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

"This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." -Luke 15:2  [KJV] My soul! wouldest thou, by faith, review some more than ordinary representation of the Lord Jesus, to melt the finer feelings of thy heart, in the contemplation of His unequalled condescension and love? Let this be it, which the evangelist hath here drawn of the Son of God. Behold Him, encircled with poor publicans and sinners, alluring them to the arms of His mercy; and behold the self-righteous pharisees and scribes withdrawing from the sacred spot, and with all that indignation and scorn, which marked their character, murmuring at the grace of Jesus, saying, "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them!" Well is it for thee, my soul, that the Son of God hath received sinners; else how should I have been looked upon by Him? And well is it that His table hath been spread for sinners; or how should I have been fed by Him?     Yea, Lord, is it not the very feature of Thy rich dispensation of...

"His bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." - Genesis 49:24 [KJV] Our ancestors, you know, were celebrated bowmen. Victories were won at Cressy and Agincourt by the English yeomanry, who were skilled in the use of the bow. Latimer says, in a sermon preached before the king, that no man could be a good archer who did not learn from his boyhood; and the custom he tells us was for the father to put his hands upon the son's hands, to teach him how to shoot, and throw the whole strength of his body into the bow. When the boy drew the bow, it was not the strength of his own arm that drew the string, nor was it the keenness of his eye that directed the arrow to the mark. The child appeared to draw the bow and to direct the arrow; but the hand of the father was upon the hand of the child, and the eye of the father was guiding the eye of the child; thus though the child seemed to draw the bow, it was the strengt...