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

"Lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing ." -Luke 22:35 [KJV] Precious words to me! One is unwilling to speak of oneself. There is danger of pride and self-seeking in it. Yet, with a view to our Lord’s glory, a sincere desire to exalt His grace and goodness, and to encourage fellow Christians’ confidence therein, a poor sinner may speak of his experience. With tears of thankfulness, I record the goodness of my Lord to the chief of sinners. Upwards of twenty years ago, when it pleased Him to call me by His grace, and make me happy in His love, my name was cast out—friends became foes—their hands were against me—they withdrew their favours from me, and derided me.  Under narrow circumstances, tender feelings for a large family, carnal reasonings of my corrupt nature, and strong temptations from the enemy, I was often sore distressed. But my Lord was gracious. Many, and many a time, did He bring this text to my mind; and, as it were, with all love and tendernes...

"And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations." -Isaiah 25:7 [KJV] What a precious promise was this with which the Lord comforted the church under the old testament dispensation, that the faithful might look forward to the new testament dispensation, when Jesus, in the holy mountain, where He finished transgression by His triumphant death (Daniel 9:24) , would effectually remove the covering which had blackened all faces, and had separated between God and guilty sinners.  And, that the gracious promise might be had in everlasting remembrance by Thy people, the evangelists were commissioned to tell the church, that in the moment Christ died, the vail of the temple was rent in twain, by an invisible hand, from the top to the bottom. My soul, see how Jesus, thy Jesus, hath most effectually fulfilled this precious promise. There was a vail of covering spread to separate thee for eve...

"Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools." -Psalm 84:5, 6 [KJV] David casts a glimpse here at those pilgrims who were taking their upward journey to worship God in Zion. He marks their road, and takes occasion to spiritualize it; for he says, "In whose heart," in whose experience, in whose soul, "are the ways" of these pilgrims Zionward. What are these "ways?" It is this, that "passing through the valley of Baca, they make it a well." This valley of Baca appears to have been a very perilous pass, through which pilgrims journeyed toward Jerusalem; and on account of the difficulties, dangers, and sufferings that they met with, it was named "the valley of Baca," or "the valley of weeping," "the vale of tears." But the Psalmist says, "Blessed is the man in who...