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

" Now abideth faith, hope, charity." -I Corinthians 13:13 [KJV] Where do these graces abide? in regenerate hearts. What is faith? a precious grace, the gift of God to miserable sinners. Lord, give us the comfort of it to-night. Say some, ‘faith is an assurance that my sins are pardoned; that Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ Indeed it is not. They further add, ‘No one has faith without this assurance: if they have it not, they are in a state of wrath.’ This is false: this notion has inflated many with a vain hope, while it has distressed sincere souls without reason. Many who contend for this assurance of faith, believe a lie with it; for they say, ‘Those whom Christ has so loved as to die for, and whose sins are now forgiven, may at last perish.’  Such an assurance is not worth a straw. This is not the faith of God’s elect; for it gives the lie to Jesus, Who is the Author and Finisher of our faith: it contradicts His double oath, “Verily, verily, I say...

"Knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." -II Corinthians 5:6, 8 [KJV] My soul, is this thy real language? Pause, while thou art at home in the body, how dark and dim, how few and short, are all the glimpses thou hast by faith of Jesus. What from the workings of corruption, the claims of the body, the concerns of the world, and the numberless, nameless, obstructions which surround thee, how little dost thou know of Jesus. And wouldest thou desire for ever to live at this distance?  Think what the first view only of Jesus will be, when thou art once absent from the body, and present with the Lord! —What holy transports will break in upon the soul, when all the lines of love meet in one centre, to manifest the Lord Jesus to thy view in His redeeming fulness! If here below a single hour's enjoyment of thy Jesus, through ...

"And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat." -Exodus 25:22 [KJV] After a child of God has enjoyed something of the goodness and mercy of God revealed in the face of His dear Son, he may wander from His mercies, stray away from these choice gospel pastures, and get into a waste-howling wilderness, where there is neither food nor water; and yet, though half-starved for poverty, has in himself no power to return. But what has brought him for the most part into this state? Forgetfulness of the mercy seat; and as the Lord meets His people only there, a gradual estrangement from Him. But in due time the Lord seeks out this wandering sheep, and the first place He brings him to is the mercy seat, confessing his sins and seeking mercy. Faithful to His own word, once more the Lord meets him there; and O what a meeting! A penitent backslider and a forgiving God! O what a meeting! A guilty wretch drowned in tears, and a loving F...