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

" It belongs entirely unto the sovereign pleasure of God to order and dispose the outward conditions through which His Church passes upon earth; seasons of prosperity and times of adversity are regulated by Him as He deems best.  Eras of peace and security and eras of persecution and peril are interchangeable, like day and night, summer and winter. The darker the night, the more evident the few stars twinkling between the clouds.  The more awful be the state of professing Christendom as a whole, the more suitable is the background for the children of God to display their colours.  The fiercer be the opposition made against a spiritual faith, the grander the opportunity for bringing forth its choicest fruit.  There is no higher aspect of faith than that which brings the heart to patiently submit unto whatever God sends us, to meekly acquiesce unto His sovereign will, to say, “the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18.11). ...

"Thou shalt call His name Jesus." -Matthew 1:21 [KJV] This is one more of the Redeemer's names, which is as ointment poured forth. As if the Holy Ghost had been graciously consulting the everlasting comfort and happiness of His people, and therefore commanded the church to know their Lord, by so many different and endearing appellations. As if He had said, Are you kept back from approaching Him through fear? Oh no;—go to Him, for He is Emanuel . So great, as God, that He is able to save; so tender and near, as man, that He is more ready to bestow mercy than you are to ask it. Are you kept back for want of righteousness? Be not so, for He is the Lord our righteousness , and what you need He hath for you. Or, are you depressed by reason of sin? Let not this discourage you, for His name is purposely Jesus , because He, and He alone, "shall save His people from their sins."   My soul, what knowest thou practically and personally of this most blessed n...

"They shall take to them every man a lamb." - Exodus 12:3 [KJV] This was God’s appointed means of salvation, in a night of sore destruction. It was a display of the sovereignty of God, and the obedience of faith. Lord, enable us to bow to the one, and to learn more and more of the other. Consider, (1st.) The sovereignty of God in His severity upon His enemies, and in His goodness to His people: in destroying all the first-born of the former, and in preserving every one of the latter. And this was in a way appointed by His sovereign mercy. There is no mercy from God to any sinner, but in the way He Himself appoints. This was a lamb. “They shall take to them every man a lamb.” His flesh was to be their food, his blood their salvation. Would not taking the flesh and blood of any other creature have answered the same end? No: To attempt it would have been a direct act of unbelief of God’s word, and disobedience to His will. Such a soul would have brought upon him...

"Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high  priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." -Hebrews 2:17 [KJV] God gave the persons of the elect into the hands of His dear Son, as Jacob committed Benjamin into the hands of Judah; and as Judah accepted Benjamin, so Christ accepted the church and undertook to bring it unto God, or He Himself would bear the blame for ever. But how this faithfulness was tried! Men tried it; devils tried it; God tried it; but it came gloriously through all. Yet what loads were laid upon it! How the very knees of Jesus, so to speak, staggered beneath it! How, as Hart says, He had "Strength enough, and none to spare!"   How He had to sustain the curse of the law and the load of imputed sin! How He had to drink up a very hell of inward torment! How He had to be agonised in body and more than agonised in soul! W...