to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman, since the time I come in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. Mine head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much : but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him, began to say within themselves, who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

LET me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great: but let me not fall into the hand of man, 2 Sam. xxiv. 14. This was the request that David made in the most unhappy moment of his life. A prophet sent by an avenging God came to bring him a choice of afflictions, "I offer thee three things, choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. Shall three years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days pestilence in thy land? Now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me," ver. 12, &c.

What a proposal was this to a man accustomed to consider heaven as a source of benedictions and favours! Henceforth he was to consider it only as a

cavern of thunder and lightning, flashing and rolling, and ready to strike him dead! which of these punishments will he choose? Which of them could he choose without reproaching himself in future that he had chosen the worst? Which would you have chosen had you been in his place, my brethren? Would you have determined for war? Could you have borne the bare idea of it? Could you have endured to see the once victorious armies of Israel led in triumph by an enemy, the ark of the Lord a captive, a cruel and barbarous soldiery reducing a kingdom to ashes, razing fortresses, ravaging a harvest, and destroying in a moment the crop of a whole year? Would you have determined for famine? Would you have chosen to have the heaven become as iron, and the earth brass, the seed dying in the earth, or the corn burning before it was ripe, "The locust eating what the palmer worm hath left, and the canker worm eating what the locust hath left," Joel i. 4. men snatching bread from one another's hands, struggling between life and death, and starving till food would afford no nourishment? Would you have chosen mortality? Could you have reconciled yourselves to the terrible times in which contagion on the wings of the wind carries its deadly poison with the rapidity of lightning from city to city, from house to house; a time in which social living is at an end, when each is wholly employed in guarding himself from danger, and hath no opportunity to take care of others; when the father flees from the sight of the son, the son from that of the father, the wife avoids the husband, the husband the wife; when each

dreads the sight of the person he most esteems, and receives, and communicates poisonous and deadly infection? These are the dreadful punishments out of which God required guilty David to choose one. These he was to weigh in a balance, while he agitated the mournful question, which of the three shall I choose for my lot? However, he determines, Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great but let me not fall into the hand of man. He thought, that immediate strokes from the hand of a God, merciful though displeased, would be most tolerable. He could conceive nothing more terrible than to see between God and himself, men who would intercept his looks, and who would prevent his access to the throne of grace.

My brethren, the wish of David under his consternation may direct ours in regard to all the spots that have defiled our lives. True, the eyes of God are infinitely more pure than those of men. He indeed discovers frailties in our lives which have escaped our notice, and if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart. It is true, he hath punishments to inflict on us infinitely more dreadful than any mankind can invent, and if men can kill the body, God is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. However, this Almighty God, this terrible, this avenging God, is a merciful God, great are his tender mercies: but men, men are cruel, yea, the very men who allow themselves to live in the most shameful licentiousness, men who have the most need of the patience of others, men who themselves deserve the most rigorous punishments, these very men are usu

ally void of all pity for their fellows. Behold a famous example. The unchaste woman in the text experienced both, and by turns made trial of the judgment of God, and the judgment of men. But she met with a very different treatment. In Jesus Christ she found a very severe legislator, who left her awhile to shed tears, and very bitter tears; a legislator, who left her awhile to her own grief, and sat and saw her hair dishevelled, and her features distorted: but who soon took care to dry up her tears, and to address this comfortable language to her, Go in peace. On the contrary, in the hands of men she found nothing but barbarity and cruelty. She heard a supercilious Pharisee endeavour to arm against her the Redeemer of mankind, try to persuade him to denounce her sentence of death, even while she was repenting of her sin, and do his utmost to cause condemnation to flow from the very fountain of grace and mercy.

It is this instructive, this comfortable history, that we set before you to-day, and which presents three very different objects to our meditation, the conduct of the incontinent woman, that of the Pharisee, and that of Jesus Christ. In the conduct of the woman, prostrate at the feet of our Saviour, you see the principal characters of repentance. In that of the Pharisee you may observe the venom that not unfrequently infects the judgments which mankind make of one another. And in that of Jesus Christ you may behold free and generous emotions of pity, mercy and compassion. Let us enter into the matter.

I. Let us first observe the incontinent woman now become a penitent. The question most controverted by interpreters, and very differently answered by them, is that, which in our opinion is the least important, that is, who was this woman? Not that a perfect knowledge of her person, and of the history of her life, would not be very proper, by explaining the nature of her sins, to give us a just idea of her repentance, and so contribute to elucidate the text: but because, though we have taken a great deal of pains, we have found nothing on this article worthy to be proposed to critical hearers, who insist upon being treated as rational men, and who refuse to determine a point without evidence.

I know, some expositors, misled by a resemblance between this anointing of Jesus Christ, and that mentioned in the eleventh chapter of St. John, when our Saviour supped with Lazarus, have supposed that the woman here spoken of was the same Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who paid such a profound attention to the discourse of Jesus Christ, and who, according to the evangelist, anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair. And as other parts of the gospel speak of another Mary called Magdalen, some have thought that Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary Magdalen, out of whom it is said, Jesus Christ had cast seven devils, and the woman of our text, were one and the same person.

We do not intend to enter on these discussions. It is sufficient to know, first, that the woman here in question lived in the city of Nain, which sufficiently distinguishes her from Mary the sister of