JOHN iv. 7-34.

THERE Cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? (for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.) 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 wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 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? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? 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. 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. And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her water-pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE.

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."-PSALM XXIII. 5.

eat?"

"I AM," says our Lord, "the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to "Anticipating," says the Romanist, "the unbelieving Protestant." Nay, rather, as we believe, looking at the subject of the Lord's discourse with that fleshly mind, to which the mind that applies his words to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and finds in the doctrine of transubstantiation a solution of their difficulty, is most akin. Not that they understood the Lord's words, but would not believe them, was the sin of the Jews; but that, murmuring among themselves, and leaning to their own understanding instead of being taught of God, they understood them not. In assuming that what the Lord called upon the Jews to believe, was what they call

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upon us, Protestants, to believe, Romanists adopt the misunderstanding of the Jews, and identify themselves with their carnal apprehensions, and so are more truly one with them, notwithstanding of their receiving what the Jews rejected, than we, whose claim to be found in the exercise of faith in the Lord's words is as confident as that of the Romanists; while we separate ourselves alike from the unbelief of the Jews, and the kind of faith exercised by the Romanists, by accepting our Lord's words in their spiritual import, and receiving their mystery as a spiritual mystery, to be spiritually discerned.

I will now assume, that I have already sufficiently vindicated the Protestant interpretation of the language of our Lord, as to eating his flesh, and drinking his blood, as having reference to the life of faith; and so have prepared the way for considering what light is shed upon the secret of that life by those earnest and solemn expressions, which, while they awe us by their aspect of mystery and difficulty, still make an imperative demand on us to seek entrance into their light: for, as I said formerly, the conviction that they make such a demand is inevitable if we reflect upon this, that they make a requirement which must be understood in order to be complied with, and compliance with which involves no less momentous an issue than eternal life.

We are familiar with the transference to the department of mind, of language connected with the dependence of our animal life on meat and drink. We speak of mental food we speak also of mental