JOHN IV. 15-26.

"The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come hither.

The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, 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.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

But 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.

God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he."

THE PLACE, THE OBJECT AND THE NATURE OF THE TRUE WORSHIP - John iv. 15-26.

WHEN the Lord said unto the woman, "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," it is manifest that she very imperfectly understood his words. But she was so impressed with his whole manner as to believe that he was sincere in offering to her something which should be in some way to her permanent advantage. Therefore she answered him after this fashion: "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."

Some indeed will have it that she was still dealing in badinage, and seeking to turn the whole matter into ridicule. But the contrast between the title of honor, "Sir," or "Lord," which she now gives him, and the words of reproach, " thou being a Jew," which she had formerly employed, as well as the whole impression produced upon us by her request and by the Saviour's manner of dealing with it, prevent us from adopting such an opinion. She imagined that he was speaking of literal water, and foreseeing that if his words were true regarding that, she might be saved by him from much personal discomfort and much daily drudgery, she asked that he would make good his assurance to her.

Her mistake, therefore, was the very simple and natural one of taking his language too literally. Nevertheless her request was a prayer which he interpreted and answered after his own wise way, and so as to give her a better blessing than at the moment she had in view. She knew not what she asked; and in her ignorance used words which indicated that she had a most defective apprehension of the advantage which she was to derive from the answer to her request. But, in that particular, we may well ask, whether she was greatly different even from the best or most enlightened among ourselves. Is it not true of us also, that even in our simplest petitions we know not what we ask? One asks for a new heart, and forthwith he is led through some dreadful ordeal which reveals him to himself, and brings him to his Saviour, and though at the beginning he had no idea that this was the answer to his prayer, he comes at length to see, that thus and no otherwise God was giving him his desire. Another prays for holiness, and before he is aware, some calamity befalls him -bereavement darkens his dwelling; or affliction lays him on a bed of weakness; or adversity turns all his business enterprises into failures; and he is at first bewildered by the experience, but when, as the result of all, "the peaceable fruit of righteousness" begins to make its appearance, he learns that God all through has been granting his request.

Now it was quite similar in the case before us. This woman, not knowing what she asked, said: " Give me this water," and Christ answered, "Go, call thy husband, and come hither." She winced at the words; and her eyes, we may imagine, fell beneath the searching gaze of him who uttered them. But she thought to parry the home thrust by saying, " I have no husband." That however did not serve her purpose, for the Lord replied--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." In the original there is a subtle meaning, which does not come out here in the translation. The Revisers give the last clause thus this hast thou said truly," but even that does not convey the full significance; for the adjective and not the adverb is employed, so that literally rendered the phrase is -"in that saidst thou a true thing." The Saviour thereby makes her understand that while she told what was a literal fact, she was nevertheless not speaking to him with ingenuous frankness. For she had had five husbands to whom she had been legally wedded, and from whom she had been separated either by their death, or by her having been, for some reason or other, divorced from them; and she was now living in sin with one who had no title to be called her husband.

But what had all this to do with her request to get the "living water"? The question has puzzled many, and indeed most readers fail to see that the two are in any way connected. Some have so far misunderstood the drift and purpose of the Saviour as to suppose, that he was becoming alive to what they are pleased to insinuate was the impropriety of the situation, and desired the presence of another at their conference. Others have imagined that the command, " Go, call thy husband," was a mere casual utterance, meant for nothing else than to fill up what otherwise might have been an awkward pause in the conversation.

In reality, however, the giving of that order by Jesus was the beginning of his answer to her request for the living water. She did not know it at the time, but as she went back over the interview in thought, she would see it all afterwards; and we are blind to Christ's method of dealing with those whom he seeks to save, if we do not see it while we read the history. They who seek him, do so usually because they feel their need of that which only he car give. But when he seeks a soul, he begins by bringing that soul to a sense of its sinfulness, that it may be willing to accept of the salvation which he bestows. No one will accept of pardon and renewal until he knows himself to be a simmer; and no one will apply to Christ for these blessings until he is assured that he is a Saviour. Now you see here, how the Lord brought this woman’s sin to her remembrance, so as to fill her with shame and sorrow, as preparatory to the revelation of himself to her as the promised deliverer from the guilt and power of iniquity. Nay by the very manner in which he wrought conviction of sin in her, he at the same time produced in her the impression that there was something extraordinary about himself.

The result of his words thus was at one and the same time to give her a clearer knowledge of her own vileness, and a deeper sense of his greatness. And he does the same thing very frequently with sinners still. By showing them what is in their own hearts, he proves to them that he is "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The light which he brings with him to a soul reveals, at once, its own condition, and his own greatness. In any case by the probing of this command, "Go, call thy husband," and the revelation to which it led, he so showed this woman to herself, as to make her feel her need, while at the same time he so unfolded his own greatness, as to dispose her to make enquiry concerning the most important of all subjects at his lips. For, startled by the perception of the fact that the secret chapters of her guilty life were known by him--a perfect stranger seemingly to her--she said: "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

It has been thought that in speaking thus the woman tried to change the subject of conversation, and sought to ward off any farther reference to herself by engaging the Lord Jesus in religious controversy. Now there is no doubt that when we come into close quarters with sinners they frequently resort to just such tactics. How often, for example, does the unconverted man try to parry your appeal to him after this fashion: "What you say about me may be very true, but there are so many divisions among you, that you had better settle these, before you deal with me. There are Romanists and Protestants; Episcopalians and Presbyterians; Congregationalists and Methodists; Baptists and Paedobaptists; and when you have agreed among yourselves which of you is the true church, then you may come to me." But that is a course of argument about as absurd as it would be for a man to say that there is no such thing as time, because one man's watch is not pointing to the same precise second as that of another; for high above all our differences there is the Lord Jesus Christ to whom we all alike acknowledge our allegiance, even as independent of all time pieces there is the sun in the heavens to whose position relative to the earth, men desire everywhere to adjust their chronometers.

But though this use of controversy is very common, and though, at one time, I believed that the Samaritan woman was guilty of so employing it, a closer study of the narrative has disposed me to take a different view. For I can scarcely conceive that to a mere quibbling subterfuge the Lord would have given the answer which he gave to this enquiry, - an answer which involved in it more of the deep things of his gospel, than he had yet declared even to his own disciples. Besides the woman's words are perfectly consistent with earnest anxiety to know the truth. The Saviour had touched her conscience in the quick. She had begun to feel her guilt, and that led her to think of God whom she as a Samaritan had been taught to believe could be worshipped acceptably only on Mount Gerizim, where the temple of her people had so long stood. But this man, whom she recognized as a prophet, because he had shown such acquaintance with the facts of her history, was a Jew; who presumably believed, like other Jews, that Jerusalem was the place where men ought to worship.

Here, therefore, was a real dilemma. Whither was she, as a sinner, to go, in order to find acceptance with God? Was she to forswear the religion of her fathers and turn her back on Gerizim, while she went up to Jerusalem? or was she still to worship there where she was, and so go against the religion of him, who had so clearly shown himself to be the bearer of a divine commission? Whither, in her distress was she to go ? what was she to do? He was a prophet, would he kindly enlighten her?

In reply the Lord said: "Woman, believe me, there cometh an hour, when ye shall worship the Father, but neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. But there com.eth an hour, yea it is now come, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit," or rather perhaps God is Spirit, "and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth." Remarkable words-touching a height unattained by any heathen philosophy, and hardly more than approached even by the Prophets and Psalmists of the Old Testament. May God himself enable us to see their meaning, and to act upon the principles which they so strongly enunciate!

Notice first, however, the direct reply which the Lord gives as to the relative position of Gerizim and Jerusalem. He does not shrink from expressing a definite opinion - which for all who believe in him is authoritative and final - on the matter which had been at issue for so many generations between the two nations. He tells the woman plainly that she and her people were wrong as to the nature of the object of worship; and as to the place of worship; and that on both of these points the truth lay with the Jews with whom he here for the moment identifies himself. "Ye worship ye know not what." That is to say, you worship one with whose character as revealed by the prophets you are unacquainted. As Westcott has well paraphrased it, the meaning is - "You know whom to worship, but you do not know Him. By confining your faith to the law you condemn yourselves to ignorance of the God of Israel. We Jews on the other hand worship that which we know, for the promised salvation is of the Jews. The power of Judaism lay in the fact that it was not simple deism, but the gradual preparation for the Incarnation. The Jew therefore knew that which he worshipped so far as the will and in that the nature of God was gradually unfolded before him." ("Speaker's Commentary," Vol. II., N. T. in loco.)

The promised Saviour of men was to come from among the Jews-and therefore their worship, as designed to be preparatory to his appearing, and as appointed by God himself, was alike in its nature, its object, and its locality, superior to that of the Samaritans.

But while that had been the case in the past, there was little profit in discussing the relative claims of the rival temples now, for the hour was coming, when men, Samaritans and Jews alike, should worship God as their Father, but should not care about the locality in which they worshipped him. The temple on Gerizim was already in ruins, and that in Jerusalem should be erelong razed to its foundations. Yet after both had disappeared men should continue to offer acceptable worship to God as the Father.

Then, leaving the mere local issue, he rises to the height of the great subject and lays down the principles by which all proper worship under the gospel dispensation is to be conducted. These may be grouped under the three headings of the object to be worshipped; the nature of the worship which alone he can accept; and the relation of locality to that worship; and it may be conducive both to clearness of thought and readiness of recollection if we look at each of these in the order in which we have named them.

I. There is, first, the object to be worshipped - God - a Spirit - the Father. Now here we have a personality; an essence; and a relationship. There is, first, a personality. The Lord is evidently speaking of a living Being, having a distinct unity and personality. He would not have us confound God and nature, like the pantheist, with whom, as Liddon has epigrammatically expressed it, God is "nothing else than a fine name for the universe." Neither would he countenance the error of the polytheist who worshipped gods many and lords many, and who supposed that each particular divinity had a department of his own, within which he was supreme, but beyond which he had no influence or control. There is but one God - the living and the true, and of him the Saviour speaks in the words before us; a Being to whom we can say "Thou God," and who has a distinct existence antecedent to and apart from the universe which he has made, according to the words of Moses, "In the beginning, God."

But there is here, secondly, an essence. "God is spirit," or "a spirit." But what is a spirit? It is much easier to ask that question, than it is to find for it a satisfactory reply. I have seen it defined thus-"a living, thinking, but unseen being." But even that does not give us much that is positive to lay hold of. The real truth is that we know exceedingly little about spirit. We know through consciousness the qualities of our own souls, presuming these to be spiritual (which I hope I may do), and that is about all that we do know positively on the subject. But if we know little positively and cannot say much of what spirit is; we know something negatively and can say what it is not. It is not material. Therefore to represent God to ourselves either in thought or symbol, under any material form, is to be guilty of idolatry. We may think of him as the being in whom perfect intelligence, unsullied holiness, almighty power, unerring wisdom, and infinite love reside, but whenever we give to that being, any material form, we do dishonor to his essence, and set up to ourselves another God than that whom the Scriptures and Christ reveal.

But, thirdly, here we have a relationship. Christ speaks of God as the Father; yea he repeats the term again and again as if it were of pre-eminent importance. "Ye shall worship the Father," "the true worshippers shall worship the Father," "the Father seeketh such to worship him." God is the Father of men; and they only worship him acceptably who worship him as such, in spirit and in truth. He is their Father, not simply because he has created them; but because they were created in his image and regarded by him with tenderness and affection. And though they have lost that image largely by sin, they are still his lost children, whom he has sought to regain by sending his first-born Son into the world to take their nature and their sins upon him, that through faith in him they may be born again, renewed into his image, and reinstated in his family.

So long, therefore, as men stand away in dread and terror from God, regarding him only as their king, lawgiver, and judge, appalled by his greatness, blinded by his glory, overawed by his omnipotence, he is not worshipped by them as he seeks to be worshipped. He longs for their recognition of him as their Father. He desires to be re.garded by them with affection; to be approached by them with confidence; to be treated by them with that union of love, liberty, reverence, and delight, with which a child on earth treats a father who is worthy of the name.

Mark that expressive phrase- "the Father seeketh such to worship him." The longing of his heart is for such appreciation by men; and that longing was so ardent, as to lead him to give his Eternal Son that he might make atonement for their sins, put the spirit of adoption into their hearts, and, taking them by the hand, lead them into the very holy of holies of his presence, and teach them to say before the mercy-seat, "Our Father which art in heaven." As Westcott says, "This revelation of God as Father sums up the new tidings of the Gospel." ("Speaker's Commentary," in loco.) Till Christ came it was very imperfectly apprehended, if apprehended at all, and ever since the advent the words of the Redeemer are strictly true: "I am the way; no man cometh unto the Father but by me." One may attain to a knowledge of the existence of God apart from Christ; but only the eternal Son of God can reveal to us his Fatherhood, and so only when we accept the revelation which Christ has made of God can we worship God as he seeks to be worshipped.

II. But this brings me to look at the second group of principles which these words contain, those namely which relate to the nature of acceptable worship under the gospel dispensation. "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth;" and, "they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." That is to say, the right worship of God is that which is "in spirit and in truth." But what precisely does it mean to worship God "in spirit and in truth? "We shall get at the ideas implied if we bear in mind that worship involves an expression of feeling; and a conception of the object towards whom the feeling is entertained.

Now the expression of feeling is to be "in spirit," and the conception of the object is to be "in truth." The spirit - taking Paul's tripartite division of our human nature into soul, body, and spirit - is that part of our nature which holds or is capable of holding intercourse with God. The sphere of worship therefore was now to be in that highest region where the divine and human meet, and not, as in an earlier period of discipline, in the material or fleshly. Judaism was very largely a worship in the letter. The "law stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed until the time of reformation." But now through the Incarnation men are enabled to have immediate communion with God and thus a worship "in spirit " has become possible; or as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has said- "the way into the Holiest of all has now been made manifest," so that "we have boldness to enter into the holiest of all, by the blood of Jesus."

Then the second thing involved in worship is a conception of the object toward whom the feeling expressed in spirit is entertained, and that conception is to be "in truth." Now what that implies will appear if we contrast the gospel worship not now with the Jewish, but with the Samaritan. For Samaritanism was worship in falsehood, not in truth. The Samaritans had a wrong idea of God. They did not receive and did not believe the prophetic revelations regarding him, and so they did not worship him "in truth." As Westcott has said- "Worship is essentially limited by the idea of the being worshipped. A true idea of God is essential to a right service of him." And to get that true idea of God, we must accept the revelation made of him by the Incarnate Son.

These then are the essential conditions of acceptable worship-that it be not of the letter or of the flesh but in spirit, and that we have a true idea of Him to whom it is offered. Now if this be so, it may appear to some that the natural inference from these principles is that worship need have no external form whatever; and I am free to say, that if we were simply and only spirits that would be all that would be required. But in our complex humanity, the feeling of the spirit must make for itself expression in some outward form. Just as the soul has its outward organ in the body; so, as we are presently constituted, the soul of worship, which is spirit, must have some external body-which is form or ritual. But then just as the body without the spirit is dead, so the form or ritual of worship without the spirit is dead also. The real worship is the exercise of the spirit; and the form or ritual is acceptable only when it is the natural and genuine expression of the spirit. It is not first the form or ritual, and then the spirit; but it is first the spirit, and then the form or ritual as the expression of the spirit.

It is thus with worship, precisely as it is with giving, of which the Apostle says, "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." The largest offering made for any cause is accepted according to the measure of the love to God of which it is the expression; and so again is the smallest. Hence the widow's mite and Mary's alabaster box of ointment were valuable in the Redeemer's eyes far beyond the earthly estimate of their worth, because of the fulness of love that was in them.

Now in the same way the grandest ceremonial of worship, whether in cathedral or oratory, is accepted by God only according to the spirit of which it is the expression. I cannot presume to say how much of such services is offered "in spirit." God knoweth-but only for the spirit that is in them does he accept them. While again the baldest ritual, and the tamest ceremonial will be estimated by him, not according to its outward appearance, but according to the spirit which seeks in it to find expression. I do not put the one above the other as an external service, for if they be simply external services there is nothing of worship in either of them. It is as possible to be hypocritical in the use of the simplest ritual, as it is to be so in the employment of the most elaborate; and so long as the outward continues to be for us the necessary expression of the inward, there will always be a danger of our attending more to the outward than to the inward, to the form than to the spirit. But knowing that danger we ought to be on our guard against it; and we should look first and chiefly to the spirit, in the conviction that if that be in earnest, it will either find or make for itself an appropriate expression in some outward form.

Here then in brief are the truths about the nature of worship set before us in the words of our Lord: God is spirit, therefore our worship of him must be in spirit, for only a spiritual offering can reach a spiritual nature. Nay more, we, though complex in our humanity, are in our highest nature spirits. That which each of us calls "I," "me," "myself," is spirit. The body is mine; the soul is mine; but the spirit is the self to which both the others belong; therefore my worship must be first of the spirit-else it is not the exercise of that which is emphatically and peculiarly myself. Further this worship must be in truth, that is to say, it must be addressed to and moulded by God as he has revealed himself in and through Jesus Christ his Son.

III. But we come now to the third thing referred to in these suggestive words, namely, the relation of locality to acceptable worship under the gospel dispensation. It is indicated in this saying of the Lord, that in the matter of the worship of God the place is of no importance whatever. If the service be in spirit and in truth, it may be offered at any time and in any locality. No doubt there may be associations connected with certain localities which are not linked to others; and it is a matter of convenience that a company of worshippers should have a house in which they can statedly assemble for the service of God. But now under the gospel, there are no holy places properly so called. Of old, Jerusalem was the place where men ought to worship. There was the chosen temple of God, in which the visible emblem of his glory ever dwelt above the mercy-seat, and in whose outer court the smoke of sacrifice daily ascended. But though many good ends were subserved by this localization of worship, it was a mere temporary and educational arrangement, and when Jesus Christ came, the hour struck when men might worship God anywhere, provided only they worshipped him in spirit and in truth.

The meeting-place in which the first effusion of the Holy Ghost was enjoyed on the day of Pentecost was not the Temple, but an upper-room; and when the wonders of that day were renewed at Cesaraea to the Gentiles, those who received the baptism of fire were not assembled in any so-called consecrated building, but in the house of Cornelius the Centurion. So again, Paul gathered his congregation in Ephesus in the schoolroom where at other hours of the day Tyrannus taught rhetoric or philosophy; and in Rome he received his fellow worshippers in "his own hired house." Similarly we find that there were churches or assemblies, in the house of Aquila and Priscilla, and in that of Philemon; and generally, all through the New Testament, it is clear that no essential importance was attached to the place where believers met for worship but that it was selected purely for the sake of convenience or of safety.

Nor was it otherwise in the first ages of the church. During a time of persecution, and many centuries before the foundation stone of St. Peter's Cathedral was laid, or its gorgeous ritual thought of, the Christians of Rome met in the catacombs beneath the city and found at once a house of prayer and a place of refuge beside the graves of their brethren. And similar latitude as to the locality of worship has prevailed in later days. The Scottish Covenanters gathered many a time in lonely valleys, or on bleak and heathery moors, and the Puritans of London hid themselves in obscure buildings in the secret places of their city; but who will say that their de.votion was on that account any the less acceptable to God? During the thrilling time of the Indian mutiny Havelock and his saints, as his soldiers were reproachfully nicknamed, held a religious service in a heathen temple, surrounded with all the disgusting paraphernalia of idolatry, but who dares affirm that their approach to God was any the less real, or any the less pleasing to their Lord, because of the unwonted place in which they called upon his name? And when the persecuted ones in Madagascar met in the woods and sang their hymns in whispers, lest they should betray their hiding-place, will any one presume to allege that their worship was at all vitiated because it was not offered in a splendid cathedral, with all the pomp of an imposing ceremony?

In the village of Olney in England there is a building called "the Great House," in which John Newton, when vicar of the parish, rented a room, for the purpose of holding weekly meetings for prayer and the exposition of the Scriptures. It was a Union meeting though instituted more than a century ago. There frequently was William Bull, the faithful pastor of the Congregational church in Newport-Pagnell in the neighborhood. There too very regularly was the gentle, tender, shrinking poet, William Cowper, with others of kindred love to Christ. The fellowship was of the highest and holiest, and it was for the opening service in that room that Cowper wrote the beautiful hymn beginning with these lines:

Jesus, where'er thy people meet,
There they behold thy mercy-seat;
Where'er they seek thee, thou art found,
And every place is holy ground."

For the same occasion Newton wrote the hymn of which the first verse is as follows:

"O Lord, our languid souls inspire,
For here we trust thou art;
Send down a coal of heavenly fire
To warm each waiting heart" --

and we may believe that the devotion which so expressed itself was not the less pleasing unto God for being offered in such a place. We are as near to the mercy-seat now in one place as in another; and provided we worship God in spirit and in truth, it makes no matter where we are when we offer him our homage.

But what of the woman now? How did she receive these profound sayings? She seems to have been completely bewildered by them. They were far above her comprehension, and so, very naturally, she took refuge in the thought that one was coming who would make all such things plain. Therefore she said, "I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come he will tell us all things." As a Samaritan and receiving the Pentateuch she was of course familiar with the prediction of Moses. "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me: him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you." And the words of Jesus quickened in her the desire for the appearance of this long-expected teacher. As a German commentator has it- "The woman is apprehended by the answer of Jesus, but does not yet apprehend it, and appeals to the Messiah."

Just as before he unfolded to her the sinfulness of her life, that she might desire deliverance; so now he shows to her the ignorance of her mind, that she might ask instruction; and when she is led to connect the coming of the Messiah with the satisfaction of her soul, in forgiveness and in knowledge, she has reached that stage, when revelation will be prized. She is now in a condition to understand and appreciate the news, and he says, "I that speak unto thee, am he."

And who may describe the emo.tions of her heart as she heard the announcement ? The painter who shrank from attempting to portray the expression of a face at a moment of intense excitement, dropped a veil over it-that each spectator might imagine for himself what that veil covered. And the sacred penman here is silent on the appearance of this woman in the ecstatic moment of her discovery of the Messiah-that each reader may seek to realize it for himself. It is a proof of the genuine inspiration of the evangelist, and where he says nothing we need not attempt to enlarge. Fitly, therefore, may we pause here, and leave the remainder of the narrative for future consideration, while we linger over one or two thoughts suggested by the ground over which we have come.

We may learn then, in the first place, how unimportant all controversies about the forms of worship are. The great thing is that we have correct ideas as to the object whom we worship, and that we worship him in spirit. But when we exalt the form into essential moment, we make a God of that; and all true worship disappears. Hence undue attention to form is dangerous as well as unnecessary. It tends to separate the spirit from the form, and to make ritual all in all. It makes a superstition out of that which ought to be a worship; and by its stickling for minute details it develops an idolatry in its very zeal for purity.

Nor is this danger confined to those who seek to have an elaborate ceremonial. An idol is not less an idol when it is made of lead than when it is made of gold; and we may make an idol out of the very plainness of Pur.itanic worship as really as others do out of the grandeur of a pompous ritual, with all its accessories of statues and paintings, and incense and music. That is the best form which is the simplest and clearest expression of the spirit; even as in writing that is the best style which gives the most direct and intelligible representation of the thought of the writer. Hence supreme attention ought to be directed to the spirit in worship, and when that is right, the form may be left under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and within the lines of Scripture to take care of itself.

But mere attention to the spirit will not suffice, and so finally, we may learn from this subject that in worship it is not enough that the emotion be sincere. We must worship God in truth, as well as in spirit. It is not sufficient that the soul be engaged. Many say indeed that it makes no matter what a man believes if he be only sincere. But that is one of those half-truths that are as dan.gerous as whole errors. Sincerity is good; but sincerity in that which is untrue will work more mischief than positive insincerity. Let a man, for example, sincerely believe that water will support him, and forthwith trying to walk upon it he will be drowned. In the same way let a man believe that he can be saved otherwise than through Christ, and trusting to that other Saviour he will be lost eternally.

Now the same thing holds in worship. The 'superstitious devotee is sincere, but is he therefore worshipping God in truth ? Let but the idea gain currency among us that nothing more than sincerity is needed in worship, and every missionary agency in existence will be paralyzed into inactivity. But with the Saviour's words to the woman in our minds we cannot make such a mistake. For we are to worship God "in truth," that is, as he has revealed himself to men in and through Christ, who has said: "I am the way, the truth and the life." So they only approach God in truth, who come to him in Christ. Unless we do that, whatever else we worship, we do not worship God, and he cannot accept our service as offered to himself.

That is the truth which the Lord emphasized to the Jews in these words: "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men may honor the Son even as they hon.or the Father. He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent him." This is the reason why we insist so strongly on approaching God through Christ; and why Socinianism that undeifies Christ, does at the same time dishonor God. It thinks, indeed, that it is exalting God, by speaking of Christ as a mere creature. But in the light of that statement, and of the Saviour's words at the well, it is not worshipping God at all-for he that honoreth not the Son-even as he honors the Father-does not even honor the Father. It may worship "in spirit," but it does not worship "in truth," and it is a real idolatry, and they who worship Christ, and God in Christ, are the true worshippers who worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Hence in its recoil from that which it deems idolatry in the worship of Christ that system does not even worship the Father truly, and does him positive dishonor. This may seem an hard saying to many; but the saying is Christian; and it may well put you on your guard against all such as seek to make of him only a teacher or a prophet or a martyr and not the manifestation of the Father to us, according as he said to Philip, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. The true worship, therefore, is the sincere homage of the soul, offered to God through Christ, as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our God and Father in Him.

~ end of Part II, Jesus At The Well ~