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

"And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our body."   -Romans 8:23  [KJV] It is blessed to receive from the Holy Ghost such gracious interpretations of His own most holy word as bear a correspondence with what we feel in a life of grace. We know that our adorable Jesus is the Saviour of the body as well as the soul; but we know also that these vile bodies of ours are not regenerated, as the souls of His redeemed are. In this tabernacle, therefore, we groan, being burdened. "I know," saith Paul, "that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." And I too often know, to my sorrow, the same.     Pause, my soul, this evening, over this solemn scripture, and look up to the great Author of it, to unfold its sacred truth to thy comfort. I hope I can humbly adopt the language, and say, that I "have the first fruit...

"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD." - Hosea 6:3 [KJV] "To know the Lord" is to know experimentally and spiritually the power of Jesus' blood and righteousness; to know our eternal union with Him; to know Him so as to be led by the Spirit into soul communion with Him, that we may talk with Him as a man talketh with his friend; to know Him so that the secrets of His heart should be revealed to us, and we enter by faith into the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; to know Him so as to drink into His spirit, and to have His image stamped by the Holy Ghost upon our souls; to know Him as coming down into our hearts out of His glorious sanctuary, filling our souls with His presence and His love; to know Him as formed in us the hope of glory, making our bodies His temple, dwelling in us, breathing Himself into us, speaking in us, moving as it were every affection of our heart and every faculty of ou...