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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66100	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 ...	Willard, Samuel, 1640-1707.	1700 (1700)	Wing W2277; ESTC R38934	107,750	216

are of Israel i. e. All do not belong to the true Seed that have the external denomination and yet these are they to whom the Ministration of the letter is equally afforded 3. This notwithstanding the direct aim and great design of opening this fountain is for the sake of those that are given to Christ This is a great truth though the carnal minds of natural men are prejudiced at it and engage in so many earnest cavils against it and it becomes a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to them yet it is fully asserted in the Word of God and is necessary to be laid open in the Ministry of the Gospel That then this truth may be cleared up let us observe the following Propositions 1. That there is a select number of Adams ruined Posterity whom God hath appointed to bring to eternal life by Christ We must begin here if we would follow this grace down from the fountain of it Gods last end in this great affair was the exaltation of the glory of his Grace but in the o●dering of the Media by which this was to be brought about there must be a subject in whom it is to be exalted and that can be no other than a Creature that needed it This necessity man brought upon himself by his undoing Apostasy out of the ruines whereof God would pick up such as should be made the monuments of it and these were not intended to be all but only some who are called his Chosen those whom he hath given to Christ those whose names are written in the Book of Life and other like distinguishing notes differencing them from the rest of mankind nor could this appointment be only general and conditional for then it were improper to say that their names were written or that God knows who they are but we are assured that he doth 2 Tim 2. 19. 2. Hence it was for their sakes that Christ was prepared and appointed to be a fountain of life to them All mankind died in the first Transgression Rom. 5. 12. By one man sin came into the world and death by sin so that death passed upon all men for that all have sinned There must therefore a Well of Salvation be opened for the man if ever he be restored to life again The Son of God barely considered as a Divine person could not be so to Fallen man as the case stands between God and him He was capable of being made so but there was a great deal to be done in this affair to bring it about he must become a Surety for us he must as such take our nature upon him and in it put himself in our room under the Law and comport with the Sanctions of it accordingly he must do and dy for us and therein fulfil all righteousness and in that way he became able to save us to the uttermost God is therefore said to have made him all this 1 Cor. 1. 30. Who of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption Now that which was designed in this was our Salvation and therefore it had a peculiar respect to those whom he was to save Christ therefore declares the very design of this Joh. 17. 19. For their sakes do I Sanctifie my self and it is a thing altogether unquestionable that if it had not been for this the Son of God had never taken this province upon him and gone through it as may be gathered from Joh. 3. 17. God-sent not his Son into the world to condemn the World but that the World through him might be saved 3. That the Gospel in which this fountain is opened was appointed to be the way of the communication of the vertue of it unto these It is not enough that there was a fulness of all Grace stored in Christ but there must be a derivation of the saving vertue of it to all those that live by it Now though the spirit of God to whom the Application of it belongeth is he who derives it to us from Christ yet he hath a way in which he so doth and we are given to understand that this is by the Gospel and therefore the vertue of it is Metonymically assigned to the Gospel which is called the power of God to Salvation Rom. 1. 16. And the reason is because as it is to become ours so God deals with us in bringing us to this faith according to our nature ●s Reasonable Creatures by shewing us our object and the fulness and sufficiency of it by discovering the terms of the Covenant on which we may come to be interested in it by setting before us all the incentives to move us to entertain it all of which are discovered to us in and by the Gospel for we are told 2 Tim. 1. 10. Life and Immortality are brought to light by the Gospel When therefore God intends men Salvation in the ordinary dispensation of himself to them he makes use of the Gospel as a Medium by which he will apply himself to them 4. Those to whom it is thus to be dispensed live mixt among other men It is Gods good pleasure that his Chosen shall be scattered up and down in the World and have their dwelling among those that are his Enemies he therefore calls them from the Lions dens and from the mountains of the Leopards Cant. 4. 8. There are indeed some places in the world that are wholly in darkness and we know not of any of those that are given to Christ among them but in other places they dwell one with another in some places there are more in others there are fewer of these b● there are no places where Christ hath a Se● but there are wicked men dwelling with th● Godly The Apostle therefore tells us th● we must go out of the world if we would ●● wholly separated from such 1 Cor. 5. 10. An● we are acquainted that God hath some who● he will sooner or later make sharers in th● benefit in every Nation Rev. 5. 9. Thou ●● redeemed us to God by thy blood out of ever● kindred and tongue and people and nation T● tares and the wheat must grow together till th● end of the world then will a separation b● made between the one and the other an● not till then Mat. 13. 40 41. And these n● only dwell together in one City or Town but oftentimes they live in the same house and ly in the same bed Luk. 13. 34. There shall be two men in one b●● the one shall be t●ken and the other left 5. That God hath appointed men who are called by him unto it to be the ordinary dispensers ●● this Gospel He could indeed have done it immediately by his Spirit or he could have employed the Glorious Angels in this Affair wh● would have accounted it an honour thus ●● minister for the heirs of Salvation but he hath Chosen this way in his wisdom as that which is best accommodated for us and that

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 JEVVS From Zech. XIII 1. By Samuel Willard Teacher of a Church in Boston 1 Cor. 2. 2. I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ him Crucifyed Si Christum discis satis est si caetera nescis Boston in New-England Printed by B. Green and I. Allen for Samuel Sewall Junior 1700. To the READER SVCH is the fulness of Sufficiency in Christ that no words can enough express it for which reason the Holy Scriptures set him forth under the shadow of many Metaphors which require a Spiritual improvement all of which put together make up but a dark deficient description of him and yet every one of them Commends him to us as an Object worthy of our Love Trust inasmuch as they represent him one every way furnished to answer all our wants which can no where else be supplied and but for whom we must needs have perished in them The following Sermons set him forth as a Fountain and such an one as is Opened to miserable men together with those Vertues which do more eminently flow from him as such for the abundant supply of all those that partake in him and withall it gives us the comfortable notice of a more peculiar glorious Revelation and Application of it to be made in these last days If thou hast known what it is to be in a dry and thirsty land where no Water is this will be good News to thee If thou hungrest and thirstest after Righteousness this will give thee direction If thou hast ever tasted that he is gracious thou wilt here find Refreshment If thou art at a loss about the dark Providences which are upon the Christian World thou wilt here find matter of encouragment in prospect of the better Times wherein this Fountain will be wonderfully exhibited Touching the Sermon that is subjoyned to this short Treatise I need not to apologize for the Seasonableness of Publishing it unto such as understand the Genius of the Age we live in If any thing in these Papers may serve to win Souls to CHRIST and confirm his Redeemed in their Love of Him and promove Evangelical Holiness I have my desire To his Blessing then I Commend them and thee Who am Thy Servant for Christ's sake Samuel Willard THE Fountain Opened c. ZECH. XIII 1. In that day there shall be a Fountain Opened to the House of David and to the Inhabitants of Jerusalem for Si● and for Uncleanness ZEchariah was one of those Extraordinary Prophets whom God raised up and sent to the Jews after their return from Babylon He was contemporary with Haggai and began his Ministry about two months later in the Reign of that Darius who encouraged and set forward the building of the Temple to the pursuit of which affair these two Prophets did joyntly stir up and animate the People of God Who this Zechariah was and to what Tribe and Family he belonged we are at a loss his Genealogy being only reckoned up to his Grandfather of whose Stock there is no mention made elsewhere in the Old Testament only this I suppose is beyond just dispute that he is the same whom these Jews did barbarously murder for his faithful reproofs given them and denouncing of Gods Righteous Threatnings against them for their sins which added to their guilt and is articled against their Posterity by Christ himself in Mat. 23. 35. This Book is partly Doctrinal partly Visi●nal In the Visional part o● it he gives an account of all the Changes or Revolutions which were to pass over the Jewish Nation till for their sins and more particularly for their despising of Christ and the Salyation by him offered to them they should be laid desolate and so abide till such time as God should again graciously call them and there are interwoven the Predictions of the Judgments of God on other Nations so far as they concerned his dealings with this people Divers of these Visions are exceeding mysterious and the harder to be understood by us not only because of the depth of the Allegories used and the intermixing of things fore signified by way of anticipation but also because they are not as yet accomplished And here we are more especially to observe those Prophesies which point to the Calling of the Jews to Christ and the Spiritual Glory of that time which is more than once hinted at in this Book as also the ●●lling of the Gentiles and the wonderful enlarging of the Grace of God to other Nations To make the way clear to the words of our Text let us observe that at the beginning of Chap. 12. Our Prophet predicts an happy and glorious Estate which God will in due time restore Jerusalem unto and he indigita●es a special appointed season in which this should eminently be accomplished and therefore it is once and again called That ●ay as it were with an Ast●r●sm set upon it To what day or article of time this Prophesie partie●larly points is matter of debate as also whether the Jewish Nation and literal Jerusalem be at all aimed at in it That Gospel Times are pointed to is very evident by several p●ssages which might be observed in the Context or the time after which Christ had been put to death by this people and that some notable gracious dispensation towards Gods ancient people is aimed at nextly therein is I am perswaded without doubt though others also may be comprized in it Some Expositors not only re●er but restrain it to those notable Conversions of the Jews on the Preaching of the Apostles which are recorded in Acts 2. 4. But though there may be accounted then to have been a Specimen or an earnest of it yet the lo●ty expressions that are here used about it and also the extensiveness of the work mentioned say that there h●th not as yet been a full performance of it but that it is to be waited for when that General Calling in of the Jews shall Commence of which we have a satisfying account in Rom. 11. In Chap. 12. 10. God by the Prophet tells us how he will prepare his people for such great favours viz. he will bring them to a true and cordial mourning for the affronts which they had offered to the Lord Jesus Christ in crucifying of him and that both universal and particular and thereupon he proceeds to enumerate several spiritual benefits which shall ensue the first whereof that is mentioned is this in our Text and it is a very comprehensive one The words then are a gracious New-Covenant Promise of a singular benefit to be bestowed on the Church of God in Gospel Times and upon every true penitent in it and particularly on the Jews when he shall come to call them home to himself In them we may observe 1. The benefit it self which