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

  "I will strengthen that which was sick." -Ezekiel 34:16 [KJV] Peculiar maladies require peculiar remedies; but here is a general remedy, a family medicine. The Lord not only has strong remedies for desperate diseases; but in the divine medicine chest He has his restoratives and cordials. "Stay me with flagons; comfort me with apples," cries the Bride, "for I am sick of love." She was in a swoon, and needed a reviving cordial to restore her. So a poor fainting soul may come to hear the preached gospel, or may open his Bible, and say, "What is here for me? When I hear any deep experience described, that seems to cut me off as too deep; and when I hear great manifestations entered into, that cuts me off as too high. So I seem to be a strange being, a peculiar out-of-the-way creature, that can neither dive nor fly, sink nor rise."   Well, you are sick; you are like one in a hospital, ill of a malady that puzzles all the doctors. At last, one...

The life-boat of free grace has put you on board the vessel of salvation, and that will convey you safely to the port of glory! Do not look at your spiritual destitution, or feebleness, or incapacity, or imperfections, but trust in your Pilot, rely on your Captain, and expect His mercy and merit to land you safe in Heaven at last! As imperfect as you now are, and as imperfect you will be, your dying prayer will still be, "God be merciful unto me — a sinner!" Hope in God! His mercy is great unto the heavens, His grace is as free as the air, His love is as changeless as His nature, His promise is as immutable as His love. Hope in God, for you shall yet praise Him. He will save you for His own sake, and present you before assembled worlds as a monument of His mercy, and a trophy of His grace! -preacher James Smith (1864 A.D.)