Chapter V: Part 5

I have endeavoured to show you that it is not the _superiority_ of the Christ to the forerunner which he chiefly dwells upon. That difference had been sufficiently brought out by the earlier evangelists. He insists that the superiority of the Christ rested on His _priority_; that the later in order of manifestation was the first in order of being; that of His fulness John and all previous prophets had received; that of Him, as the Word of God, as the Light of men, they had all borne witness. Whether Jesus was or was not the Word made flesh,--whether He did or did not prove that in Him was the Life of all things, and that He was the Light of men,--are questions which the Evangelist undertakes to resolve for us in the course of his narrative. Upon that point the Baptist may at times have had a strong conviction; at times he might be doubtful. But that there was such a Word of God, such a Light of men, and that He would make Himself manifest, this was the groundwork of his prophecy; by this proclamation he proved himself to be of the same class with Isaiah and Ezekiel; by this he showed that a kingdom of heaven must be at hand, in which the least might be greater than he.

How our Lord spoke to a ruler of the Jews concerning that kingdom, and the qualifications for entering into it and seeing it--how he connected it with a birth by water and by the Spirit--we have heard in the first part of this chapter. The narrative which occupies the remainder of it carries us back to John. Not long after the passover at which the conversation with Nicodemus took place, Jesus, we are told, went with His disciples into the country part of Judæa--the land of Judæa being here set in contrast, not with Galilee, but with the city of Jerusalem, at which He had been during the feast. '_There He tarried with them and baptized._' This expression is used loosely; it is qualified in the next chapter. '_Jesus_,' it is said, '_Himself baptized not, but His disciples_.' Still it was regarded, to all intents and purposes, as His baptism. It was naturally compared with that of John; for he was still at large, and was '_baptizing in Ænon, near to Salim, where there was much water_.' Perhaps the numbers that went out to him had diminished; but it is obvious from the context that he was still an object of attraction to many; '_they came to him, and were baptized_.'

'_Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and a Jew_' (the plural is evidently quite out of place) '_about purification_.' We need not inquire into the nature of this dispute, seeing that the Apostle tells us no more of it. Before that time, and ever since, the subject of purification has given rise to thousands of questions, all bearing more or less directly upon the relation between outward acts and the inner man,--what the former can or cannot do to make the other better. Such questions were certain to be awakened by a baptism with water, and a preaching of repentance such as John's; any of them may have suggested to his disciples the thought whether there was some greater virtue in that of Jesus, or whether He were merely a rival and imitator of the elder teacher. With surprise and perplexity, and something of the indignation which was natural in men jealous for the honour of a beloved teacher, '_they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, and to whom thou barest witness, behold the same baptizeth, and all men come unto Him_.'

There was probably a pause before John gave his answer. The news which he heard may have stirred up strange thoughts and doubts within him, not in a moment to be quelled. Was his work over? Was he to have no more power over men? Was he no longer a witness for God? The magician says, when the fabric of his vision is dissolved--

'Now my spells are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's my own;
Which is most faint.'

A mournful conclusion, and yet one to which many a man of high genius has been brought, and out of which, perhaps, in the end he has derived very precious lessons. Was this to be the result of the _prophet's_ meditation also? No! it comes forth in quite other words, which were a reply both to the questionings in his own soul, and the shallower perplexities and speculations of his disciples. '_A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from above._' As if he had said: 'You need not be careful of my fame. If I have ever spoken a word which has entered into you, and shown you your ownselves, and has made you truer, better men, that word was given me by the Lord of your spirit and mine; He enabled you to take it in. Out of the bosom of God, where that Word is whose life is the light of men, did these quickening, illuminating words proceed. Just so far as my words have led you to turn to _that_ Word who is always with you, and who has promised that He will come and manifest Himself to you,--just so far have they been wholesome and effectual. "_You yourselves bear me witness, that I said I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him._" As I never pretended to be that unseen Light, which I told you was struggling with your darkness, so--you know it well--I never pretended to be the Christ, the Anointed One, the King of Israel. For my message was that this Christ must be that Light of the world, that Word made flesh. I told you that He alone would baptize with the Spirit, because He alone would be fully baptized with the Spirit. I am sent before Him,--sent, as I said, to baptize with water, that so He might be made known to Israel who has the higher baptism.' And then, as if he were caught away by a new and diviner inspiration, as if the very meaning of that word, Christ the anointed, were revealed to him,--as if, in the light of that meaning, a thousand old songs and symbols were interpreting themselves to him,--he goes on, '_He that hath the bride is the bridegroom_.' The vision of a king was before him; of a king, the direct contrast to the tyrants of the earth. In place of a Deioces, hidden in the recesses of some Median palace--in place of a Tiberius, governing the world by spies--he sees One '_who is fairer than the sons of men, upon whose lips grace is poured, whose sword is on His thigh, and who rides on in truth and righteousness_.' He sees Him coming to woo and claim His bride, '_whose beauty He greatly desires, who is all-glorious within, whose clothing is of wrought gold_.' Such a Bridegroom all the prophets had, in one form of speech or another, been discoursing of. They had proved that they were dealing in no metaphors--pouring out no Oriental rhapsodies; for their revelation of Him had been connected with the homeliest exhortations to domestic union and purity; they had affirmed the relation of the particular husband and wife to have its foundation in this higher relation; they had treated all breaches of the marriage-vow as indications and results of the adultery of the race to its unseen Husband. And though the race meant in their minds Israel; though the people whom God had chosen, and with whom He had made a covenant, were those whom they taught to regard themselves as united in this eternal bond, of which covenants were but the outward expression, which existed long before Abraham or Noah; yet their language was always too large for even these limitations--was continually breaking through them. The King who was to reign over the Gentiles must be represented as their Husband; whensoever He should be revealed as the glory of His people Israel, He would certainly be revealed as the Light to lighten all the nations; that is to say, whensoever he appeared as the Christ of God, He would certainly appear as the Bridegroom of Humanity.

To speak of Him, then, by this name, was not, as some would make out, to anticipate the discoveries of New Testament Apostles. It was expressly to endorse and unfold the discoveries that had been made to Old Testament Prophets. It is only when he speaks of his own office in relation to this Bridegroom, that John looks at all beyond the previous teachers of his land; and then, that he may make their office also more intelligible.

'_The friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled._' I know scarcely any words in all the Scriptures which have a deeper and diviner music in them than these, or which more express all that a Christian minister and a Christian man should wish to understand and feel; and should hope that some day he may understand and feel as he who first spoke them did. That may seem to us a high ambition; we ought to consider it a poor ambition. After eighteen hundred years we should be able to understand _better_, to feel _more_ intensely than John did, that all the joy which is intended for a human being--nay, in the strict sense, which is possible for a human being--comes from hearing this Bridegroom's voice. I do believe, brethren, that by sore experience, shameful experience, those of us who have had fewest saintly aspirations may learn that lesson. We have listened for the echoes of our own voices; we have longed to know what impression they made; we have tried to feast on the outward praise or the inward consciousness of their power or sweetness. Has it not been very miserable, unsatisfying food? has not the day's gluttony brought nausea and disgust on the morrow? Has not the gratification of that vanity gradually formed in us a craving, which no indulgence could appease, which every disappointment made intolerable? How much better has it been, if we have striven to take delight in the words and deeds of other men, to feel the praises of them as our own! 'As our own! Then we still are intended to connect what is outside of us with ourselves; we must, in some sort, refer them to a standard within us?' Here is the puzzle; one always recurring; one infinitely more tormenting in the practice of life than it ever can be in speculation; one that affects all our judgments of our fellow-men; one that never deserts us when we are alone. It never can be set at rest till we confess a Lord, from whom all that is good and dear and worthy to be admired in any human being is derived--a root of all mutual understanding and genial sympathy--a centre of life and joy. If we think that there is a Bridegroom who is ever bestowing His own treasures and loveliness upon the creatures who were formed after His likeness, whose nature He has taken, who is ever drawing those creatures out of their own narrow and dark prison-houses, to come and claim their rights as spirits, and to share with Him the free air and light in which He dwells, then we may begin to claim the place of His friends, and in our own hearts, as well as in those who have been most estranged from us, to hear Him speaking. That speech will not be monotonous; we shall know why it is said in the Apocalypse to be as the sound of many waters. In the accents of humiliation and penitence, in the accents of thanksgiving and praise, in the confessions upon sick-beds, in the laugh of children, in the stillness of the churchyard, in the noise of cities, in the cries upon the cross, in the message, He is risen,--we shall hear the Bridegroom's voice. It testifies that He has come and is coming to us and to all. Our joy is fulfilled only if we learn to welcome Him, and to bid our brethren welcome Him also.

And therefore John proceeds, most consistently and harmoniously: '_He must increase; I must decrease_.' If the words had been spoken only of a new teacher who was baptizing more disciples than he, there would be a sadness and a kind of murmur in them, however they might denote a necessary submission. But when it is the Bridegroom of his own spirit, the divine Lord, from whom alone he had received light, in whom alone he could see light, who was to increase, the '_I must decrease_' is not a qualification of the joy he had claimed as the Bridegroom's friend, but a principal part of it. How many a one has felt the misery of a self; has longed to become absorbed in the universe--to be nothing! It was a wish which a holy man such as John was did not dare to cherish, and yet which must have haunted him more than most. To have a glimpse of _this_ annihilation; to see that it was possible to become less and less, while He in whom he was bound up, in whom was the spring of his life and joy, grew greater and greater; to feel that he might find his own personality in another;--was not this the consummation to which God had always been leading him? Was not this, too, the very meaning and explanation of the work in which he had been engaged? The Word, the Light of men, of whom he had told his countrymen, needed no longer his witness; for He was coming forth Himself to witness of that Father with whom He had dwelt eternally, to tell mankind of Him.

This higher testimony, this newer and grander revelation, is the subject of the verses which follow: '_He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth; and no man receiveth His testimony._'

John had said before, that a man receives nothing but what is given him from heaven. He does not recal that language, but affirms it anew, when he says that every man in himself, every child of Adam, though a living soul, is '_yet of the earth, and speaketh of the earth_.' He is tied to earthly measures and standards. If he applies even the faculties which he has derived from heaven to judge of heaven, he reduces it to the level of earth. But there is One who cometh from above, One who is above all, One who draws His light from the Fountain of light, One whose light in us is not a part of our darkness, but a divine power to scatter it. He testifies of that which He has seen and heard, of the heavenly things, of the will and nature and purpose of God. '_And no man receiveth His testimony._' Strange that John should say that! What he had heard from his disciples was that Jesus was baptizing, and '_that all men came to Him_.' We are not told that he doubted their information; we are not told that he had any different information from more trustworthy sources. And yet he confidently affirms that His testimony is not received. Why? Because he was not speaking of what had happened in the few days or weeks since Jesus came to Jordan to fulfil all righteousness, but of the four thousand years during which He had come to His own, and His own had received Him not. That testimony which He had borne as the invisible Word of God He was bearing still, now that He was made flesh and dwelling among men. It was mightier in degree; it was not different in kind. It was still a testimony to the heart, to the inner man, and must be entertained or rejected there. What, therefore, the Baptist could say of the past, on the warrant of so long an experience, he could say surely of the present. The darkness would fight against the light. No man of himself, without an operation from above, without a higher baptism than that of water, whether administered by John or by Christ, would believe that which the Son of God came to tell him.

That this limitation to the expression '_no man_' is involved in the very nature of the Baptist's discourse, is evident from the next verse: '_He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true_.' But what need of a limitation? Why should he have made a large assertion in one sentence, which is to be modified or contradicted in the next? The answer is contained in the words themselves: '_He who receives this testimony sets to his seal that God is true_.' The Christ comes to baptize men with the Spirit, that they may receive that which of themselves they are both reluctant and unable to receive. The man who accepts that testimony, confesses his own reluctance and inability. He believes God to be strong and true, though he is weak and lying. And his mind becomes stamped with the impression of God's truth. The Spirit of God raises him above himself to know Him. It was necessary, then, to make the one assertion in _its_ breadth and fulness, that the other might not lose any of its breadth and fulness. It was necessary that no man should suppose himself capable of entering into the mind and kingdom of God--that all men might know that God was not deceiving them, when He promised to bestow that capacity upon them.

'_For_,' John continues, '_He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him_.' He speaks the words of God. If He proclaimed a doctrine, a theory, a scheme of the universe--that might be taken in,--if some thought ill of it, others would embrace it. But He comes speaking the words of God--revealing the mind of the Eternal Being--showing forth Him who is truth and who is love. How can we grasp such a manifestation as this? What have our poor beggarly conceits to do with the idea of a Goodness without bounds? Let us understand it well, brethren. The Jews rejected the testimony of Christ, because it was the testimony concerning such a God as this. The difficulty of all difficulties, whatever we may fancy, is to believe in _God_, in a _living_ and _true_ God, in a God who loves His creatures. It is a difficulty which no arguments can remove; a difficulty which the progress of ages does not diminish in the least, but makes stronger; a difficulty which is often most overpowering to the most religious men. The logician says, 'The understanding is finite; you cannot bring the Infinite within its range.' The philosopher of advanced civilization says, 'The belief in God was for little children; science is for us. Physical science does not reveal God; our worship of humanity dispenses with Him.' Religious men see evil all about them and within them. They can conceive of a punisher and avenger of evil; they can conceive that this punisher and avenger, if he has motive and compensation sufficient, may exempt some from the destruction which he has decreed for the majority. They cannot believe in Love.

The logician is right. St. John said, eighteen hundred years ago, that the Light had shined in the darkness, and the darkness had not comprehended it. If we think only of our understanding, if we refuse to believe that there is a Word always illuminating it, we think only of the darkness, and we may say boldly, 'It can know nothing of God; we have nothing to do with Him.' The modern philosopher of advanced civilization is right. We cannot discover God in the world; we cannot discover in the world anything higher than ourselves. If there is no Bridegroom of humanity, who witnesses to it of a Father, and binds it to a Father, we can only worship the world, or worship humanity--that is to say, worship ourselves. The religious man who exalts evil into the throne of the universe is right. All the witnesses of the conscience that there is a God infinitely good,--all the witnesses of the heart that man is made to be in conformity with that infinite Good, and can be satisfied with nothing else--are simply mockeries and delusions, which it is the business of the disciple and minister of Christ to trample upon, to confute with words taken out of the Bible, till he has succeeded in making young men profligates and atheists, old men worldlings and hypocrites,--if there has not been in the world an only-begotten Son full of grace and truth, who has come forth from the Father to testify of the Father, and to whom the Father has given His Spirit without measure, that He might baptize with it all who receive His testimony, all who believe that God is true, not false--good, not evil.

To this subject the last and most memorable words of this whole chapter refer, those in which John the Baptist looks into the promised land which he was not to enter, in which he winds up the old dispensation, in which he introduces the new. '_The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand. He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life: he that believeth not the Son of God hath not life; but the wrath of God abideth on him._' Henceforth we shall hear no longer of a prophet discoursing of a Word who has come to him, and from whom his light and the light of all men has been derived. We shall find _that_ Word discoursing as a Son concerning a Father, conversing with a Father, showing forth a Father. We are to hear how this testimony is received, especially how it is received by the most religious portion of the Jewish people. We are to learn that, though their opposition to Jesus took many forms, there was one dark root of all their hostility and hatred. They could not bear to hear Christ speak of a Father--of a Father who loved the world. Whenever they thought of God, a dark image of wrath was present to them; that wrath abode upon them, settled in them. How was it possible for them, then, to see in Jesus the perfect image of the Father,--in His wrath against all baseness and vileness and hypocrisy, the true Divine wrath which is the expression of the deepest love,--in His sympathy with publicans and sinners, the self-same love? How was it possible for them to see in the Son lifted on the cross, the King whom prophets and holy men had desired, the Son of God in whom dwelt the fulness of the Father, because the fulness of love, bodily? And, therefore, the wrath which they had invoked upon all others, and cherished in their own hearts, came upon them to the uttermost. They rejected their King and Bridegroom, and all the national and spiritual life which had proceeded from Him perished inevitably.

I have come back to the subject of which I was speaking last Sunday. All Christian preaching should return continually to the Cross. It can never find any other object so central or so glorious. But the death of Christ and His resurrection are inseparable. I have been preaching you an Easter sermon to-day. For, if you think of Easter as apostles and martyrs thought of it, you will think of it as the witness that the Bridegroom of humanity has presented and justified humanity before His Father. You will pray for the Spirit of the Father and the Son, that you, believing in that justification, may rise with Him to newness of life. And you will join to these prayers another, that each of us, when the hour comes in which strength and heart fail, may be able to say with joy, '_I must decrease, that He may increase_.' All that belongs to my own poor and selfish nature must decay and perish, that He, my Lord and Saviour, may be exalted,--that I and all His redeemed may see our own blessedness and glory only and for ever in Him.

DISCOURSE IX.

THE WATER OF LIFE.

[Lincoln's Inn, Sunday after Easter, March 30, 1856.]

ST. JOHN IV. 10.

_Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift
of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink,
thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee
living water._

The dispute between John's disciples and the Jew, of which I spoke last Sunday, was about purification. Apparently, John's answer to them, when they came to tell him that Jesus was baptizing, and that all men were coming to Him, had little reference to this subject. _Really_ his words threw the greatest light upon it. He did not say whether the baptism of Jesus had a more purifying effect upon those who received it than his baptism. But he spoke of another gift which Jesus, if He was indeed the Son of God, would confer upon those who believed in Him. '_He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life._' It was a mighty thing for men to be purified, to have corruptions removed from them. But corruption is the consequence of death. Where corruption is, death must have entered. He who is the source and spring of life, He who can restore life, must have in Himself the very principle and power of purification. All instruments of purification must derive their virtue from Him. He must be _the_ Purifier.

Accordingly it is to this quality of the divine Word, or Son, that St. John has from the first directed our thoughts. '_In Him was life, and the life was the light of men_:' this is the starting-point of his Gospel. The sign in Cana of Galilee was the sign that Jesus was the communicator of life. His discourse with Nicodemus turned altogether upon the life from above which the Spirit of God would confer upon men, and which would enable them to see the kingdom of God. The primary announcement of the forerunner, therefore, respecting the Word made flesh, '_He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost_,' whatever more it might mean, could mean nothing less than this: 'He shall not merely cleanse away defilements; He shall impart the life which those defilements obstruct and seek to extinguish.' John did not say for a moment that water should not be the sign of entrance into the kingdom that was at hand--that it should not be Christ's sign, as it had been his sign;--but he said that it should be the sign, not merely of repentance and remission of sins, but of a higher and eternal _life_.

Was this an unusual and arbitrary application of the symbol? Surely not. Water, when it is applied outwardly, suggests only the thought of purification. Water, when it is taken inwardly, immediately suggests the thought of life. And this, therefore, is the point of connexion between the discourse of John with his disciples, which occupied us last Sunday, and the discourse of Jesus with the woman of Samaria, which is to occupy us to-day. The Evangelist points out the relation between the two subjects in his own mind and in the history, by the first words of the fourth chapter: '_When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples,) He left Judæa, and came again into Galilee_.' What the disciples of the Baptist had angrily conjectured, the Pharisees would of course take for granted. They would assume that John and Jesus were rival teachers, and that one was supplanting the other. The thought of this might become the thought of Christ's own disciples: if it did, they would utterly misunderstand the work of their Master, and His relation to the preacher of repentance. Was not this a reason for leaving Judæa, and going into Galilee?

'_And He must needs go through Samaria._' That was the most natural road. He might no doubt have avoided it; there was an inward and moral necessity why He should not. If He was setting up a kingdom in the whole land, portions of it which had been most separated from the rest must be claimed as belonging to it.

'_Then cometh He to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph._' This country was connected with the oldest traditions relating to the commonwealth of Israel,--to the period before the giving of the Law, when the life of the fathers of the nation was entirely domestic and pastoral. In these traditions was the link between one part of the people and the other. The local associations with the events recorded in the Book of Genesis were witnesses that the rocks had once been united, however rudely they had in later times been rent asunder. There, especially, was the simplest and most faithful token of patriarchal times--a _well_. It was believed to have been dug by Jacob. It brought the name of the head of all the tribes, and the likeness of his mode of existence to their own, before those who could read no letters, and had little in their own thoughts to tell them that they were members of a chosen race.

'_Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For His disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat.)_' Such a request from a weary and thirsty traveller would not commonly have been refused by a woman of Palestine; and certainly we have no reason to think, from the Gospels, that a Samaritan was likely to be less friendly or courteous than one of the Southern people. It is not probable that the woman meant to refuse. But she thought she had a right, on behalf of her country, to trifle a little with the pride of a Jew, who, in a difficulty, would ask a favour of those whom he despised, though he would not hold any intercourse with them, or meet them upon fair terms. '_How is it_,' said she, '_that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings_' (do not traffic) '_with the Samaritans_.'

That word, '_have no traffic or dealing_,' seems to explain the first part of our Lord's answer. '_If thou knewest the_ GIFT _of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water._' She had come day after day to draw water at that well. Had she never known that that water was a _gift_ of God? Had no thirst on a hot day, or no failure of the spring, taught her that? Was water a thing to traffic in? Did not she recollect that it was a man, and not merely a Jew, who was saying, '_Give me to drink_'? Did she never think of the gift of water as something very free and universal? This lesson was contained in the opening of the sentence; and the look and the voice of the Stranger had, perhaps, already carried it home in some degree to the woman's conscience. But the speech suddenly took another turn. There might be an exchange of gifts here also. '_If thou knewest who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water._'

The words conveyed no immediate sense to her mind as to the nature of the gift which was spoken of. But her answer shows that the presence of the Stranger had not been without its effect. She speaks with less levity than before, with something of doubt, if not of awe,--'_Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his children, and his cattle?_' I am far from supposing that this question indicates any suspicion in her mind that He _was_ greater than their father, or that He could know the country and where to find its secret springs as Jacob did. But that very reference to Jacob showed that the feelings of the woman were becoming more serious than they had been. The petty disputes of Jews and Samaritans were giving place to those remembrances of the past which make all common spots sacred, and ennoble even the vulgarest minds. Her well, that well at which she had so often filled her pitcher, was the one out of which, eighteen hundred years before, the patriarch had drunk, and his children, and his cattle. It was a step in her education, a preparation for the words which follow.

'_Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life._' I do not say that our version of this passage is in itself an incorrect one; nothing is harder than to find the most suitable equivalents for the words which are rendered here '_never_' and '_everlasting_:' but it would, I conceive, have been most desirable, by some means or other, to make the reader feel (which scarcely any reader of our translation does feel) that the two clauses answer to each other,--that εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, follows 'shall not thirst,' and that the adjective, αἰώνιος, is that which qualifies 'life.' I shall make no further use of this observation,--for there is enough in this passage to occupy us without any reference to it; but I could not pass it over because the word 'life,' which is the cardinal one of the passage, and I might say of the dialogue, must be considerably affected by that which accompanies it. I am far more anxious, however, that you should consider how our Lord describes the difference between the water of Jacob's well and that which He would give. '_The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life._' The woman had wondered where He would go to discover a fountain deeper and more abundant than that which Jacob had bequeathed. The answer is, '_He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again_.' 'He must come, as you do, to fetch water continually. The supply of to-day will be no supply for to-morrow. But what if each man should have the spring in himself? What if it should be a spring ever renewed, kept alive by Him who first opened it?' 'A strange thought,' you will say, 'to set before an ignorant woman! What could she understand about springs or fountains within?' Very little at first, if we believe the Evangelist. Her reply is just what we might expect it to be. She relapses into the sort of banter with which she had begun the conversation. The gravity which she had exhibited for a moment has disappeared: '_Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw_.' A sufficient proof, most would say, if they dared, that this kind of mystical discourse was very little adapted to the comprehension of such a person as she was. But, my brethren, if we say this, we must say more. We must say that the whole Gospel of St. John--the simplest, as I have said already, in language and construction, of all the Gospels, that which Luther was wont to designate the child's Gospel--is unsuitable to simple people, and must be reconstructed according to our notions of simplicity. For that Gospel begins from the principle that Christ, the living Word of God, is the life and light of men, the life and light of all men. If that is true, it must have been the work of the Son of Man, of the Word made flesh, to let all manner of people know that He was the source and spring of their life,--that apart from Him they had none. Now, life must be inward; it cannot come to a man from the world which is about him. That may be full of signs and tokens of the life he wants. Each well, each drop of rain, may testify of it. But it must spring up within him. Whatever is enduring, whatever he wants to satisfy the infinite thirst within him, must be there.

You say, an ignorant woman could not enter into such a mystery as this. But there were mysteries that she could enter into. '_Jesus said unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither._' It was a curious and startling break in the conversation. What had it to do with Jacob's well, or with the living water which she could not find there? Very much indeed. '_The woman said, I have no husband. Jesus answered and said, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly._' Here were facts concerning her past and her present history; here was a revelation of something that concerned her own very self. With _this_ there was no trifling. It was not of Jacob's well, or of another well, that the Stranger was discoursing now. He was speaking of _her_,--He was telling her what she was. '_In Him was life, and the life was the light of men._' She confessed it in her way,--'_Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet_.' All was not quite right with her;--He knew it, and He made her know it. She had offended the Power above,--perhaps He could tell her, also, how she might appease Him. Her fathers might have taught her wrongly. She would like to know. She would rather like, moreover, to make the discourse more general, less personal. A wish for truth, and a fear of it, light and darkness, in her, as in all of us, fought for the mastery. She said, '_Our fathers worshipped in this mountain_,'--this venerable Gerizim,--'_and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship_.' Whether or not she would have been ready at the bidding of a Jewish prophet to repair her errors, and earn the favour of God by giving up her Samaritan faith, and becoming a proselyte of the Temple, she had not perhaps asked herself; how much she would have gained by the exchange, our Lord's words in another Gospel, about those who became proselytes from heathenism, may partly tell us. But He who had sat by the well did not ask this proof of her desire for reformation. '_Woman_,' He said, '_believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father_.' All she had asked--all that most Samaritans or Jews would have disputed about--was _where_ they ought to worship. The thought upon which Jesus fixes her mind, is the Being to be worshipped. That new name, which John said the Son was come to reveal, is now proclaimed in the ears of a separatist and a sinner. He speaks not of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, but of the _Father_. Such a name the woman might or might not have heard, as one of the names of Him who dwelt on Gerizim. At all events, it would be but one of them--one that would be lost amidst the various titles by which He was invoked--carrying no special significance to the mind of the worshipper. Still, far down in that mind there was that which responded to the word Father, which would awake up at the sound when it came from lips that felt all the power and reality of it. She who had had five husbands, had had a father. To feel that the God of the distant hill had anything to do with that human relation, was the dawn of a new day to her. The sun was rising in her heart, if there were ever so many clouds concealing it.

I have said that our Lord was drawing the woman's thoughts from the _place_ of worship to the _object_ of worship. He goes on, in the next verse, to tell her that ignorance of this object was the special ignorance of the Samaritan: '_Ye worship ye know not what_.' And then He introduces words that have startled many, especially in this connexion: '_We know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews_.' 'Could He,' it has been asked, 'claim this dignity for His own nation, at the very moment when He seemed to be breaking down all distinctions of nations? And _did_ the Jew know what he worshipped? Did not Jesus Himself say, "_Ye know neither me nor the Father_?"' I apprehend, brethren, that the assertion of this, as the great calamity of the Samaritan--that he knew not what he worshipped--is abundantly borne out by history. It was in all times a country of superstitions, the early home of Baal-worshippers, the later home of enchanters and fanatics, and of sects putting forward pretensions to all kinds of spiritual powers, appealing to great necessities in the human mind, always leading it astray from its centre. The hard, cold Jew was not half so much open to _these_ impressions. The sects in his land were dry and formal, bound together by certain notions about the law. Becoming more and more selfish, measuring everything by rules of profit and loss, he grew at last to be a mere worshipper of Mammon. How was it possible, then, for him to know Christ and the Father? But in his debasement, he still preserved the shadow of the blessing which had been conferred upon his race, and which his neighbour, though freer and more open-minded, had lost. He still clung to a distinct object of adoration. He was a protestant against the worship of spiritual phantasies. This poor shadow showed what the substance was which the Jew had inherited, and which was his distinction among all nations. Salvation was to go forth from his land. And salvation, so our Lord teaches us, consists in knowing what we worship; for that knowledge saves men from slavery to the world's idols, and to the idols of their own hearts, which is their great curse and misery.

But if this is salvation, it could not be salvation to worship in the temple of Jerusalem any more than in the temple of Gerizim. If this salvation was to go forth _from_ the Jews, it could not be limited _to_ them. Therefore He proceeds--'_The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him_.' Here was a proclamation which, in a wonderful manner, combined the truth that had been partially revealed to the Samaritan, and the truth which still subsisted, though commonly hidden, distorted, even inverted, among the Jews. The confused sense of a spiritual worship, of men being spirits, was that which gave the magicians among the Samaritans all their power. They did acknowledge some invisible presence and influence acting upon them, and capable of producing wonderful effects, though they did not know what they worshipped. The Jew bowed down before a Being mightier than himself, who could lay down laws for him, who would execute those laws upon him. But he turned that Being into a selfish tyrant. A double transformation! The tyrant is revealed as a Father. The enchantments are supplanted by a Spirit proceeding from that Father, a Spirit of truth. Men are not to climb up to that Father by their offerings on Mount Moriah or Mount Gerizim, by their sacrifices or by their enchantments. The Father is seeking _them_. He gives them His true Spirit to make them true worshippers. They must not wish to draw Him down to them; He would draw them up to Him.

'_For God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth._' In those first words there was, as will be evident from what I have said, much that was in harmony with Samaritan feeling,--even with the feeling of an ordinary Samaritan like this woman. She had heard of spirits; she thought more about spirits than a Jew would have done. She did not speculate about them, but supposed that they might appear to her, or have some influence over her. But then came that other part of the sentence, which went to the very root of the tricks and superstitions with which she and her countrymen were familiar; '_they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth_.' The Spirit of truth--_that_ must enter into you, _that_ must govern you, _that_ must reform your life. A message this meant for the universe,--going to the very root of all religion and all philosophy, and yet bearing straight upon the conscience of that woman of Sychar who had come to draw water at Jacob's well.

Perhaps there is nothing that strikes us more in this conversation, which is so very direct and consistent in its purpose, and yet which follows all the windings of the human heart, beginning from '_Give me to drink_,' and ending with a revelation of the nature of God; perhaps, I say, there is nothing more remarkable in it all than the result of it. You expect to see the woman bowing before the mysterious Foreigner, expressing her astonishment at his high doctrine, lamenting that she had spoken to Him so uncourteously. Not at all. She says, '_I know that when Messias cometh, He shall tell us all things_.' 'Our people speak of One who is to be sent from God, of a Messias. I suppose, if these things are true about God being a Spirit, and about our having a Spirit of truth, He will tell us. We shall know as much of these things as we can know.' Evidently this part of the conversation has not yet taken hold of her. The part about herself has. 'The Messias will tell us all things; but this Jew has told me of myself; He has seen what I am.' And therefore, when Jesus answers, '_I that speak unto thee am He_,'--so making a more direct profession of His name and dignity to this Samaritan than He had made in Jerusalem,--He surely meant to fix this impression on her mind: 'Yes, this is the test of Messiahship. Look for no other. Do not ask for some outward signs to tell you when He is coming, or what He can do. I that speak unto _thee_--I that lay bare _thy_ heart--am He. That is the proof of my kingship over human beings; that is the proof of my being sent from God. I know what is in thee--the wrong of thy outward life, the evil of thy inward life. I know thy deepest necessities. I know thy want of a new spring of life within, of water of which thou mayest drink, and not thirst again. Thou needest that. All Samaritans, all Jews, all men and women who shall live, all nations and generations to come, will need it. I can give it them. For I can give them that Spirit of truth which the Father desires them to have, that they may know Him and worship Him.'

Lord, evermore give us this Spirit, that we thirst not, nor seek to draw the water of life, which is only in Thee, from the wells of earth!

DISCOURSE X.

THE REWARDS OF LABOUR, AND THE KINDS OF FAITH.

[Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday after Easter, April 6, 1856.]

ST. JOHN IV. 48.

_Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe._

Distance of time is not always unfavourable to accurate recollection. We often remember a friend's words better, years after they were spoken, than the next day; because we understand them better, because we see how one of them rose out of another. So, I imagine, it must have been with the woman of Sychar. If she had repeated the dialogue with Jesus to her neighbours, as soon as she returned to her city, she would probably have misrepresented it. Short as it was, she would have mistaken words, she would have changed the order of them. A time will have come when she would be sure of what He had said, and of what she had said,--when she could say confidently to those who were collecting His words, 'This is what He told me--this, and nothing else.'

At first she seems to have been too full of one part of the Stranger's speech to care about the rest. She did not say, 'I have received strange lessons from this Jewish prophet about God being a Spirit, and about the water of life;' she expressed far more simply the effect of this speech upon her: '_He told me all that ever I did_.' Was this exaggerated language? At first we are inclined to say so; then, perhaps, to justify her by resorting to some awkward hypothesis of our Lord having said many things to her which the Evangelist has omitted. The experience and conscience of human beings justify her far better. One who repeats to us all the passages of our history ever so accurately, does not tell us all that ever we did. A single flash of light may make the whole past visible to us, and show us that it is _our_ past. Thus was it with her. Her inmost self was revealed to the Stranger. And, what was wonderful, she did not wish to escape from His gaze. Awful as it was, she was attracted, not repelled by it. She had the comfort,--the greatest almost that we can experience,--of feeling that she had no longer anything to hide,--that there was One who knew thoroughly all that was wrong and all that was right in her. For Jesus had given her a sense of there being a right in her which she had never had before. She could not have explained how it came to pass; she was an ignorant peasant;--but it was so. The Stranger's speech had raised her to a new level. She had never seen the evil in herself as she had seen it now; but she had never so much risen out of the evil. When do we rise out of our evil but when the truth is told us, and we like to hear it?

And therefore she said, '_Is not this the Christ?_' 'Can it be any one else? And must He not be the Christ for you, my fellow-citizens, as He is for me? Must He not know all that you ever did, as He knows all that I ever did?' It was the right sermon. They acknowledged at once that it was such a Christ they wanted; not one who could tell them about all things in the world, but who could tell them all things that ever _they_ did. He who had that power might or might not be such a Christ as scribes and doctors talked of; He might or might not have the marks by which they discerned the coming King and Deliverer. But He was the Christ for poor people who hewed wood and drew water, who were human beings, and who had committed sins. These were the proofs of His mission to them. He must give these; they asked no others.