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

"I will walk before the LORD, in the land of the living." -Psalm 116:9 [KJV] When the king confers the honour of knighthood, he bestows an empty title, and nothing more. But when the King of saints calls a poor sinner into His presence, He confers on him not a mere title of an empty sound, but He dignifies him with a nature: He makes him a new creature. These two different kinds of spirits are to be avoided.  (1st.) Such as under a great shew of holiness, deny the fundamental doctrines of grace.  (2d.) Those who make a vile abuse of those doctrines. In the former pride reigns. Over the latter, lusts have the dominion. David reproves both.  Under the lively sense of distinguishing mercy and sovereign grace, he here makes a holy resolution. “Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.” What then? Now all is safe and well, I will flee to the tents of ungodliness, and gratify my lusts. Is this his language? No, nor his c...

"I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." -Revelation 1:11 [KJV] My soul, if the precious meditation of yesterday be not wholly gone off from thy poor forgetful mind this day, here is another blessed view to revive the thought afresh, in looking at the Mediator, as the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, in the same covenant engagements.  Jesus is indeed, as the 8th verse of this same chapter expresses it, the Alpha and Omega, as one with the Father, over all, God blessed for ever. But He is also here the Alpha and Omega, as the Mediator, both God and man. For He is the first and the last of all God's thoughts, and in His covenant engagements, of all Jehovah's work; for every thing in creation begins and concludes in Him.  From everlasting He was set up. So that though Adam was the first man openly, yet not the first man secretly, and as subsisting in covenant engagements. Here again, as was remarked before, and from an authority not to be disp...

"...and patience of hope." -I Thessalonians 1:3 [KJV] What is meant by the expression "patience?" It means endurance; as though hope had to endure, faith to work, and love to labour. It is the "patience of hope" that proves its reality and genuineness. Hope does not go forward fighting and cutting its way. Hope is like a quiet sufferer, patiently bearing what comes upon it. Hope is manifested in enduring, as faith is manifested in acting. For instance: when the Lord hides His face, when testimonies sink out of sight, when signs are not seen, when Satan tempts, when the work of grace upon the soul seems to be all obscured, and in consequence a feeling of despondency begins to set in, then the "patience of hope" is needed to endure all things—not to give way, but to maintain its hold. It acts in the same way, according to the beautiful figure of Paul, as the anchor holds the ship . What is the main value, the chief requisite in the ...