To begin with these, and the Touchstone upon which all other parts of the Text shall be tried is this. What this mystical water is, which our Saviour pre∣fers so much before Jacobs Well? Christ calls it living water, at the tenth verse of this Chapter; that's a sweet Epithet indeed; and yet it hath a more amiable description in the words that follow my Text, a Well of water springing up unto ever∣lasting life. These are names of much elegancy, and much obscurity, but that we find a clear explanation of them in the seventh Chapter of this Gospel, ver. 38. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. So the Scripture hath written upon this water what it is, that you may know it from any other, it is the gift of Grace that cometh from above, that sanctifieth our hearts, and cleanseth us from all our sins, it is the working of the Spirit which knits us unto Jesus Christ, and makes us Heirs of Salvation. God the Holy Ghost doth a∣base himself to be resembled to many of these inferior things for our understand∣ing. No man can miss to remember how the Spirit did appear in cloven tongues as it were of fire, Acts ii. 2. In another place, Jo. 3.8. he is likened to the air, The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou knowest not whence it comes, nor whither it goes; so is eve∣ry one that is born of the spirit. And here his name passeth down a descension beneath that, and is termed water: only the earth is too base an Element, whereunto the Holy Spirit should be compared; leave that to man, and to his corruptible constitu∣tion. The Fire, the Air, and Water have some infinitude in them after a sort, quod suis terminis non continentur, says the Philosopher, they are diffusive bodies, which are not properly bounded, or circumscribed in any Figure, as the Earth is, there∣fore all their names are borrowed to signify some disposition of the Divine Spirit toward us, whose Vertue is most diffusive, and whose Majesty incomprehen∣sible. But in each of the Testaments Old and New, the first time that we read of the Holy Ghost, he was joyned unto the Waters, in the first day of the Creation the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, Gen. i. 2. and upon the first manifestation of Christ, that he shewed himself abroad to be the Messias of the World, the Spirit sat upon his head when he was baptized at Jordan in the shape of a Dove. And it is not vain to consider, that when the Holy Ghost came down in fire at the Feast of Whitsontide, yet St. Peter applies the place of the Prophet Joel to that occasion, which speaks as if it had been water, effundam spiritum, In the last dayes I will pour out of my spirit to all flesh. By that which is said already I have brought it to this, the Scripture doth very much aim at this Comparison to be considered, why the vertues and operations of the Holy Ghost are called Water; and the choice of the Comparison, I think, are these particulars. First, as waters poured upon Hills will not stay upon their tops, but runs down to the lowest places, and fills the Valleys beneath, so the Graces of God descend to the lowly, and humble in heart, and abide not with the proud. Nay David says it will be the better for it if it be but a little Valley, a diminitive: thou makest fruitful the little Valleys thereof with the drops of rain. Centurio quantò humilior tantò capacior, says Bernard; the Centurion lay very flat and low at our Saviour's feet, and where was there a man that had a larger portion of the heavenly benediction? for Christ said of him, I have not found so great faith no not in Israel. Nor is this a , as the Heathen called it, an embasement of a good courage, for the humble man hath the loftiest mind of all others if it be well observed; for he rec∣kons not by the magnificent pomp and praise of the World, though he have no little part in it, but esteems God, and nothing else to be his glory, and because he doth give God the glory in all things that are excellent, therefore he doth invite the Spirit of Grace unto himself by a religious policy; as thus, Grace is no longer Grace, than you confess it is conferred by meer gift, and frank benevolence. The proud is so arrogant in all his thoughts, that he would not yield to that; he thinks it was his due, which could not justly, or at least congruously be denied him. Needs must the rain fall down from such a steepy Mountain; and where will it find a place to rest? but in a little Valley, in a lowly heart which magnifies the love and fa∣vour of Christ for the gift of the Spirit above all things; but we had no right to ask it, because we were sinful; we had no understanding to desire it, because we were foolish; it is omni modo gratuita, a good turn freely bestowed in all respects; why do you not see, says Bernard, gratia nullibi nomen suum tuetur, nisi in humili? the Grace of God should quite lose its nature unless it dropt upon the humble man; 0