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

"I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for Thou, L ORD , only makest me dwell in safety." -Psalm 4:8 [KJV] My soul! it is blessed, indeed, to lie down, or arise, when Jesus is thy rest and refreshment! But, void of security and safety in Him, both the day-light and the darkness have their horrors. And how unsatisfying is every thing where Jesus is not? This is strikingly exemplified, day by day, among all carnal characters. "There be many," saith the Psalmist (in this divine psalm), "there be many that say, Who will shew us any good?" Yea, the whole world, who know not the blessedness of Jesus, will thus say! What a busy life some men make of it? And what is it for? Be their pursuits what they may; let them be ever so much diversified, one object is the aim of all. The apostle hath said what it is; "...to make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof," Romans 13:14 .   My soul! what is the first and last, the greatest and m...

"I will lay thy foundations with sapphires." - Isaiah 54:11 [KJV] Before we can stand firmly in the things of God we must have a good foundation, something solid for our faith, our hope, our love, our all, to rest upon. This God promises to lay for His afflicted Zion: "I will lay thy foundations with sapphires." "A gift," we read, "is a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it." Every testimony, then, that God gives to the soul, every promise brought into the heart, every manifestation of mercy, every visit of love, or application of truth, we may call, in a spiritual sense, a sapphire; for it is indeed a precious stone, radiant with heaven's own hue.   When God thus lays His sapphires in the soul, they afford a solid foundation for faith. And as they are laid by the hand of God Himself, they must be firm; as they are sapphires, they must be indestructible. These sapphires, it is true, may every one of them be buried in the dust of ...