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

"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto He called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."  -II Thessalonians 2:13, 14 [KJV] The first work of grace is to kill rather than to make alive; to wound rather than to heal; to bring down rather than to lift up; to reveal the law rather than the gospel. For "balm is useless to the unfeeling." Salvation with all its superabounding grace is but an empty sound to those who have never felt themselves cut off from all help or all hope. So, in a sense, there is a calling under and through, if not by the law, in the first teaching and operations of the Spirit of God, bringing the soul under its condemnation as a ministration of death. But when the law has done its office, and the sinner is slain by its killing power, then ...

"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." -Revelation 12:1 [KJV] My soul! as the beloved apostle was invited to see those precious visions, which the Lord favoured him with, for the church's good, so do thou, this evening, attend his ministry, and gather, under divine teaching, instruction from this great wonder, which John saw. Surely, the woman here spoken of, means the church, the Lamb's wife, clothed in her husband's righteousness; and the moon, like that planet which ministers to our world, under her feet: and the crown, with which her head was adorned, sets forth how the church is made glorious by the ministry of the twelve apostles in the gospel of salvation: for what can be more suitable for the church to be crowned with, than the blessed truths contained in their writings?   Now, my soul, as every representation of the church not only sets forth the...