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

"Because she judged Him faithful who had promised." -Hebrews 11:11  [KJV] I admire what the Holy Ghost hath here recorded of Sarah's faith. After what we read of the weakness of her faith at first, in the history to which this refers, I cannot but rejoice in the recovery of the great mother in Israel, through grace; and read with very much pleasure, this honourable testimony, which the Holy Ghost Himself hath given of her. And I admire yet more, the grace and goodness of the Eternal Spirit, in causing it to be handed down to the church, among the list of such worthies, and desire to bless His holy name for this scripture.     And while I bless God for the memorial, I pray Him to give me a spirit of wisdom, to improve it to my own furtherance in faith. The faith of Sarah, like that of her husband's, was the more illustrious, from the seeming impossibilities which lay in the way of the accomplishment of God's promise. For what the Lord engaged to do, was contrary t...

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world."   -I John 2:15 [KJV] This is a very wide sentence. It stretches forth a hand of vast grasp. It places us, as it were, upon a high mountain, such as the Lord stood upon when tempted of Satan, and it says to us, "Look around you: now there is not one of these things which you must love." It takes us, again, to the streets of a crowded city; it shews us shop windows filled with objects of beauty and ornament; it points us to all the wealth and grandeur of the rich and noble, and everything that the human heart admires and loves. And having thus set before us, as Satan did before our Lord upon the high mountain, the kingdoms of the world, it says, not as he did, "All this will I give you," but, "All this I take from you. None of these things are for you. You must not love one of these glittering baubles; you must not touch one of them, or scarcely look at them, lest, as with Achan, the gold...