A66100:172
The fountain opened, or, The great gospel privilege of having Christ exhibited to sinful…The fountain opened, or, The great gospel priviledge of having Christ exhibited to sinfull…
The fountain opened, or, The great gospel privilege of having Christ exhibited to sinful men wherein also is proved that there shall be a national calling of the Jews from Zech. XIII. I. / by Samuel Willard ...The fountain opened, or, The great gospel priviledge of having Christ exhibited to sinfull men wherein also is proved that there shall be a national calling of the Jews from Zech. XIII. I. / by Samuel Willard ...
printed by B. Green for Samuel Sewall Junior, 1700
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. That the Reason of this was, because there were some that needed it, whom God purposed to make partakers in the benefits of it. As, if mans sin had not brought him to that exigency, that without such a fountain he must have perished for ever, Christ had not come; so, if God had not resolved to impart the efficacy of it to some such necessitous ones, he would never have been at the charge of providing it. God did not only intend the provision and exhibition of this fountain, that so if any would come to, and make use of it, they might be saved from their Sins by it; if that had been all, Christ had died in vain; for it is certain that none of fallen men would ever of their own accord come to him: that is true of all, till Christ draws them, Joh. 5. 40. Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life: The natural man loveth his Sin, and delighteth to wallow in the mire of his uncleanness; but God chose some from eternity to be made the monuments of his rich Grace, in taking away all their iniquities; and he provided ⟨p. 88⟩Christ for this end; and therefore all such he designed this for, shall come to Christ, J• 6. 37. All that the father hath given me, sha• come unto me; they shall be cleansed, and washed and healed▪
4. That they may partake in this benefit, there must be a saving application of the virtue of it t• them. These waters quench the thirst of the Soul, by being drank of; they wash off the Guilt and filth which cleaves to the Soul, by being washed with them; they heal the mortal diseases which Sin had infected •• withal, by the influence of the sanative virtue of them on the Soul. It is not enough that they have all these good qualities •• them: the Gospel therefore acquaints us with an Application consequent upon the Redempti wrought out by Christ, whereby he becomes ours, and we are saved by him; and hereupon life is restrained to our having of Christ