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

The world may appear smiling and happy, but its appearances are deceitful. This is a world of sin and trouble. Here, thorns and thistles grow around us; painful emblems of the human heart, and of the sad change which passed on Adam at the fall. Everything here in this world is fickle and changing. If I rest my hopes upon an earthly friend, death removes the prop, and I fall, and mourn, and weep. If I place my confidence on riches, they fly away as an eagle towards heaven, and leave me to regret the folly of my covetous desires. If I build upon the breath of fame, it dies away, or changes into scorn or slander. If I repose upon the rosy couch of earthly comforts, however lawful and endearing, these lovely flowers will quickly fade, and leave me nothing but the thorns. Jesus is the only source of comfort; the only spring of joy.   -copied

O the beauty of the person of Jesus, when seen with the eye of faith by the illumination of the Holy Spirit! As the light of the morning, when the sun arises, "as a morning without clouds," is our Well-Beloved unto us. The sight of the burning bush made Moses put off his shoes, but the transporting vision of Jesus makes us put off all the world! When once He is seen we can discern no beauties in all other creatures in the universe. He, like the sun, has absorbed all other glories into His own excessive brightness. This is the pomegranate which love feeds upon, the flagon wherewith it is comforted. A sight of Jesus causes such union of heart  with Him, such goings' out of the affections  after Him, and such meltings of the spirit  towards Him, that its expressions often  appear to carnal men to be extravagant and  forced; when they are nothing but the free,  unstudied, and honest effusions of its lov e.   Carnal men are themselves ignorant...

" Unto Him Who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." -Revelation 1:5 [KJV] Paul denounces the most dreadful curse upon every one who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 16:22.) Why does any sinner love Christ? Because he believes the love of Christ to sinners. See the awful curses of unbelief. It rejects the love of Christ: It sets at nought His salvation: It seals the sinner under the curse of his sins, the wrath due to his sins; and binds him over to eternal damnation for his sins. But the unawakened sinner smiles at all this: For he does not believe one word of it. Lord, leave not my soul under this sin of sins, of all sins the most heinous and cursed! O help my unbelief!  (1st.) See the preciousness of faith. It works by love; even by the love of Christ manifested to us. It receives and embraces His love to the heart: there it works peace in the conscience, delight in God, access to God, boldness before God, joy in God, fel...

"I am God, and not man." -Hosea 11:9 [KJV] We speak sometimes of the attributes of God, and we use the words to help our conception. But God, strictly speaking, has no attributes. His attributes are Himself. We speak, for instance, of the love of God, but God is love; of the justice of God, but God is just; of the holiness of God, but God is holy; of the purity of God, but God is pure. As He is all love, so He is all justice, all purity, all holiness. Love, then, is infinite, because God is infinite; His very name, His very character, His very nature, His very essence is infinite love. He would cease to be God if He did not love, and if that love were not as large as Himself, as infinite as His own self-existent, incomprehensible essence. The love of the Son of God, as God the Son, is co-equal and co-eternal with the love of the Father; for the holy Trinity has not three distinct loves, either in date or degree. The Father loves from all eternity; the Holy Ghost...

"A red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke. And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face." -Numbers 19:2-3 [KJV] I remember well it is said of our Lord Jesus, that, in order to sanctify the people with His own blood, He suffered without the gate. But though I clearly apprehend that the law, with all its sacrifices, was but a shadow of good things to come, and the body was Christ, yet, had not the Holy Ghost been graciously pleased to illustrate and explain, by other scriptures somewhat either direct, or by allusion, in reference to Jesus, I should have overlooked how, in many striking points, Jesus is here set forth in this type. Surely, Lord, Thy spotless purity was beautifully represented in the spotless heifer here appointed for sacrifice.  And the very rare colour of a red heifer plainly testified the singularity of thy sacrifice. A...