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

" Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths." -Hosea 2:6 [KJV] Here is a contest between the (-so called) "free-will" of the sinner, and THE FREE GRACE OF THE SAVIOUR . Why therefore? This alludes to what was spoken before. O how strong it savours of cursed, freewill pride! "I will go after my lovers," etc. What says the Lord to this? Go, and destroy yourself, I will leave you to your own will? O ye patrons to the notion of free-will, a greater curse cannot befall you on this side hell than to be thus left.  Though you have such pride, yet the Lord has more grace. Therefore He says, Behold . Take special notice of this. Your will is to leave Me, and destroy your souls. But I will not suffer this. Grace reigns. Free-will shall be conquered: My glory shall be exalted. I will hedge up thy way with thorns. Mind: it is thy way, not Mine.  I will set the briers of troubles, and the sharp...

"And he that had been possessed with the devil, prayed Him that he might be with Him. Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not; but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee ." -Mark 5:18, 19 [KJV] Mark this, my soul, and especially when at any time thy Jesus is so graciously revealing Himself to thee, in a way of love, that thou art longing to be absent from the body, that thou mayest be "present with the Lord:" think then, of what Jesus said to this poor man. The thought of being made instrumental in the hand of the Lord in calling sinners to Jesus, made holy Paul willing to wait in a sinful world, and put off his own happiness.  Precious frame of mind! Paul knew also, that if the Lord housed His children from the lion's den, and from the mountains of leopards, as soon as He had brought them to the knowledge of Himself, then, in this case, Jesus would have no church in the wilderness. The holy see...

“In Whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord .” -Ephesians 2:21 [KJV] The body of Christ is at present scattered, and, if I may so speak, fragmentary. Of the members of His mystical body some are now before the throne, “spirits of just men made perfect.” Others are still in the wilderness; others are yet in the world, dead in trespasses and sins, uncalled by grace, destitute of the Spirit; others at present are unborn, still hidden in the womb of time. But earth is the stage whereon all the members are from time to time brought into a vital, manifestive union with their living Head. When I was a boy at school, in London, Waterloo Bridge was building; and I and my playmates used to go sometimes to what was then called “The Stone Field,” on the other side of the water, where the stones that now make up Waterloo Bridge were being squared and chiseled. Every vestige of that field, I have no doubt, is gone, and the place covered with...