John 4

Answ. 1. We please God when we comport with his Will. It was Christ's meat and drink to do his Father's will (John 4:34). and so he pleased him (Matthew 3:17). A voice came from heaven, saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

The Angel of the Covenant (Malachi 3:1), a Lamp (2 Samuel 22:29), the bright Morning-star (Revelation 22:16). Jesus Christ is the great Prophet of his church; the woman of Samaria gave a shrewd guess (John 4:19). He is the best teacher; he makes all other teaching effectual (Luk…

He came to the fig tree, and would have eaten. 2. Weariness: as when he sat on Jacob's well to rest him (John 4:6). 3. Sorrow (Matthew 26:38).

Resp. God is a Spirit. 2. The thing expressed (John 4:24). God is a Spirit.

Such as know not God aright, will by degrees fall off. The Samaritans sometimes sided with the Jews when they were in favor, afterwards disclaimed all kindred with them, when Antiochus persecuted the Jews: And no wonder the Samaritans were no more fixed in religion, if you consi…

1. To make a true image of God is impossible. God is a spiritual essence (John 4:24). And being a spirit he is invisible (Deuteronomy 4:15).

And, it is God's goodness thus by sacraments to condescend to our weak capacities. John 4:48. Except you see signs you will not believe. God to strengthen our faith confirms the covenant of grace, not only by promises, but by sacramental signs.

His words, either preceptive or minatory, must be observed. Christ himself, as man, obeyed God the Father (John 4:34), much more than must we (Deuteronomy 27:10). 2. Obey God the Son (Psalm 2:12).

Communion of Saints we have in our Creed, but it is too little in our practice: men usually travel fastest in company, we travel fastest to heaven in the Communion of Saints. 15. If we would attain to this Kingdom of Heaven, let us be willing to come up to Christ's terms; many w…

Jesus Christ did his Father's will; (John 6:38) I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. God the Father and Christ, as they have but one essence, so but one will; Christ's will was melted into his Father's; (John 4:34) My meat is to do the…

How can nature do them? So disputed the woman of Samaria with Christ, John 4:11. When Christ told her he would give her of the water of life; she replied, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the Well is deep: whence then hast thou that water of life?

For, these servants of God, here commended for their faith, did fly when they were persecuted; and that by faith: therefore the action is lawful, as I might prove at large, but that I have spoken of it heretofore. When our Savior Christ knew that the Pharisees heard of the multi…

Him that is invisible.] That is God, who is a most simple essence, void of all composition, or corporal substance: for, God is a Spirit, (John 4.24) and therefore invisible, and not subject to man's senses. But some will say, God is said to have head, heart, hands, and feet; wit…

Answer. We must know, that there is in the child of God a certain seed, or beginning, or preparation to a true and lively faith; which our Savior Christ in the Scriptures, does honor with the title of a true and lively faith: as, when a man knows no more but this, that Christ Je…

For the former petition is a step or degree to these two following. The ruler by the healing of the body of his child is brought to believe in Christ (John 4:53). He then that will rest on God's mercy for the pardon of his sins, must first of all rest on God's providence for thi…

Well, this foolish and ridiculous kind of faith we renounce, as being a means to nestle men in blindness, superstition, and perpetual ignorance: yet withal we do not deny but that there is an implicit or infolded faith; which is, when a man as yet having but some little portion…

We hold that there is a kind of implicit or unexpressed faith, and indeed that the faith of every man in some part of his life — as in the time of his first conversion, and in the time of some grievous temptation or distress — is implicit or enfolded. The Samaritans are said to…

1. God is a Spirit, and thereupon in a special manner (as Wisdom 11:26) the Lord a lover of souls above all his other creation. So it is there, You are merciful to all because they are yours, O LORD YOU LOVER OF SOULS [God is a Spirit] when therefore this naked, and withal subli…

Use 1. Wonder, believers, at the extensiveness and infiniteness of the grace of God, and at the heart-affecting and soul-ravishing love of the mediator — at grace in God that spared the debtor and exacted payment from the surety the Son of his love; at love in the mediator that…

I rejoiced, says he, (Proverbs 8:28) in the habitable parts of the earth, before the foundation of the world was laid my delight was with the sons of men: So it may be made evident, that in all the parts of his sufferings, and in every step thereof, he did most exactly, and also…

To clear it further, we may take the words as alluding to several similitudes. As, 1. To that of hungry and thirsty persons, who are said to be satisfied, when their hunger and thirst are removed, by meat and drink; which implies, that Jesus Christ in His pursuing and performing…

4. It imports this, that the work which he performs in the redeeming of souls is so acceptable to God, and does so mightily concur, and cooperate to the promoting of his design, that the Lord owns every thing that he performs, as performed by his great ambassador; and by him, wh…

He came to seek and save that which was lost; to bring home the lost sheep on His shoulder; to seek and find the lost coin; to reclaim prodigals (Luke 15). This is His meat and His drink, His work and business; as He Himself says, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me,…

How many have lived a considerable number of years strangers to the advantages that are to be gotten by Him, through their want of knowledge? Therefore (John 4) Christ says to the Samaritan woman, "If you had known who it is that asked it of you, you would have given him drink,…

Other physicians take diseases so early as they can, lest the malice of the disease overcome art; but Christ lets sin of purpose ripen, to the eleventh hour, often to the twelfth hour: He knows his art can overtake and outrun seven devils, most easily. The omnipotency of grace k…

But Christ's word is more than a word. (John 4:10) Jesus said, if you knew that gift of God, and who it is that says to you, give me drink, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water. (Psalm 119:33) Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I sha…

1. Because Christ Redeemer is a relative person, there is a full redemption in Christ, but not for Christ, but that he might make over that redemption to his poor brethren; there is a purchased salvation in Christ, not to lie by him like a treasure of silver rusted through not u…

2. And as this is ground why there is no sufficiency in the creature to give us the life of our justification; so it is also taken from the root of our sanctification and consolation, for they spring both from one fountain, and that is the Spirit of God's grace (John 16:7). He i…

Fifthly, the last act of the life of sanctification is the begetting of the like, and propagating according to their kind; it is the nature both of spiritual and natural life, it propagates its kind, though at the first it may be weak, yet it grows to that temper by which it may…

When Elisha was in a little village, not able to defend him from the Syrians, he had chariots and horsemen of fire to defend him (2 Kings 6:17); but when he was in Samaria, a strong walled town, and the king of Israel sent to fetch his head, he said to those that were with him,…

These two notions live and die together; that God is, and that he ought to be worshipped. It appears by our Savior's reasoning (John 4:24): God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit, and in truth. He gives directions about the manner of worship, but su…

So (Hebrews 1:2-3). God has spoken to us by his Son, he having by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. The effect of them is more briefly described (John 4:6). I am the way the truth and the life. The way was opened by his Passion, and is k…

It's true, in the Old Testament dispensation, after the erecting of the temple, prayer was to be made at it, or towards it, as it typified Christ, by whom our prayers are accepted: but that holiness being ceremonial, it's now abolished by the Gospel. Now that takes place, in (Jo…

Thus does Andrew come to Simon, and Philip to Nathaniel, and both of them were (as a man finding a jewel, and cannot contain) overjoyed, and cry out, "I have found him, we have found the Messiah" (John 1:41, 45). And when the poor woman of Samaria had been privately conversing w…

Loue is by grace. 1. Ioh. 4. 9. Euery good inclination is of grace.

I answer: it is the commandement of God, prove the spirits, 1. Ioh. 4. 1. and this commandement pertaines to all persons. Therfore though men may not be compelled to believe: yet may they be compelled to come to the congregation, to heare our sermons, and therein the reasons and…

The king's daughter is all glorious within (Psalm 45:13). True worshippers worship God in the spirit (John 4:25; Romans 1:12). He is a Jew, that is a Jew not without, but within in the spirit, in the circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:29).

Col 2:23. And the true worshippers of God in the new Testament, worship him in spirit and trus, Ioh. 4. v. 24 The fulnesse of time, or the full time, is that time in which the captiuitie of the Church ends, and her libertie begins.

In spirit] that is, in the powers of the soul sanctified and renewed. In this sense Paul says that the true circumcision is that which is in the heart, in spirit (Romans 2:29), and Christ says, that true worship of God is in spirit (John 4:24). And that spirit is here taken in t…

So, whatever a man sows, the same commonly, and usually, he does reap. But it will be said, how can a man reap that which he sows; seeing that Christ affirms it to be a true saying, that one sows, and another reaps (John 4:37)? Answer: In that one sows, and another reaps, it is…

Christians have now that certain truth, in which they may boldly rest; unless they forget themselves, and reject the grace of God. For it is manifested to all, and has taken from them all occasion of doubting; so as they may safely boast, that they truly know what his will is: i…

If it be objected that this appertains not at all to the Jews, who are now cut off from the Church: I answer, the Gospel notwithstanding came from them into all the world: and thus we acknowledge Jerusalem to be the fountain from which this pure doctrine of life issued. In old t…

For those that understand it of the doctrine of the Gospel which they oppose to the Law (whereof the Jews suppose the Prophet speaks in this place) do only comprehend one part of that which Isaiah meant to say. For the others, who refer it to the Holy Spirit, they have a little…

But since God has manifested himself to all: he is not now served in any particular region, but in every place alike. Which Christ also himself teaches (John 4:21), saying; The hour is come, and now is, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Fathe…

And for as much as they judged of God and of his service, according to the outward face of the Temple, the Prophet shows, that it was unworthy the Majesty of so great a Lord, to fix him to a visible and perishable building. He disputes not here simply about the essence of God, b…

Hence we learn what value the Lord puts on his word, when, in order to punish for the contempt of it, he takes from the midst of us those favors, which are the testimonies of his presence. With respect to that saying, no prophet is acceptable in his own country, the reader may c…

"that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers," (Romans 15:8) with which agrees that saying of Christ, "Salvation is of the Jews," (John 4:22.) Matthew, therefore, presents him to our contemplation as be…

This term must be viewed in reference to the present subject. In another passage, the Apostles are called reapers, as compared with the Prophets, because they have entered into their labors, (John 4:38,) and it is enjoined on all the ministers of the word, that they should bring…

The reward of works has been treated by me as fully as was necessary under another passage. “Alibi is a general reference, but en un autre passage is more specific; and the passage to which he probably refers the reader for a distinct exhibition of his views, and in which, so fa…

James and John plead the example of Elijah, but they do not consider how far they differ from Elijah; they do not examine properly their own intemperate zeal, nor do they look at the calling of God. Under a pretext equally plausible did the Samaritans cloak their idolatry, our f…