with the letter, but dive down to the spirit and drink of the living water, acCP,pt the Life-tho Christ of the Dible. 4. How little i., en(mgh to keep us from the chief good! A wnnt of will is sufficient. Look at the rich young man; only one thing was lacking. And look at these J ows; it was only the " will not" that stood between them and eternal life. 6. In Christ alone eternal life is to be found. 6. We must wme to him for ie, ur be without it. 7. The importance of the subject and the Divinti aids should ovci· decide the will in favour of Oh,·ist. To know the Scriptures and not know the Christ of the Scriptures is very sad.-B. T. Ver. 6.-A remarlcable question of Jesus. A remarkable question, truly r and if we did not know who asked it, it would be reckoned a thoughtless and somewhat silly question. But Jesus, we know, must have had:weighty reasons for asking it. It looks plausible to assume that a man who had been thirty and eight years ill must assuredly have wanted .to be cured; but, after all, the assumption is badly founded. It was certainly better to make the man whole than to leave him impotent, bnt it does not at a.II follow that the man would feel it to be better amid the experiences of bis new state. Thirty and eight years would fasten a man down to the habits of a dependent invalid, and the perfect recovery of physical strength by no means guaranteed that be would be fit in all other respects to use the strength he bad gained. Those who had willingly helped him in the days of his incapacity would now say, "Get you gone and seek work; earn your bread as others do, by the labour of your hands." Who can doubt that the man soon had cause to reflect over the question of Jesus, and admit that it was a question full of meaning? .The question, then, we see, was just the question to put to this man; and more than that, it is a question which all need to answer. 'I. IT REMINDS us OF THE UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL MALADY. Jesus is the great Physician, and comes to benefit the sick. When he talks so much of himself as the Giver of new life, what does this mean but that the old life is not snfficient? When men are ill in body they know that they are ill, and are quick to seek for remedies. But men take a deal of persuading and humbling and emptying of self before they can see the need of healing from Christ. II. IT BEMINDs, US HOW WE MUST TAKE THE TBUE •WAY TO SPIRITUAL HEALING. Notice the answer the impotent man gives to Jesus. He proceeds to explain that he is doing his best according to his light and opportunity. The only thing he knows of is to wait at Bethesd;i. till his chance comes, and it is plain it never will come. And so to us, taking all sorts of traditional ways to ease the troubles of the breast, Jesus comes, and in the midst of all our failures says there is real healing if only we take the right way. III. lT REMINDS UB OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE NEW AND llETTER STATE, From this poor man in his helplessness little was expected. When be was healed be would have to,enter on o. life of struggle, duty, and self-reliance. When Christ bys down before us of the riches of his grace, a great deal more is thereby expected from us.-Y. , •
Ver. 14....:.....The Healers warning". I. HE WHO WARNS HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK. It is not,~ mere stranger who comes up. He who speaks has rendered the greatest services to the man he addresses, and bis warning for the future is based on his service in the past. So to speak, the healing would have been incomplete but for the giving of the warning. '!'here are diseases the origin of which is not traceable; there are other diseases distinctly traceable to the. evil-doing of those who suffer from them. This man might surely he.ve said, even as did the Samaritan woman, "Here is One who told me all that ever I did." Many would speak to the henled man, and their utterances would only move him to say that they knew not what they were talking about. "Sin no morn," says Jesus. That seemed to point back to some act or course of evil-doing far away in the past, forgotten by most who had ever known it, and to many not known at all. But he who had the power to hee.l had also the power to know. If in after years this man neglected the warning and foll into suffering, all the bitterer would that sufferittg be in recollecting that he was so clearly forewarned age.inst it. II. JESUS WOULD IIAVE HEALTH RESTORED, WHATEVER THE CAUSE Ol!' ITS LOSS MIGB'l! BE. Jesus did not come first of all to the impotent man, reminding him that all these 244 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. [on. v. 1-47.