woman said to Christ has been true all round, 'Sir, thou hast nothing to
draw with, and the well is deep.' Ay! thank God, it _is_ deep; and if we
let our Lord be His own interpreter, we have only to put together three
sayings of His in order to come to the true meaning of this metaphor. My
text says, 'With joy ye shall draw water'; and Christ, sitting at the
well of Samaria--what a strange combination of the weakness and the
weariness of manhood and the strength and self-consciousness of Divinity
was there!--wearied with His journey, said, '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.' So, then,
drawing is asking. That is step number one.

Take another word of the Master's that I have already quoted for other
purposes, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.' So, then,
drawing, or asking, or coming are all equivalent. That is step number
two.

And, then, take another word. 'He that cometh unto Me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.' So, then,
drawing, asking, coming, all melt into the one simple word--believing.
Trust in Him, and thou hast come, thou hast asked, thou hast drawn, thou
dost possess.

But whilst I would lay the foundation thus broad, thus simple, do not
forget, dear brethren, what I was saying about a definite historical
act. You will hear people say, 'Oh, I trust in Christ!' What do you
trust in Christ? You will hear people say, 'Oh, I look to the goodness
of God.' Be it so. God forbid I should say a word to prevent that; but
what I would insist upon is that a mere vague regard to a vague Christ
is not the faith that is equivalent to drawing from the fountain of