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FOUNTAIN.

TERS.

My SAVIOUR IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WA

Few natural images could so forcibly and beautifully represent Emanuel's excellence as this. Self-existent and eternal, he is not like the stream, which, however deep, and full, and broad, is derived from some other source ; but is himself the source of all things, from whom all the streams of being, spiritual and material, have taken their origin. It takes many springs to form one stream, and many streams to fill the channel of a river; nor is the spring unfrequently strangely disproportioned to the river. The traveller is astonished, when he arrives at the fountain-head, to be able to step across it; and the nearer he views the stream to its source, the shallower is its water. But my Saviour fountain, compared with which all its own innumerable and endless streams are only “ as the

a

drop of a bucket ;" * and the nearer I come to him, the more am I lost in wonder at the immensity and glory of the works that emanate from him.

“ The angel of the Lord found Hagar by a fountain of water in the wilderness,” † when he first met with her in her unhappy wanderings ; and at his second interview with her, when she and her Ishmael were spent with fatigue and thirst, he pointed her eager eye to another. But I never found

any fountain to supply the wants of my soul, till my Saviour revealed himself to me. Until that happy time, I was a stranger to real happiness, however far I strayed, and however hard I labored for it. With others, bearing the name of his “people,” I gave

him reason to complain of me, as well as of them: “ Be ye astonished, 0 ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid ; be ye very desolate, saith the Lord ; for my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” \ Well might the heavens be astonished at such folly and guilt. But they may be still more astonished at the love and

* Isa. xl. 15.

+ Gen. xvi. 7.

# Jer. ii. 12, 13.

life."*

power which brought back wanderers and apostates like me. O Saviour, give me to drink so deeply of thee, and to receive so largely out of thy fulness, and to retain so sweet a relish for thy living grace, that I may never forsake thee again, even in thought or desire. To whom or to what should I go? "Thou hast the words of eternal While the poor worldling, following the corrupt bias of his unrenewed nature, turns away from thee, with the silent exclamation of his heart, "No GOD!" I believe and rejoice, that "with thee is the fountain of life;" and that from thee I "shall be abundantly satisfied;" for that "thou wilt make me drink of the river of thy pleasures." +

Jehovah, however amiable in himself, and rich in his essential goodness, must have remained to man as the hard and barren rock, ready to fall in wrath and crush the guilty rebel, but for the plan of redemption. Then infinite mercy "turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters." Israel's thirsting myriads "drank of that spiritual rock that followed them in the wilderness with its streams, "and that rock was Christ." Thus be pleased to follow me,

* John vi. 68.
+ Ps. xxxvi. 1, 7, 8.

Ps. cxiv. 8.

§ 1 Cor. x. 4.

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O my Saviour, and refresh my soul at every step I take through life, and graciously withhold me from ever resorting to any “troubled fountain, or any corrupt spring,” * with which this evil world abounds.

It was of thee, Saviour, and of thy abounding grace, that the prophetic Spirit spake by the mouth and the pen of Joel- -“ It shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a FOUNTAIN shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim." + What a fountain! to send forth rivers of wine and milk, the richest mercies of the gospel, without money and without price, free as the running waters, for the salvation of the world. Thou too wert in Zechariah's eye, when it gleamed with prophetic fire, and glanced at the time, of which he said, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness.” | Yes, that fountain began to flow in Gethsemane, when, “ being in an agony,” my Saviour's “ sweat was as it were great drops of blood, falling down

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* Prov. xxv. 26.

+ Joel iïi. 18.

# Zech. xiii. 1.

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to the ground." * It was filled and wholly opened, when his torn brow, and nailed feet and hands, and pierced side, gave forth his precious blood.” My soul, rejoice that all thy guilt is washed away in this fountain, and that from thence also flow the cleansing streams of sanctifying grace to make thee holy. What will be thy exultation, when thou shalt reach the fountainhead of all thy happiness! Angels will not be nearer, nor will they drink deeper draughts of joy from the “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb." of

FOUNT OF BEING! Nature flows

Full in all her streams from thee;
Their original each shows,

From archangels down to me:
Each world a drop — each drop a world, proclaims
Thee its bright Author, by a thousand names.

Fount of bliss! no joy can rise,

Freshening vast creation's field,
But the joy thy smile supplies, –

But the joy thy bounties yield:

* Luke xxii. 44.

| Rev. xxii. 1.

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