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

"I, even I am He, who blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."   - Isaiah 43:25 [KJV] With tears of joy and emotions of love, my once dearly beloved and much honoured friend, now with Jesus, the late Mr. Jones, minister of St. Saviour’s, told me, the awful charges which precede, and the free and unmerited grace which is proclaimed in this text, made the first impressions of the Saviour’s love upon his heart. O that the Lord of all grace may give us some comfort from it to-night!  Here grace shines with meridian splendour; here grace gloriously reigns, over all the aboundings of sin: here grace sweetly triumphs over all the baseness and unworthiness of the sinner. In the two former verses, God arraigns the culprit, reads a black catalogue of indictment against him, and concludes with, “Thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities.”  The sinner is struck dumb. He dare not deny it...

"Come, see the place where the Lord lay."   - Matthew 28:6 [KJV] Lord, I would desire grace to accept the call, for it is always profitable to have faith in lively exercise: I would pray that my meditation might frequently take wing, and view the memorable sepulchre of my Lord. Did Jesus once lay in the grave? Surely death never had such a prisoner before! But did Jesus lay so low for me? Am I shortly to lay there? Sweet consoling thought! The grave is now softened, and the chambers of death are perfumed with the fragrancy contracted from His holy incorruptible body. But is there not another place where the Lord lay? And doth not the angel invite His people to see Him there also? Yes, Jesus lay in the bosom of the Father from all eternity. And doth He not lay there now, and will He not through all eternity? But can I see him there? Yes;—for if by faith I behold Jesus as the Christ, the Sent, the Sealed of the Father; in seeing Him, I see the Father also.  He sai...

"For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me." -Psalm 109:22 [KJV] The needy is a character who is not merely poor, empty, and naked before God, but who is feelingly in want of spiritual blessings applied to his soul. Some persons can rest on temptations, and take temptations as evidences. Others can build on doubts and fears, and rest on doubts and fears as evidences. Some can take powerful past convictions, or present convictions, and lean on them as evidences. Others can look to a profession of religion, and take that as an evidence.  But a living soul must have heavenly blessings communicated immediately to his heart and conscience from the mouth of God. He must have deliverance manifested to his soul as a reality; he must have the blood of Jesus sprinkled on his conscience with divine power, to purge it from filth and dead works; he must have his eyes anointed with eye-salve to see Jesus; yea, his soul pants to be led up into sweet communion ...