Discourses on Divers Texts of Scripture, Discourses 1 · Sermon 12
JOHN 4. 23.Iohn 4. 23.
But the hour commeth, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; For the Father seeketh such to worship him.
THey are the words of our Blessed Saviour to the woman of Samaria, who perceiving him by his discourse to be a Prophet, desired to be resolved by him of the great controverted point between the Jews and Samaritans; whether Mount Garizim by Sichem, (where the Samaritans sacrificed) Jud. 9. 7. The Euangelist here cals it Sichar. ver. 5. alias Shechem.or Ierusalem were the true place of worship. Our Saviour tels her, that this question was not now of much moment: For that the houre or time was near at hand, when they should neither worship the Father in Mount Garizim, nor at Ierusalem. But that there was a greater difference between the Jews and them, then this of place; namely, even about that which was worshipped: For ye (saith he) worship that ye know not: But we (Jews) worship that we know. Then follow the words premised: But the houre commeth, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth.
It is an abused Text, being commonly alledged to prove, that God now in the Gospel, either requires not, or regards not externall worship, but that of the Spirit onelyonly: And this to be a characteristicall difference between the worship of the Old Testament and the New. If at any time we talk of externall decency in rites and bodily expressions, as fit to be used in the service of God; this is the usuall Buckler to repell whatsoever may be said in that kinde: It is true indeed, that the worship of the Gospel is much more spirituall, then that of the Law: But that the worship of the Gospel should be onelyonly spirituall, and no externall worship required therein (as the Text according to some mens sense and allegation thereof would imply) is repugnant, not onelyonly to the practice and experience of the Christian Religion in all ages, but also to the expresse Ordinances of the Gospel it self. For what are the Sacraments of the New Testament? are they not rites, wherein and wherewith God is served and worshipped? The consideration of the holy Eucharist alone, will confute this Glosse. For is not the commemoration of the sacrifice of Christs death upon the Crosse, unto his Father, in the Symbols of Bread and Wine, an externall worship? And yet with this rite hath the Church, in all ages, used to make her solemne addresse of Prayer, and Supplication, unto the Divine Majesty; as the Jews in the Old Testament did by Sacrifice: when I say, in all Ages, I include that of the Apostles. For so much Saint Luke testifieth of that first Christian society, Acts 2. foreign They continued in breaking of Bread, and in Prayers.
As for bodily expressions by gestures and postures, as standing, kneeling, bowing, and the like; our blessed Saviour himself, lift up his sacred eyes to heaven, when he prayed for Lazarus; fell on his face when he prayed in his agony: Saint Paul (as himself saith) bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ: He and Saint Peter, and the rest of the beleevers, do the like more then once, in the Acts of the Apostles: What was imposition of hands, but an externall gesture, in an act of invocation for conferring a blessing? and that perhaps sometimes without any vocall expression joyned therewith. Besides I cannot conceive any reason, why in this point of Euangelicall worship, Gesture should be more scrupled at, then Voyce. Is not confessing, praising, praying, and glorifying God by voyce, an externall and bodily worship, as well as that of Gesture? why should then the one derogate from the worship of the Father, in Spirit and Truth, and not the other? To conclude, there was never any society of men in the world, that worshipped the Father in such a manner, as this interpretation would imply: And therefore cannot this be our Saviours meaning, but some other. Let us see if we can finde out what it is.
There may be two senses given of these words; both of them agreeable to reason, and the analogy of Scripture; let us take our choice. The one is, That to worship God in Spirit and Truth, is to worship him not with types and shadows of things to come, as in the Old Testament; but according to the verity of the things exhibited in Christ, according to that; The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. Whence the mystery of the Gospel, is elsewhere by our Saviour in this Euangelist, termed Truth, as Cap. 17. ver. 17. and the Doctrine thereof by Saint Paul, The word of truth. See Ephes. Cap. 1. ver. 13. Rom. 15. ver. 8. The time therefore is now at hand, said our Saviour, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father, no longer with bloody sacrifices, and the Rites and Ordinances depending thereon; but in, and according to the verity of that which these Ordinances figured. For all these were types of Christ, in whom being now exhibited, the true worshippers shall henceforth worship the Father.
This sense hath good warrant from the state of the Question between the Jews and Samaritans, to which our Saviour here makes answer: which was not about worship in generall, but about the kinde of worship in speciall, which was confessed by both sides, to be tied to one certain place onelyonly; that is, of worship by Sacrifice, and the appendages; In a word, of the typicall worship proper to the first Covenant, of which see a description Heb. 9. This Iosephus expresly testifies, Lib. 12. Antiq. cap. 1. speaking of the Jews and Samaritans, which dwelt together at Alexandria: They lived, saith he, in perpetuall discord one with the other; whilest each laboured to maintain their Country customes; those of Ierusalem affirming their Temple to be the sacred place, whither sacrifices were to be sent; the Samaritans, on the other side, contending they ought to be sent to Mount Garizim. For otherwise, who knows not that both Jews and Samaritans had other places of worship, besides either of these? namely, their Proseucha's, and Synagogues, wherein they worshipped God, not with internall onelyonly, but externall worship; though not with sacrifice, which might be offered but in one place onelyonly. And this also may seem to have been a type of Christ, as well as the rest, namely, that he was to be that one, and onelyonly Mediator of the Church, in the Temple of whose sacred body, we have accesse unto the Father, and in whom he accepts our devotions and services: according to that, Destroy this Temple, and I will rear it up again in three daies: He spake, saith the Text, of the Temple of his Body. This sense divers of the Ancients hit upon, Eusebius Demon. Euang. Lib. 1. Cap. 6. foreign Not by Symbols and Types, but, as our Saviour saith, in Spirit and Truth. Not that in the New Testament men should worship God, without all externall services; (for the New Testament was to have externall and visible services, as well as the Old.) But with such as should imply the verity of the promises already exhibited, not by types and shadows of them yet to come: we know the Holy Ghost is wont to call the figured Face of the Law, the Letter, and the Verity thereby signified, the Spirit. As for foreign, both together, they are foreign, but once found in holy Writ; to wit, onelyonly in this place. And so, no light can be borrowed by comparing of the like expression any where else, to expound them: Besides, nothing hinders, but they may be taken one for the exposition of the other; that to worship the Father foreign, is the same with to worship him foreign.
But howsoever this Exposition be fair and plausible, yet, me thinks, the reason which our Saviour gives in the words following, should argue another meaning: God (saith he) is a Spirit, therefore they that worship him, must worship him in Spirit and Truth: But, God was a Spirit from the beginning: If therefore, for this reason he must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth, he was so to be worshipped in the Old Testament, as well as in the New.
Let us therefore seek another meaning: For the finding whereof, let us take notice, that the Samaritans at whom our Saviour here aimeth, were the off-spring of those Nations which the King of Assyria placed in the Cities of Samaria, when he had carried away the ten Tribes captive. These, as we may reade in the second Book of the Kings, at their first comming thither, worshipped not the God of Israel, but the gods of the Nations from whence they came. Wherefore he sent Lyons amongst them, which slew them; which they apprehending, either from the information of some Israelite, or otherwise, to be because they knew not the worship of the God of the Countrey, they informed the King of Assyria thereof, desiring that some of the captiv'd Priests might be sent unto them, to teach them the manner and rites of his worship; which being accordingly done, they thenceforth (as the Text tels us) worshipped the Lord, yet feared their own gods too, and so did foreign, as Saint Chrysostome speaks, mingle things not to be mingled.
In this medly they continued about two hundred years, till toward the end of the Persian Monarchy. At what time it chanced, that Manasse, brother to Iaddo, the High Priest of the returned Jews, married the daughter of Sanballat, then Governour of Samaria; For which, being expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah, he fled to Sanballat his Father in Law, and, after his example, many other of the Jews of the best rank, having married strange wives likewise, and loth to forgo them, betook themselves thither also: Sanballat willingly entertains them, and makes his son in Law Manasse their Priest. For whose greater reputation and state, when Alexander the Great subdued the Persian Monarchy, he obtained leave of him, to build a Temple upon Mount Garizim; where his son in Law exercised the office of High Priest. This was exceedingly prejudicious to the Jews, and the occasion of a continuall Schism, whilst those that were discontented, or excommunicated at Ierusalem, were wont to betake themselves thither: Yet, by this means the Samaritans (having now one of the sons of Aaron to be their Chief Priest, and so many other of the Jews, both Priests and others, mingled amongst them) were brought, at length, to cast off all their false gods, and to worship the Lord the God of Israel onelyonly. Yet so, that howsoever they seemed to themselves, to be true worshippers, and altogether free from Idolatry; neverthelesse, they retained a smack thereof, in as much as they worshipped the true God, under a visible representation; to wit, of a Dove, and circumcised their Children in the name thereof, as the Jewish Tradition tels us: who therefore always branded their worship with foreign, or spirituall foreign id est, Cultus externus; sic Idololatriā oppellant. Heinsii Aristarch. p. 881.Fornication: Just as their predecessors, the ten Tribes, worshipped the same God of Israel, under the similitude of a Calf.
This was the condition of the Samaritan Religion in our Saviours time: and if we weigh the matter well, we shall finde his words here, to the woman, very pliable to be construed with reference thereunto: You ask, saith he, of the true place of worship, whether Mount Garizim, or Ierusalem; which is not so greatly materiall, for as much as the time is at hand, when men shall worship the Father at neither: But there is a greater difference between you and us, then of place; though you take no notice of it; namely, about the object of worship it self; For ye worship what ye know not, but we (Jews) worship what we know. How is that? Thus, Ye worship indeed the Father, the God of Israel, as we doe; but you worship him under a corporeall representation; wherein you shew, you know him not: but the houre commeth, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth: In spirit, that is, conceiving of him no otherwise then in spirit; And in truth, that is, not under any corporeall or visible shape: For God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth; that is, foreign, not fancying him, as a body, but as indeed he is a Spirit. For those who worship him under a corporeall similitude, Jer. 3. 10.doe bely him; according as the Apostle speaks, Rom. 1. of such as change the glory of the incorruptible God, into an Image made like to corruptible man, Birds or Beasts: They changed, saith he, the truth of God into a lie, and served the creature, foreign juxta Creatorem, as, or with the Creator who is blessed for ever. Hence Idols in Scripture are termed Lies; as Amos 2. 4. Their Lies have caused them to erre, after which their Fathers walked: The Vulgar hath, Seduxerunt eos Idola ipsorum. And Isa. 28. 15. We have made Lies our refuge. And Ier. 16. 19. Venient gentes à finibus terrae, & dicent, Verè mendacium possederunt (the Chaldee hath, coluerunt) Patres nostri, vanitatem, in qua non est utilitas. Nunquid faciet sibi homo Deos, & ipsi non sunt Dii?
This therefore I take to be the genuine meaning of this place, and not that which is commonly supposed against externall worship; which I think this demonstration will evince; To worship what they know, See the Homily against the perill of Idolatry. p. 3. where this Text is peculiarly applied against worshipping of God in an Image.(as the Jews are said to doe) and to worship in spirit and truth, are here taken by our Saviour for equivalents; else the whole sense will be inconsequent: But the Jews worshipped not God without Rites and Ceremonies (who yet are supposed to worship him in spirit and truth;) Ergo, to worship God without Rites and Ceremonies, is not to worship him in spirit and truth, according to the meaning here intended.