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…

5. In this Conversion the Soul betakes it self to Christ by faith, as to a Fountain opened for Sin and for Uncleanness. The great Grace celebrated in the Gospel is Faith, by which we close with Christ for life, wherein we comply with the main Article of the New-Covenant; and therefore Salvation is ascertained to it, Joh. 3. 16. Whosoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This Grace is not before▪ the others in being, though it leads in the exercise, and doth indeed influence all the other, being that which fetcheth in help from Christ for the acting of them. Now Christ is the immediate Object on whom Faith fi• eth; it believes in him for all the good that it wants, and seeth to be stored in him; and that which draws it so to rely on him, is the discovery it hath made of his sufficiency and readiness to answer its great necessity; which is, to be delivered from the guilt and defilement of sin; and tha• because it apprehends all this to be fountained in him, that it may be communicated by him to all those that stand in need of it; and this it doth upon the invitation given in the Gospel, to all that are ⟨p. 135⟩oppressed with the burden of sin, to come to him for succour against it.

6. This Faith is always accompanied with true Repentance. In active Conversion these two Graces are in conjunction. I shall not here meddle with the disputes, which of these two Graces is the first: if we speak of their production, they are together, and so there is no priority of any Grace, they being created in the same instant: if we speak of their production, they are together, and so there is no priority of any Grace, they being created in the same instant: if we speak of the order of nature in their activity, Faith must have the precedency, because it influenceth all the other; for though there is a Legal Repentance before Conversion, yet that which is Evangelical follows upon it, and is no further pleasing to God, than as it is exercised by faith: but in respect to order of time, the man repents and believes at once, and so they are together. It is a penitent Faith, and a believing Repentance that is exerted; they are therefore conjoined,