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

"I stir up your pure minds, by way of remembrance." -II Peter 3:1 [KJV] All the children of God are the subjects of pure minds. Many of them complain of bad memories. All need to have their minds stirred up, and their memories quickened. There is no doubt but Peter had a pure mind, when he denied his Lord. But he seems to display a very treacherous memory, in sadly forgetting himself, his Lord, and his words. Forgetfulness of dangers, causes us to fall into them. Forgetting our own weakness to stand, causes us to fall.  Consider, (1st.) What is a pure mind. That which we are all destitute of by nature. Our mind and conscience is defiled, and unbelieving , (see Titus 1:15.) Our mind is made pure, when our hearts are sprinkled from an evil or guilty conscience, by the blood of Christ through faith (Hebrews 10:22.) So that a pure mind is a believing mind, which receives the truth as it is in Jesus, in the power and purity of it; and holds the mystery of faith in ...

"Carry down the man a present." -Genesis 43:11 [KJV] Ah, poor Jacob, how unconscious wert thou that this man, the governor of Egypt, was so near and dear to thee, and that his bowels yearned to tell thee how much he loved thee. And O ye sons of Israel, who would have had power to convince you while you were bowing down before Joseph under the dreadful apprehensions which agitated your minds, and he was assuming a voice of displeasure, that this very man was your brother?    My soul, and what was all this, heightened to the greatest possible degree in the real love and affection of Joseph towards his family, compared to that love of Jesus which passeth knowledge? Jesus is thy brother, and He is the governor, not of Egypt only, but of heaven and earth. The famine, it is true, is sore in the land, and to Him thou must go for sustenance, or thou wilt perish for ever.    But wilt thou carry down the man a present? My soul, what hast thou to carry? Not thy du...

"And He is the propitiation for our sins." -I John 2:2 [KJV] What is "propitiation?" By propitiation we are to understand, a sacrifice acceptable to Jehovah ; by which God, or rather the attributes of God are propitiated; whereby God can be favourable; whereby mercy, grace, and pardon can freely flow forth.  Now sin, and the law condemning sin, barred out, barred back, the favour of God. They were the opposing obstacle to the love of God. For God cannot, as God, love sin and sinners; therefore, the sin of man, and the holy law of God, the transcript of His infinite and eternal purity barred back, so to speak, the favour of God. It was needful, then, that this barrier should be removed, that a channel might be provided, through which the grace, favour, and mercy of God might flow: in a word, that sin might be blotted out, and that the law might be accomplished and fulfilled in all its strict requirements, that God "might be just , " retainin...