; He will not suffer 
 one to bear all the weight of the sins of another. He will 
 repay. 
 
 We may well be thankful for the direct success that has 
 attended the Christian work of this Association. It has 
 plucked out of utter ruin many souls. It has found them 
 out in moments of remorse, and has turned tliat remorse 
 through the grace of God into the godly sorrow that worketh 
 repentance unto salvation. It has arrested them before sin 
 had brougiit forth death ; and has placed them where they 
 may eat the bread of industry, and eschew the wages of 
 shame. It has even restored many to those friends whose 
 faces they thought were averted from them for ever. Therein 
 has it trod as closely as any human feet can tread, in the 
 very footsteps of Him who said to the adulteress " Go and 
 sin no more." But it cannot have done this work without 
 having at least begun another, and that not less important. 
 It has recognised the responsibility of society for this hideous 
 evil. Its existence is a standing protest against those who 
 make the wrong which it must undo ; against those rather 
 who mar God's workmanship, and leave it to be painfully
 
 6 
 
 restored. For there is this community of interest ; if one 
 member suffer, all the members suffer with it. Habits of 
 luxury and expense delay the formation of domestic ties, 
 light words show that the boundaries of purity and sin are 
 not strictly observed. The poor workwoman struggles to be 
 honest on the scanty earnings of her weary fingers ; but she 
 sees evei'y day her sinful sister richly dressed, and free from 
 the exactions of labour ; and in an evil hour she lays her work 
 aside, and listens to words that make one sinful sister the 
 more. She has fallen ; but is the fault hers alone that sin is 
 richly paid, and honest labour scantily ? The society we live 
 in is knit togetlier more closely than we will confess. Mark 
 off as sharply as you may the outcasts, they are in some 
 sense your handiwork. Social arrangements have made them 
 the ruin that they are ; they Avill re-act upon society, they 
 will corrupt and destroy its sons and daughters. Ti'uly if 
 one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. 
 
 Oh that some one engaged in this holy work would 
 describe plainly but wisely the unseen depths of that abyss 
 into which sin hurries many a thoughtless woman ! oh that a 
 man could be taught to see that the present consequences of 
 sin to him are no measure of the present fruits to her who 
 shares in it, nor of the dread results to both hereafter ! oh 
 that the Lord would strike conviction into the hearts of 
 many men, as he did into the Scribes and Pharisees who 
 brought the guilty woman before him, and make them feel 
 the share of guilt that belongs to them ! Surely if the cruel 
 destruction that it causes were understood, many would 
 shrink back from all share in it. If they could look forward 
 a little, and see one who now is only thoughtless and might 
 still be guided right, utterly broken down by every kind of 
 excess, incapable of any fixed purpose, more frivolous than 
 a child, trying to purchase a momentary relief from depres- 
 sion by poisonous stuuulants, they would ehrink with horror 
 from the linfrerino; murder of one in whom they feel a kind 
 of interest. It is assumed too often that some sins are too 
 powerful for control. And no doubt from a perfect reform- 
 ation of this social wi'ong we are far removed. But men 
 have iiearts and feeling^!. Strip sin of its bright colours, 
 and let it be known that in some way or other the wages of 
 sin are always the same, that it always bringeth forth 
 death, and many a young man who is now entangled in it 
 would struggle for escape. Every miserable outcast, flitting 
 to and fro under the simdows of the night, would be sacred 
 in her suflfcrings — in the exceeding weight of the retribution 
 she is bearing. It would be thought no light thing to add 
 even one sin to those that already overcloud her life. As 
 the sick and dying arc respected even by the hardest, even
 
 7 
 
 so would these sinful and sick and dying ones be safe from 
 affront and from temptation. 
 
 Such, then, is your twofold vfork, my Christian hearers. 
 To say to the sinful woman, Go and sin no »more ; and to 
 shame her accusers into a conviction of their own share in 
 the sin. In both alike you are working for God. Every 
 new advocate whom you can enlist in your cause should tell 
 those around him that the pleasures of sin are not to be 
 compared with its inextinguishable remorse, its shame, its 
 restless cravings for peace. He should protest against this 
 wicked injustice of the strong sex against the weak. He 
 should remind men that there are sins which the law cannot 
 reach, that yet are abomination in the sight of God. But 
 even short of the guilt of the seducer, society does make 
 itself responsible for some share in this destruction. It par- 
 dons the man, while it casts out the woman ; it has neglected 
 that Christian teaching of the poor which might have been 
 their shield and buckler against temptation ; it sets the 
 exam})le of luxury and idleness whteli the poor are tem[)ted 
 to imitate. And this iVssociation, and such as it is, offer to 
 society the means of repairing its own wrong-doing. They 
 open out a work of love which every man and woman may 
 put a hand to. Man, in whose conscience arises the thought 
 '^ For any sin of impurity, I at least could not cast the first 
 stone," think what you can do for restitution for any sin of 
 this kind that may rest at your door. You cannot restore 
 again that defaced imnge to its former beauty and purity ; 
 you could as easily make the dead flower rise up again in its 
 bright hues and fragrance, or put life into the limbs of the 
 dead. But this you can do ; you can help efforts that are 
 made to snatch such as she is out of ruin. You can tell 
 other men that the destruction of women rests In fact Vi/itli 
 them, and that to have taken any part in that foul con- 
 spiracy of the strong sex against the weak, is not what will 
 bring a man peace at the last. And be not so ready to take 
 a desponding view of the condition of the fallen. Is not 
 Christ the well of life, out of which fountains of recreative 
 water flow ; and cannot He who recalled Lazarus to life, and 
 made the deaf hear and the lame walk, work wonders 
 of renewal in the heart of the repentant ? Woman ! whose 
 earthly happiness lies In the honour and love of husband, 
 children, friends, do not fail to recollect that of the outcasts 
 of society, who lull the incommunicable pangs of shame to 
 sleep by the treacherous anodyne of drink, and who look 
 with longing, as to a bed of down for the weary, upon the 
 deep water that rushes under the bridge, many a one began 
 life with better promise, perhaps with as fair as yourself. 
 Round her cradle affectionate hopes gathered, and the prayer
 
 8 
 
 bf a mother sanctified her sleep ; and the first lisping words 
 Avere shaped into prayers. And as she grew, her very pre--- 
 scnce was a household blessing ; the old man sitting at the 
 lieartli would [)art with all that he possessed to save her 
 from the contact of dishonour. All is gone now ; the day 
 that opened so fairly is now the blackness of darkness. 
 Nothing remains but to take the lost sister by the hand, and 
 speak to her the strange Avords of comfort ; to awaken her 
 to the godly sorrow which worketh repentance unto salvation 
 and so issueth in true peace. Our benign Lord has taught 
 us tliat even the lost may be gathered back ; that even when 
 men, too indolent to enquire and discriminate, pronounce 
 the ruin final, the Divine Spirit can rekindle the scattered 
 sparks of love, and warm the cold heart. Let .' 3 magistrate 
 or the legislator who knows well that our politic-'' institutions 
 consult for the happiness of each citizen, and are so far im- 
 perfect as they fail to do so, remember how unequally they 
 deal with this class; how careful they are of human life 
 there, how prodigal here. We have often seen able judges 
 and consummate advocates occupied for days in the trial of 
 one criminal ; and we may be proud, that, although the voice 
 of the people may have already pronounced for his guilt, 
 prejudice has been laid aside, and the guilty wretch has 
 received the same dispassionate hearing as if his case was 
 absolutely new. So careful are we lest through prejudice 
 the life of an innocent man should fall ! And yet, such is 
 our impotence, that where we see thousands of poor crea- 
 tures treading the path of certain destruction, we can devise 
 no law to prevent or even palliate the social grievance. The 
 task has been found too difl[icult by every legislature. But 
 not to offer facilities for the return of those who have found 
 how bitter is the fruit of that whereof the conscience is 
 ashamed, would be a criminal supineness. But God be 
 thanked for it ! what the law could not do, the private exer- 
 tions of the good are beginning to bring about. The pure 
 and refined devote themselves to the care of the lost ; they 
 bear with many cases of disappointment ; they suffer way- 
 ward tempers, and are content with the slow dawnings of 
 good. And they ask for the help of all Christian people, for 
 the prayers of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. 
 If we have known any consolation in Christ, let us aid in 
 bringing the lost sheep back to their true Shepherd, that 
 instead of the torments of remorse, and the fear of a dreadful 
 future, they may hear the word pronounced by Christ, 
 " Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." 
 
 j.oifi>oir : PRiHTBD BY SPOTTISWOODE & CO. nkw-strkex square
 
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