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

"And it came to pass as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, Oh thou man of God, there is death in the pot!" -II Kings 4:40 [KJV] It was at a time of great famine, that the prophet Elisha ministered among the sons of the prophets at Gilgal; no wonder, therefore, that their diet was reduced to a dinner of herbs. During the season of persecution in our kingdom, somewhat more than a century and half since, there was a spiritual famine, not of bread or of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord: and so precious was the word of the Lord in those days, that our good old fathers used to remark, "bread and water, with the gospel, was choice fare." We find, in the household of Elisha, that wild gourds by the ignorance of him that gathered the herbs, were served up in the pottage of the people, which, as soon as they were discovered, occasioned the cry to the prophet, "O thou man of God, there is death in the pot!" And is there not d...

"O Lord, by these things men live; and in all these things is the life of my spirit." - Isaiah 38:16 [KJV] When Hezekiah said, "By these things men live," he meant that by these trials and deliverances, by these sinkings and risings, strippings and clothings, emptyings and fillings, "by these things men," that is, spiritual men, "live." It is a mystery, but a great truth, that just in proportion as we die to the world, to self, to sense, to nature, and to false religion, the more the life of God is strengthened in our conscience. The Lord, perhaps, has taught some of you this truth through great afflictions. But when these trials came upon you at the first, it seemed as though they would entirely overwhelm you; they took away your standing, and it appeared as though they had destroyed your faith and hope.   But though these floods of temptation passed over the soul, they swept away nothing but rubbish, which till then was mistaken for the inw...