and endeavours to the greatest sinners. If we cannot be instrumental to the salvation of heretics, and have reason to apprehend that our own will be endangered by them, the law of nature obliges us to avoid them. Error, as well as vice, is a contagious disease. To converse familiarly with such as may infect us with either, when we lie under no necessity nor obligation to do it, is no other than to be willing to perish. How many precautions do we generally take to secure the body-how few with regard to the soul!

10. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knowest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

Jesus Christ is the great gift of God, and the source of all other gifts. Such as this Samaritan woman is, such is every sinner before the first ray of divine light has shone in his heart. So far is she from being able to deserve it, desire it, or ask for it, that she rejects it, and has not the least suspicion imaginable that she has any want of it. To be admonished of our ignorance signifies but very little, if God do not perform the rest. To know Jesus Christ and the necessity of his grace, is the first step toward conversion. His grace is living water, which quenches our thirst after worldly riches and pleasures. Who would not incessantly desire and long to drink thereof? Frequent opportunities of receiving this water present themselves to us, and we are not sensible of them. Disgrace, sickness, poverty, and affliction often bring along with them this precious gift, and yet we refuse them. Cause us, Lord, to know this gift on all occasions, that we may esteem, desire it, and pray for it, and that we may give all we have to purchase and preserve it.

11. The woman saith unto him, Sir,* thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? [* Fr. Lord.]

The term "Lord," of which this woman makes use, shows that when God begins to speak to the heart he disposes it to hear, by making it sensible of his presence, and imprinting thereon a great degree of respect and reverence. And then it begins to discover the greatness of his promises, and to perceive that they cannot possibly be only carnal and tem

poral; it sees plainly the weakness and inability of nature, and the absolute necessity of supernatural assistance.

12. Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

What is the greatness of Jacob in comparison with that of Christ, which Jacob himself adored in the sign of the greatness of his son Joseph, a prophetic sign of the kingdom of the Messias! How deep, O Jesus, is that well from whence thou drawest without measure the water of wisdom and grace, the fulness whereof thou possessest, and of which thou givest thy children and the whole flock of God to drink!

13. Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst;

Christ here teaches us not to be diverted from the subject in debate by personal reflections, when we are engaged in conferences about religion, but to go on convincing and instructing. These are terrible words for those who are continually parched with thirst after earthly riches and enjoyments! Of what water have they drunk?

But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.

The dead and muddy water of earthly things only inflames our thirst grace, which is a clear and living stream, and which alone can extinguish it, comes from and returns to God, carrying us along with it, and uniting us to him to all eternity. These words are full of comfort to all such as have renounced the love of false riches, and set their affections upon those of heaven: for this is a proof that this water is already in their heart, and a just ground for them to hope that it will spring up into everlasting life."

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

To desire and pray for the grace and Spirit of Christ, are the first steps toward conversion. This desire, how imperfect soever it be in this woman, is, notwithstanding, the effect of the internal operation of grace, though nothing but what is merely human appear in the manner of Christ's exciting this

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desire in her heart. Let us admire this mixture and union of the Spirit of God with external and human appearances, which honours the union of the divine and human nature, and the divinely human operations of the God-man. Do thou thyself, O Lord, raise in me the desire of this divine water, that thou thyself mayest also satisfy the desire which thou hast raised!

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

After these first desires, which began to stir and awaken the sinner, God causes him to enter into his own heart to take a full view of himself, and to lay his hand upon his own sores. That which is done here by the words of Christ, is effected by accidental meetings, reflections, and sermons in other sinners, who find themselves most exposed to their own sight when they endeavour to flee from themselves with the great

est care.

17. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: 18. For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.

It is to no purpose to endeavour to turn away our eyes from ourselves that we may not see our own corruption. God sets it plainly before our eyes when he has undertaken to give us an abhorrence of it. Every sinner in proportion is very glad to conceal his failings from himself as much as possible, and to avoid considering and reflecting upon them. Self-love always blinds us in something or other which regards our own persons, and continually opens to us some secret door, to give us means and opportunity to steal away from our own sight, and to make our escape from ourselves. But to what purpose is it to flee from ourselves, if we cannot possibly avoid either the sight or justice of God?

19. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. This woman perceives at last, and confesses her sins. How powerful and full of mercy is this ray of grace, which at one and the same time opens our eyes that we behold our own wickedness and the holiness of God, draws from us an acknowledgment of our own slavery, and causes us to know our

deliverer! Lord, thou art indeed a prophet, and more than a prophet, since thou dost not only discover the heart, but dost likewise work and operate therein.

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

In order to repent and think effectually of salvation, a person must, in the first place, be assured of the true church, out of the pale of which neither the grace of repentance, nor the spirit of prayer, nor the true worship of God, nor salvation, is to be found. The prejudice of birth and education in the greatest part of sectaries, is the cause of their false way of worship. They have nothing to say in vindication of it, any more than the Samaritan woman, but only that it is the religion of their fathers. But it is necessary to trace both the true and the false religion up to their very original. 21. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

It is the advantage of the Christian religion to be able, by the oblation of the external representative sacrifice, to worship God in every place.

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

The sinner knows not what God he worships, because he worships what he loves, and he loves whatever flatters his passions-to-day one thing, to-morrow another. The true knowledge of God is not mixed with errors, nor the true worship with superstitions authorized by the body of the pastors, or adopted by the whole church. Where Jesus Christ is represented in sacrifice as the victim and salvation of the world, there is the true church, the true knowledge of God, and the true worship.

23. 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.

The true church is the church of the true worshippers; the true worshippers are those who worship God, (1.) By sacrifice. (2.) By an external sacrifice. (3.) By a sacrifice which is the representative body and blood of Christ. (4.) By a sa

crifice which is offered to God as the Father, the almighty principle of every created and uncreated being, of all divine and human life, and of all natural and supernatural good. (5.) In the spirit of love, which is the spirit of children and of true Christians. And, (6.) In the truth and purity of the faith. Where, O my God, wilt thou find these worshippers which thou seekest, unless thou thyself form them by thy grace? Blessed be thou, for having caused us to be born in the times of the spirit and the truth! Do not suffer us to bring along with us to the Christian sacrifice a Jewish or Samaritan disposition.

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

There are three sorts of sacrifices, suited to the three dif ferent states of the church and of religion. The first, external and corporeal, for the Jewish church, which was merely typical and prophetic. The second, both internal and external, corporeal and spiritual, for the Christian church on earth. The third, purely internal and spiritual, for the church of the elect in heaven. The first and second, as far as they are external and corporeal, are only preparatory, and instituted merely on the account of sin, and for the transitory state of the church; or only to prefigure the spiritual sacrifice, as the former; or to be subservient thereto, as the latter. The second, as far as it is spiritual, together with the third, is the sacrifice which is most agreeable to the nature of God, who is a pure Spirit. A spirit and heart sacrificed and consecrated to God by adoration and a sincere humiliation before his majesty, a submission and absolute dependence on his will, a lively acknowledgment of his goodness and benefits, and a zeal and ardent love for his glory,-this is the sacrifice, in some measure, worthy of that eternal and infinitely perfect. Spirit, and of that supremely holy and unchangeable will, which is God himself. It is by this internal sacrifice that that of Jesus Christ himself is a sacrifice in spirit and in truth, and acceptable to God. Without this sacrifice of the mind and heart by charity, the external sacrifice, which ought to be the sign, effect, and representation of the other, is only