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

"I AM the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys." -Solomon 2:1  [KJV] Yes! dearest Lord Jesus, Thou art all this, and infinitely more to my soul; more fragrant than both, and more precious than all the flowers of the field. Help me, this evening, to contemplate my Lord under those sweet similitudes. Do I not, and shall I not henceforth, in the red blushing beauty of the rose, behold Thy human nature, which Thou hast assumed for the redemption of Thy people?     Are not Thy bloody sufferings, and Thy red apparel, strikingly set forth by the image of the rose; as Thy spotless purity is shewn under the loveliness of the white lily? Can the sweet-scented rose, even of Sharon, vie with the perfume of the incense of Thy righteousness, to a poor sinner's soul? Or can the beauty of the lily be as grateful to the eye, as the purity of Jesus to a mind conscious of its own pollution, and beholding itself complete in His salvation, Who is "holy, harmless, undefiled, separ...

"These all died in faith." - Hebrews 11:13 [KJV] When death came it did not rob them of their faith. They held with their believing hand in death every truth which they had held with their believing hand in life. It is in death that the gospel is such a blessing when held by a believing hand. What should we do upon a dying bed, with all our sins staring us in the face in all their awful magnitude, accused by Satan, condemned by conscience, terrified by a holy law, and frowned upon by an indignant God? What must be our end upon the bed of death if we had nothing to look to but a God who is a consuming fire, with nothing but the bitter recollection of past sins to agonise the mind and distress the conscience?  O, if ever faith is needed, it will be needed then; if ever the gospel embraced, embraced then; if ever Christ looked to, looked to then; if ever laid hold of by the hand of faith, laid hold of then! Now if you know what faith is, and your faith has embraced the Son of G...