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A45200 Contemplations upon the remarkable passages in the life of the holy Jesus by Joseph Hall. Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. 1679 (1679) Wing H376; ESTC R30722 360,687 516

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there is happiness as sure as we know there is misery and mutability upon earth Oh our miserable sottishness and infidelity if we do not contemn the best offers of the world and lifting up our eyes and hearts to Heaven say Bonum est esse hîc Even so Lord Jesus come quickly To him that hath purchased and prepared this Glory for us together with the Father and Blessed Spirit one Incomprehensible God be all praise for ever Amen XXXI The Prosecution of the Transfiguration BEfore the Disciples eyes were dazzled with Glory now the brightness of that Glory is shaded with a Cloud Frail and feeble eyes of mortality cannot look upon an Heavenly luster That Cloud imports both Majesty and obscuration Majesty for it was the testimony of God's presence of old the Cloud covered the Mountain the Tabernacle the Oracle He that makes the clouds his chariot was in a cloud carried up into Heaven Where have we mention of any Divine representation but a Cloud is one part of it What comes nearer to Heaven either in place or resemblance Obscuration for as it shew'd there was a Majesty and that Divine so it shew'd them that the view of that Majesty was not for bodily eyes Like as when some great Prince walks under a Canopy that veil shews there is a Great person under it but withall restrains the eye from a free sight of his person And if the cloud were clear yet it shaded them Why then was this cloud interposed betwixt that glorious Vision and them but for a check of their bold eyes Had they too long gazed upon this resplendent spectacle as their eyes had been blinded so their hearts had perhaps grown to an over-bold familiarity with that Heavenly Object How seasonably doth the cloud intercept it The wise God knows our need of these vicissitudes and allays If we have a light we must have a cloud if a light to chear us we must have a cloud to humble us It was so in Sinai it was so in Sion it was so in Olivet it shall never be but so The naturall day and night do not more duely interchange then this light and cloud Above we shall have the light without the cloud a clear vision and fruition of God without all dim and sad interpositions below we cannot be free from these mists and clouds of sorrow and misapprehension But this was a bright cloud There is difference betwixt the cloud in Tabor and that in Sinai This was clear that darksome There is darkness in the Law there is light in the grace of the Gospel Moses was there spoken to in darkness here he was spoken with in light In that dark cloud there was terrour in this there was comfort Though it were a Cloud then yet it was bright and though it were bright yet it was a Cloud With much light there was some shade God would not speak to them concerning Christ out of darkness neither yet would he manifest himself to them in an absolute brightness All his appearances have this mixture What need I other instance then in these two Saints Moses spake oft to God mouth to mouth yet not so immediately but that there was ever somewhat drawn as a curtain betwixt God and him either fire in Horeb or smoak in Sinai so as his face was not more veiled from the people then God's from him Elias shall be spoken to by God but in the rock and under a mantle In vain shall we hope for any revelation from God but in a cloud Worldly hearts are in utter darkness they see not so much as the least glimpse of these Divine beams not a beam of that inaccessible light The best of his Saints see him here but in a cloud or in a glass Happy are we if God have honoured us with these Divine representations of himself Once in his light we shall see light I can easily think with what amazedness these three Disciples stood compassed in that bright Cloud expecting some miraculous event of so Heavenly a Vision when suddenly they might hear a voice sounding out of that Cloud saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him They need not be told whose that voice was the place the matter evinced it No Angel in Heaven could or durst have said so How gladly doth Peter afterwards recount it For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son c. It was onely the ear that was here taught not the eye As of Horeb so of Sinai so of Tabor might God say Ye saw no shape nor image in that day that the Lord spake unto you He that knows our proneness to idolatry avoids those occasions which we might take to abuse our own fancies Twice hath God spoken these words to his own Son from Heaven once in his Baptism and now again in his Transfiguration Here not without some oppositive comparison Not Moses not Elias but This. Moses and Elias were Servants this a Son Moses and Elias were sons but of grace and choice this is that Son the Son by nature Other sons are beloved as of favour and free election this is The Beloved as in the unity of his essence Others are so beloved that he is pleased with themselves this so beloved that in and for him he is pleased with mankind As the relation betwixt the Father and the Son is infinite so is the Love We measure the intension of Love by the extension The love that rests in the person affected alone is but streight true Love descends like Aaron's Ointment from the head to the skirts to children friends allies O incomprehensibly-large love of God the Father to the Son that for his sake he is pleased with the world O perfect and happy complacence Out of Christ there is nothing but enmity betwixt God and the Soul in him there can be nothing but peace When the beams are met in one center they do not onely heat but burn Our weak love is diffused to many God hath some the world more and therein wives children friends but this infinite love of God hath all the beams of it united in one onely Object the Son of his Love Neither doth he love any thing but in the participation of his Love in the derivation from it O God let me be found in Christ and how canst thou but be pleased with me This one voice proclaims Christ at once the Son of God the Reconciler of the world the Doctour and Law-giver of his Church As the Son of God he is essentially interessed in his Love as he is the Reconciler of the world in whom God is well pleased he doth most justly challenge our love and adherence as he is the Doctour and Law-giver he doth justly challenge our audience our obedience Even so Lord teach us to hear and obey thee as our Teacher to love thee and believe in
rights Questionless this gracious Saint would not for all the world have willingly preferred her own attendence to that of her God through heedlesness she doeth so Her Son and Saviour is her monitour out of his Divine love reforming her natural How is it that ye sought me Know ye not that I must go about my Fathers business Immediately before the Blessed Virgin had said Thy Father I sought thee with heavy hearts Wherein both according to the supposition of the world she calleth Joseph the Father of Christ and according to the fashion of a dutifull wife she names her Joseph before her self She well knew that Joseph had nothing but a name in this business she knew how God had dignified her beyond him yet she says Thy Father and I sought thee The Son of God stands not upon contradiction to his mother but leading her thoughts from his supposed Father to his true from earth to heaven he answers Knew ye not that I must go about my Fathers business It was honour enough to her that he had vouchsafed to take flesh of her It was his eternall Honour that he was God of God the everlasting Son of the heavenly Father Good reason therefore was it that the respects to flesh should give place to the God of Spirits How well contented was Holy Mary with so just an answer how doth she now again in her heart renew her answer to the Angel Behold the servant of the Lord be it according to thy word We are all the Sons of God in another kind Nature and the World think we should attend them We are not worthy to say we have a Father in Heaven if we cannot steal away from these earthly distractions and imploy our selves in the services of our God VIII Christ's Baptism JOhn did every way forerun Christ not so much in the time of his Birth as in his Office neither was there more unlikeliness in their disposition and carriage then similitude in their function Both did preach and baptize onely John baptized by himself our Saviour by his Disciples Our Saviour wrought miracles by himself by his Disciples John wrought none by either Wherein Christ meant to shew himself a Lord and John a Servant and John meant to approve himself a true Servant to him whose Harbinger he was He that leapt in the womb of his mother when his Saviour then newly conceived came in presence bestir'd himself when he was brought forth into the light of the Church to the honour and service of his Saviour He did the same before Christ which Christ charged his Disciples to doe after him preach and baptize The Gospel ran always in one tenour and was never but like it self So it became the Word of him in whom there is no shadow by turning and whose Word it is I am Jehova I change not It was fit that he which had the Prophets the Star the Angel to foretell his coming into the world should have his Usher to go before him when he would notifie himself to the world John was the Voice of a Cryer Christ was the Word of his Father It was fit this Voice should make a noise to the world ere the Word of the Father should speak to it John's note was still Repentance the Axe to the root the Fan to the floor the Chaffe to the fire as his Raiment was rough so was his Tongue and if his Food were wild Hony his Speech was stinging Locusts Thus must the way be made for Christ in every heart Plausibility is no fit preface to Regeneration If the heart of man had continued upright God might have been entertained without contradiction but now violence must be offered to our corruption ere we can have room for Grace If the great Way-maker do not cast down hills and raise up valleys in the bosomes of men there is no passage for Christ Never will Christ come into that Soul where the Herald of Repentance hath not been before him That Saviour of ours who from eternity lay hid in the Counsel of God who in the fulness of time so came that he lay hid in the womb of his mother for the space of forty weeks after he was come thought fit to lie hid in Nazareth for the space of thirty years now at last begins to shew himself to the world and comes from Galilee to Jordan He that was God always and might have been perfect Man in an instant would by degrees rise to the perfection both of his Manhood and execution of his Mediatourship to teach us the necessity of leisure in spiritual proceedings that many Suns and successions of seasons and means must be stayed for ere we can attain our maturity and that when we are ripe for the imployments of God we should no less willingly leave our obscurity then we took the benefit of it for our preparation He that was formerly circumcised would now be baptized What is Baptism but an Evangelical Circumcision What was Circumcision but a legal Baptism One both supplied and succeeded the other yet the Authour of both will undergo both He would be circumcised to sanctifie his Church that was and baptized to sanctifie his Church that should be that so in both Testaments he might open a way into Heaven There was in him neither filthiness nor foreskin of corruption that should need either knife or water He came not to be a Saviour for himself but for us We are all uncleanness and uncircumcision He would therefore have that done to his most pure Body which should be of force to clear our impure Souls thus making himself sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him His Baptism gives virtue to ours His last action or rather passion was his Baptizing with bloud his first was his Baptization with water both of them wash the world from their sins Yea this latter did not onely wash the souls of men but washeth that very water by which we are washed from hence is that made both clean and holy and can both cleanse and hallow us And if the very Handkerchief which touched his Apostles had power of cure how much more that Water which the sacred body of Christ touched Christ comes far to seek his Baptism to teach us for whose sake he was baptized to wait upon the Ordinances of God and to sue for the favour of spiritual blessings They are worthless commodities that are not worth seeking for It is rarely seen that God is found of any man unsought for That desire which onely makes us capable of good things cannot stand with neglect John durst not baptize unbidden his Master sent him to do this service and behold the Master comes to his Servant to call for the participation of that priviledge which he himself had instituted and injoyned How willingly should we come to our spiritual Superious for our part in those mysteries which God hath left in their keeping yea how gladly should we come to
them that love thee But yet the argument is more forcible from thy love to us since thou hast just reason to respect every thing of thine own more then ought that can proceed from us Even we weak men what can we stick at where we love Thou O infinite God art Love it self Whatever thou hast done for us is out of thy love the ground and motive of all thy mercies is within thy self not in us and if there be ought in us worthy of thy love it is thine own not ours thou givest what thou acceptest Jesus well heard the first groan of his dear Lazarus every short breath that he drew every sigh that he gave was upon account yet this Lord of Life lets his Lazarus sicken and languish and die not out of neglect or impotence but out of power and resolution This sickness is not to death He to whom the issues of death belong knows the way both into it and out of it He meant that sickness should be to death in respect of the present condition not to death in respect of the event to death in the process of Nature not to death in the success of his Divine power that the Son of God might be glorified thereby O Saviour thy usuall style is the Son of man thou that wouldst take up our infirmities wert willing thus to hide thy Godhead under the course weeds of our Humanity but here thou saist That the Son of God might be glorified Though thou wouldst hide thy Divine glory yet thou wouldst not smother it Sometimes thou wouldst have thy Sun break forth in bright gleams to shew that it hath no less light even whilst it seems kept in by the clouds Thou wert now near thy Passion it was most seasonable for thee at this time to set forth thy just title Neither was this an act that thy Humanity could challenge to it self but far transcending all finite powers To die was an act of the Son of man to raise from death was an act of the Son of God Neither didst thou say merely that God but that the Son of God might be glorified God cannot be glorified unless the Son be so In very naturall Relations the wrong or disrespect offered to the child reflects upon the father as contrarily the parent's upon the child how much more where the love and respect is infinite where the whole essence is communicated with the intireness of relation O God in vain shall we tender our Devotions to thee indefinitely as to a glorious and incomprehensible Majesty if we kiss not the Son who hath most justly said Ye believe in the Father believe also in me What an happy family was this I find none upon earth so much honoured Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus It is no standing upon terms of precedency the Spirit of God is not curious in marshalling of places Time was when Mary was confessed to have chosen the better part here Martha is named first as most interessed in Christ's love for ought appears all of them were equally dear Christ had familiarly lodged under their roof How fit was that to receive him whose in-dwellers were hospital pious unanimous Hospital in the glad entertainment of Jesus and his train Pious in their Devotions Unanimous in their mutual Concord As contrarily he balks and hates that house which is taken up with uncharitableness profaneness contention But O Saviour how doth this agree thou lovedst this Family yet hearing of their distress thou heldest off two days more from them Canst thou love those thou regardest not canst thou regard them from whom thou willingly absentest thy self in their necessity Behold thy love as it is above ours so it is oft against ours Even out of very affection art thou not seldom absent None of thine but have sometimes cried How long Lord What need we instance when thine eternal Father did purposely estrange his face from thee so as thou criedst out of forsaking Here thou wouldst knowingly delay whether for the greatning of the Miracle or for the strengthning of thy Disciples Faith Hadst thou gone sooner and prevented the death who had known whether strength of Nature and not thy miraculous power had done it Hadst thou overtaken his death by this quickning visitation who had known whether this had been onely some qualm or ecstasie and not a perfect dissolution Now this large gap of time makes thy work both certain and glorious And what a clear proof was this beforehand to thy Disciples that thou wert able to accomplish thine own Resurrection on the third day who wert able to raise up Lazarus on the fourth The more difficult the work should be the more need it had of an Omnipotent confirmation He that was Lord of our times and his own can now when he found it seasonable say Let us go into Judaea again Why left he it before was it not upon the heady violence of his enemies Lo the stones of the Jews drove him thence the love of Lazarus and the care of his Divine glory drew him back thither We may we must be wise as serpents for our own preservation we must be careless of danger when God calls us to the hazzard It is far from God's purpose to give us leave so far to respect our selves as that we should neglect him Let Judaea be all snares all crosses O Saviour when thou callest us we must put our lives into our hands and follow thee thither This journey thou hast purposed and contrived but what neededst thou to acquaint thy Disciples with thine intent Where didst thou ever besides this make them of counsell with thy voiages Neither didst thou say How think you if I go but Let us go Was it for that thou who knewest thine own strength knewest also their weakness Thou wert resolute they were timorous they were sensible enough of their late perill and fearfull of more there was need to fore-arm them with an expectation of the worst and preparation for it Surprisall with evils may indanger the best constancy The heart is apt to fail when it finds it self intrapped in a sudden mischief The Disciples were dearly affected to Lazarus they had learned to love where their Master loved yet now when our Saviour speaks of returning to that region of perill they pull him by the sleeve and put him in mind of the violence offered unto him Master the Jews of late sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again No less then thrice in the fore-going Chapter did the Jews lift up their hands to murther him by a cruel lapidation Whence was this rage and bloudy attempt of theirs Onely for that he taught them the truth concerning his Divine nature and gave himself the just style of the Son of God How subject carnal hearts are to be impatient of Heavenly verities Nothing can so much fret that malignant spirit which rules in those breasts as that Christ should have his own If we be persecuted
and drowned in bloud to see your selves no Nation Was there ever people under Heaven that was made so famous a spectacle of misery and desolation Have ye yet enough of that bloud which ye called for upon your selves and your children Your former Cruelties Uncleannesses Idolatries cost you but some short Captivities God cannot but be just this Sin under which you now lie groaning and forlorn must needs be so much greater then these as your vastation is more and what can that be other then the murther of the Lord of Life Ye have what ye wisht be miserable till ye be penitent XLIX The Crucifixion THE sentence of Death is past and now who can with dry eyes behold the sad pomp of my Saviour's bloudy execution All the streets are full of gazing spectatours waiting for this ruefull sight At last O Saviour there thou comest out of Pilate's gate bearing that which shall soon bear thee To expect thy Cross was not torment enough thou must carry it All this while thou shalt not onely see but feel thy death before it come and must help to be an agent in thine own Passion It was not out of favour that those scornfull robes being stripped off thou art led to death in thine own cloaths So was thy face besmeared with bloud so swoln and discoloured with buffettings that thou couldst not have been known but by thy wonted habit Now thine insulting enemies are so much more imperiously cruell as they are more sure of their success Their merciless tormentings have made thee half dead already yet now as if they had done nothing they begin afresh and will force thy weakned and fainting nature to new tasks of pain The transverse of thy Cross at least is upon thy shoulder when thou canst scarce goe thou must carry One kicks thee with his foot another strikes thee with his staff another drags thee hastily by thy cord and more then one spur on thine unpitied weariness with angry commands of haste Oh true form and state of a servant All thy former actions O Saviour were though painfull yet free this as it is in it self servile so it is tyrannously inforced Inforced yet more upon thee by thy own Love to mankind then by their power and despight It was thy Father that laid upon thee the iniquity of us all It was thine own Mercy that caused thee to bear our sins upon the Cross and to bear the Cross with the curse annexed to it for our sins How much more voluntary must that needs be in thee which thou requirest to be voluntarily undertaken by us It was thy charge If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Thou didst not say Let him bear his cross as forceably imposed by another but Let him take up his cross as his free burthen free in respect of his heart not in respect of his hand so free that he shall willingly undergoe it when it is laid upon him not so free as that he shall lay it upon himself unrequired O Saviour thou didst not snatch the Cross out of the Souldiers hands and cast it upon thy shoulder but when they laid it on thy neck thou underwentest it The constraint was theirs the will was thine It was not so heavy to them or to Simon as it was to thee they felt nothing but the wood thou feltest it clogged with the load of the sins of the whole world No marvell if thou faintedst under that sad burthen thou that bearest up the whole earth by thy word didst sweat and pant and groan under this unsupportable carriage O Blessed Jesu how could I be confounded in my self to see thee after so much loss of bloud and over-toiledness of pain languishing under that fatal Tree And yet why should it more trouble me to see thee sinking under thy Cross now then to see thee anon hanging upon thy Cross In both thou wouldst render thy self weak and miserable that thou mightest so much the more glorify thy infinite mercy in suffering It is not out of any compassion of thy misery or care of thine ease that Simon of Cyrene is forced to be the porter of thy Cross it was out of their own eagerness of thy dispatch thy feeble paces were too slow for their purpose their thirst after thy bloud made them impatient of delay If thou have wearily struggled with the burthen of thy shame all along the streets of Jerusalem when thou comest once past the gates an helper shall be deputed to thee the expedition of thy death was more sweet to them then the pain of a lingring passage What thou saidst to Judas they say to the Executioner What thou doest doe quickly Whilst thou yet livest they cannot be quiet they cannot be safe to hasten thine end they lighten thy carriage Hadst thou done this out of choice which thou didst out of constraint how I should have envied thee O Simon of Cyrene as too happy in the honour to be the first man that bore that Cross of thy Saviour wherein millions of blessed Martyrs have since that time been ambitious to succeed thee Thus to bear thy Cross for thee O Saviour was more then to bear a Crown from thee Could I be worthy to be thus graced by thee I should pity all other glories Whilst thou thus passest O dear Jesu the streets and ways resound not all with one note If the malicious Jews and cruell Souldiers insulted upon thee and either haled or railed thee on with a bitter violence thy faithfull Followers were no less loud in their moans and ejulations neither would they endure that the noise of their cries and lamentations should be drowned with the clamour of those reproaches but especially thy Blessed Mother and those other zealous associates of her own sex were most passionate in their wailings And why should I think that all that devout multitude which so lately cried Hosanna in the streets did not also bear their part in these publick condolings Though it had not concerned thy self O Saviour thine ears had been still more open to the voice of grief then of malice and so thy lips also are open to the one shut to the other Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children Who would not have thought O Saviour that thou shouldst have been wholly taken up with thine own sorrows The expectation of so bitter a Death had been enough to have overwhelmed any Soul but thine yet even now can thy gracious eye find time to look beyond thine own miseries at theirs and to pity them who insensible of their own insuing condition mourned for thine now present They see thine extremity thou foreseest theirs they pour out their sorrow upon thee thou divertest it upon themselves We silly creatures walk blindfolded in this vale of tears and little know what evil is towards us onely what we feel we know and whilst we feel nothing can
thee as our Reconciler and as the eternall Son of thy Father to adore thee The light caused wonder in the Disciples but the voice astonishment They are all fallen down upon their faces Who can blame a mortall man to be thus affected with the voice of his Maker Yet this word was but plausible and hortatory O God how shall flesh and bloud be other then swallowed up with the horrour of thy dreadfull sentence of death The Lion shall roar who shall not be afraid How shall those who have slighted the sweet voice of thine invitations call to the rocks to hide them from the terrour of thy Judgments The God of mercies pities our infirmities I do not hear our Saviour say Ye lay sleeping one while upon the earth now ye lie astonished Ye could neither wake to see nor stand to hear now lie still and tremble But he graciously touches and comforts them Arise fear not That voice which shall once raise them up out of the earth might well raise them up from it That hand which by the least touch restored sight lims life might well restore the spirits of the dismaied O Saviour let that sovereign hand of thine touch us when we lie in the trances of our griefs in the bed of our securities in the grave of our sins and we shall arise They looking up saw no man save Jesus alone and that doubtless in his wonted form All was now gone Moses Elias the Cloud the Voice the Glory Tabor it self cannot be long blessed with that Divine light and those shining guests Heaven will not allow to earth any long continuance of Glory Onely above is constant Happiness to be look'd for and injoyed where we shall ever see our Saviour in his unchangeable brightness where the light shall never be either clouded or varied Moses and Elias are gone onely Christ is left The glory of the Law and the Prophets was but temporary yea momentany that onely Christ may remain to us intire and conspicuous They came but to give testimony to Christ when that is done they are vanished Neither could these raised Disciples find any miss of Moses and Elias when they had Christ still with them Had Jesus been gone and left either Moses or Elias or both in the Mount with his Disciples that presence though glorious could not have comforted them Now that they are gone and he is left they cannot be capable of discomfort O Saviour it matters not who is away whilst thou art with us Thou art God all-sufficient what can we want when we want not thee Thy presence shall make Tabor it self an Heaven yea Hell it self cannot make us miserable with the fruition of thee XXXII The Woman taken in Adultery WHat a busie 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 companiableness was for preaching All night he watches in the Mount all the morning he preaches in the Temple It was not for pleasure that he was here upon earth his whole time was penall and toilsome How do we resemble him if his life were all pain and labour ours all pastime 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 spight and opposition of men Even after an ill harvest we must sow and after denialls we must woe for God This Sun of Righteousness prevents that other and shines early with wholsome 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 cavill 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 equall if not more because he should have had more strength of resistence more grace not to tempt Was it out of necessity Perhaps the man knowing his danger made use of his strength to shift away and violently brake 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 then of the man for that they supposed his mercifull disposition might more probably incline to compassionate her weakness rather then the stronger vessell 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 whilst wasps break through without controll The wand and the sheet are for poor offenders the great either out-face or out-buy their shame A beggarly drunkard is haled to the Stocks whilst 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 They pleaded for her death the punishment which they would onwards inflict was her shame which must needs be so much more as there were more eyes to be witnesses of her guiltiness All the brood of sin affects darkness and secrecy but this more properly the twilight the night is for the adulterer It cannot be better fitted then to be dragged out into the light of the Sun and to be proclaimed with hootings and basins Oh the impudence of those men who can make merry professions of their own beastliness and boast of the shamefull trophees of their Lust Methinks I see this miserable Adulteress how she stands confounded amidst that gazing and disdainfull multitude how she hides her head how she wipes her blubbered face and weeping eyes In the mean time 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 Curtizan their lips drop as an hony-comb and their mouth is smoother then oyl but their end is bitter as wormwood False and hollow Pharisees he is your Master