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

" O L ORD , Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, and every one mocketh me." -Jeremiah 20:7 [KJV] A poor deluded perfectionist lately made a great noise in London: he blasphemously pretended to be as holy as God Himself, to have revelations from Him, and peremptorily fixed upon a day when the world was to be destroyed. He deceived many, and alarmed more. But time proved how artfully he had been deceived himself; and now, what is most awful, he has cast off all sense of religion, ridicules it, charges all his delusion upon God, and quotes these very words of Jeremiah, to prove that God had deceived him. One would not mention this by way of reflection, or triumph over this unhappy man; but, as a caution against this mad, wildfire notion of sinless perfection, which so spreads itself among a certain description of professors.  But did God really deceive Jeremiah? Can we suppose that he cha...

"Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" -Song of Solomon 3:3 [KJV] Is Jesus still the object of my soul's warmest affection; the subject of all my thoughts, all my discourse, all my inquiry? Oh, yes, my soul; whom else, in heaven or in earth, wilt thou seek after but Him? Tell me, ye ministers of Jesus, ye watchmen upon the walls of Zion— "Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" Ye followers of the Lamb, can ye shew me where Jesus feedeth His flock at noon? Or rather, ye in the upper regions, where the Son of God manifesteth Himself in the full glories of His Person; "ye spirits of just men made perfect," ye who have known, while sojourning here below, what feeling of the soul that is, which, in the absence of Jesus, is longing for His appearance.  Ye angels of light also—ye who see Him without an intervening medium—tell Him, I beseech you, how my soul panteth for His visits: tell Him, that a poor pensioner, well known to my Lord, is waiting this mor...

"I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal." -Deuteronomy 32:39 [KJV]   The work of grace in the soul, in its very beginnings, penetrates deeply into its inmost substance. It wounds and lays open the conscience to the eye of infinite Purity and Holiness. "The entrance of Thy words (that is, the very first entrance) giveth light." "The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." All conviction to be true conviction must be thorough. The field must be ploughed, broken up, and furrowed, before the seed can find a tilth, a seed-bed for the seed to fall in so as to germinate and grow. There is much to be done in a sinner's heart before Christ can dwell in him by faith, or be formed in him the hope of glory. The heart is naturally very hard; thorns, thistles, and ...