238 NO MORE THIRST
passage, but comes out at the farther end into broader, brighter plains and summer lands ; where it flows with a quieter current and with the sunshine reflected on its untroubled surface, into the calm ocean. He has one gift and one life for earth and heaven — Christ and His Spirit, and the life that is consequent upon both.
^ " It shall be in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." The grace continues with us, and overflows into a blessed Immortality. The Spirit that redeems will also perfect. What- ever may be our estate when it finds us, our ultimate attainments will be the likeness of the Lord. The living water rises from Heaven, and rises towards Heaven. We shall at length be presented blameless before the Throne of God.
^ " Never thirst." That does not mean that in the Christian life desire is ended. " The ill of all ills is the death of desire." In the redeemed life desire is intense and wakeful. There is desiring, but no despairing. There is longing, but no languishing. There is fervour, but no fever. There is aspiration and con- tentment. There is striving and rest. We still thirst for the fulness of grace not yet received, but there is no pain in the thirst. In the Christian life the very thirst for greater fulness is itself a delight. If I may quote Calvin, " Believers know desire, but they do not know drought."^ ^ '
, My spirit longeth for Thee, Within my troubled breast, Altho' I be unworthy Of so divine a Guest.
Of so divine a Guest,
Unworthy tho' I be. Yet has my heart no rest,
Unless it come from Thee,
Unless it come from Thee,
In vain I look around; In all that I can see.
No rest is to be found.
Kg rest is to be found,
But in Thy blessed love; 0 ! let my wish be crown'd, And send it from above ! ^ 1 J. H. Jowett. 2 J. Byrom.
True Worship.
933
Literature.
Ball (C. J.), TestirMiiies to Christ, 332.
Balmfortli (R.), Tlie New Testament in the Light of Higher Criticism^ 211.
Boyd (A. K. H.), Sunday Afternoons at the Parish Church of a University City, 73.
Brooke (S. A.), Sermons, ii. 339 ff.
Carter (T. T.), The Spirit of Watchfulness, 225.
Dale (R. W.), Discourses on Special Occasions, 81.
Drummond (R. J.), Faith's Certainties, 341.
Drysdale (A. H.), Christ Invisible our Gain, 303.
Duryea (J. T.), in TJie American Pulpit of the Day, i. 70.
Eyton (R.), Tlie True Life, 466.
Fremantle (W. H.), The Gospel of the Secular Life, 197.
Fiirst (A.), Christ the Way, 253.
Hall (A. C. A.), The Christian Doctriiie of Prayer, 1.
Iloare (E.), Great Principles of Divine Truth, 270.
Jones (T.), The Divine Order, 68.
McCombie (W.), Sermons and Lectures, 146.
Macleod (A.), A Man's Gift, 81.
Miller (J.), Sermons Literary and Scientific, i. 280.
Murray (A.), The Spirit of Christ, 33.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, iii. 41.
Rashdall (H.), Doctrine and Development, 1.
Rendall (Q. H.), Charterhouse Sermons, 174.
Robertson (F. W.), The Human Race, 101, 115.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tahernade Pulpit, xii. (1866) No. 695.
Terry (G. F.), The Old Theology in the Neio Age, 43.
Thorn (J. H.), A Spiritual Faith, 1.
Vaughan (J.), Sermom (Brighton Pulpit, 1868), No. 602. Christian World Pulpit, x. 120 (Stanley) ; xxxiii. 124 (Wilson); xxxviii. 101 (Hocking) ; liii. 249 (Savage) ; Ixx. 321 (Marshall) ; Ixxii. 150 (Perry) ; Ixxviii. 186 (Swithinbank) ; Ixxix. 99 (Thomson). aiurch Pulpit Year Book, ii. (1905) 126 ; iv. (1907) 124. Homiletic Review, liv. 311 (Walters).
True Worship.
God is a Spirit : and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. — John iv. 24.
1. The conversation between Christ and the woman of Samaria began on common topics. By and by it became more deep and interesting. He to whom all things here were types could not converse without a Divine meaning in all He said. A draught of water connected itself with the mystery of life.
As soon as she discovered His spiritual character she put the
question of her day about "the place where men ought to
worship." Christ took the opportunity of defining spiritual
worship. He spoke of a new worship essentially different from
1 the old. He made religion spiritual, He pointed out the difference
I between religion and theology, and He revealed the foundation on
1 which true worship must rest. A new time was coming for a
new worship : " The hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth."
2. It was to a very lowly soul that Jesus thus revealed Himself. She was a poor and unenlightened peasant, a woman, a Samaritan. It had been, too, a frail and erring life, that must have fallen into many mistakes, known many contumelies, endured slights and disheartenments untold. " Thou hast had five husbands ; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband : this hast thou said truly." How chequered and spotted an experience is there disclosed, one full of tragedies and unstanched wounds ! But just to such an one Jesus Christ elects to make the revelation that the true tie between God and man lies deeper than externals, that it is an interior life which transcends all accidental differ- ences of birth and nationality, of station and sex, even of creed and worship ; that alike to Jew and to Samaritan, man and woman