"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

"The transgressions of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes."   -Psalm 36:1 [KJV] How striking is this scripture, and how true! Yes, my soul; thou needest not to look abroad into another's heart to see iniquity; for at home, in thine own, a voice may be heard continually proclaiming it. Renewed as thou art by grace, still thou feelest the workings of corrupt nature: and though, as the apostle said, "with thy mind thou thyself servest the law of God, yet with thy flesh the law of sin," Romans 7:25 .   Pause over the solemn subject, and observe the working of a body of sin and death, which is virtually all sin: "the carnal mind, (the apostle saith) is enmity against God," Romans 8:7 ; not only an enemy, but in enmity: so that the very nature is so; it is averse, naturally averse to God, and is everlastingly rising in opposition to His holy law. And this not only (as some have supposed, but all men, if they wou

"Every one that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him."   -I John 5:1 [KJV] Where there is love to Jesus, there will be love to those who are His by redemption, His by regeneration, and His by personal possession. The more, too, that we see and the more that we know of the beauty and blessedness of the Lord of life and glory, the more we shall love His image as we behold it visibly marked in His dear people, and the more we shall cleave to them as being Christ's with tender affection. It is our dim, scanty, and imperfect knowledge of God the Father in His eternal love, and of the Lord Jesus Christ in His grace and glory, which leaves us so often cold, lifeless, and dead in our affections towards Him; and with the declension of love towards the Head comes on decay of love towards His members. If there were more blessed revelations to our soul of the Person and work, grace and glory, beauty and blessedness of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is impossible b