_The Pitcher may be broken at the Fountain_. Our Lord Jesus is a never-failing Fountain in his Person, in his Offices, in his Love, and in his Work. He is the Fountain of all spiritual and eternal Life. What a deep, never-failing, abundant source of all good he is to his Covenant People. He is a fountain of Gardens for his Church, a Fountain of living Waters, and a Fountain opened for Sin and Unclearness. Faith wrought in the heart, may be compared to a Pitcher, which draws its supplies from that inexhaustible source of all blessings. It receives the Atonement into the conscience, it is the great Artery in the spiritual Body, which conveys peace and joy through the whole soul, as it receives the precious Blood from the heart of Christ, and every other blessing is in this one, _Jesus died for me_. While Faith is thus busied, the exercises of Religion, like a wheel, go their happy round to the Cistern of Gospel Ordinances; for a while Faith is thus exercised on Jesus, the mind, the soul is made willing, and rolls its happy round, like a wheel well oiled. Faith is going to the Fountain while the Believer is willingly running the way of God’s Commands. It is worthy our notice, that all the treasures of blessings in Christ, are compared to a Fountain; but in Ordinances, in Ministers, and Means, it is but a Cistern. Hence the folly of those who seek salvation in their round of duties; they forsake the Fountain, and cleave, in general, to those _Cisterns that can hold no water_. Faithful Ministers and Gospel Ordinances hold the Water of Life, and wisdom declares the man of understanding shall draw it out. This I dare say you can prove in your own experience; if your soul is, through faith in the Person and Work of Jesus, happy in his love—all the while the Pitcher of Faith is bringing you such supplies, you can come as regular to the Cistern of Gospel Ordinances, and as willing as a wheel, well set in motion, goes its round. In such days of the Power of Faith, we are made willing to believe, to do, to suffer, and to obey. Such days we have had, but we have had some evil days besides, some opposite reasons, when the Pitcher of Faith appeared to be broken, for all the good it did for us; it ceased to act, at least in the way it had done; it brought no grace, no love, no joy, no comfort; it was like a Broken Pitcher; not that it can cease to exist, as a principle, but only in its motions, ’tis weak, low, and of course the mind must be low, and the wheel move slowly, if it moves at all, in Ordinances, in Conversation, in Prayer, in Reading, and every other religious Exercise. Ah, my dear friend, have you not met with such days of evil? _but all things work together for good_, even those sins, those hindrances to our comfort, shall terminate right; for _the elder sin shall serve the younger_. Sin makes us pray, cry, groan, wrestle, entreat; this makes Faith grow and increase, and what belongs to God ascends to him, gravitates to its own