****THERE IS A FOUNTAIN

William Cowper (pronounced Cooper) was a brilliant, highly educated man and one of England’s most revered Poet Laureates. But he was a fragile and emotionally, unstable mess. 

He was born in 1731 in England. Before the age of six, three of his siblings died, and then, his fifth sibling died at birth, along with his mother.

His father, a pastor, sent him to a boarding school where William learned very little about the Christian faith. He suffered with feelings of anxiety, isolation, disappointments, and a cold, weak relationship with his father, who pushed him into an education and law career for which he had no interest. 

At the age of 21, he began experiencing severe attacks of depression. His father died; his stepmother died, and his best friend drowned. He failed several suicide attempts and the woman he loved dumped him.

Facing a public bar examination, he suffered a mental breakdown and slipped into full clinical insanity. 

His brother committed him to a mental asylum. 

It was there he met a therapist who was reading one day. William asked him what he was reading and the therapist read to him, these words from Romans 3; …being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

When he finished that passage, the therapist explained the gospel to William. That was when Cowper understood that Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient to cover all his sin. 

After 18 months, he was released from the asylum, and he met a minister, Morley Unwin, who invited him to live with him and his family. Pastor Unwin died two years later so, Cowper and the Unwin family moved to the village of Olney where he became a friend and ministry assistant to John Newton.

But he could never stop slipping back into his episodes of mental darkness. To help him through, John Newton suggested they work together on hymn writing.

Even though Cowper struggled his entire life with the feeling of being under God’s wrath, he held on to the assurance that one day he would finally be free. 

In 1770, he wrote a hymn based on of Zech.13:1: “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.”

The hymn paints a vivid picture of Christ’s atoning blood and God’s forgiveness. 

“THERE IS A FOUNTAIN filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”