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

"And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river-side, where prayer was wont to be made." -Acts 16:13 [KJV] What, had they no church, no synagogue, no prayer-house, in the city? Was it like another Athens, wholly given to idolatry? My soul, think of thy privileges, and learn rightly to prize them, and use them to the glory of the great Giver. It was "on the sabbath." What a mercy to poor fallen man is the sabbath? And yet what multitudes slight, despise, and never profit by it! My soul! think again, in this view also, of thy mercies; and bow down to the dust in the deepest humiliation of soul and body, that the sabbath is precious to thee. "Who made thee to differ from another?" By and by thou wilt enter into the everlasting sabbath of heaven. There is somewhat very interesting in what the apostle here saith of going out "by a river side." Probably it was in the recollection of the church, that in Babylon, where the people were captives,

"Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls."   -I Peter 1:9 [KJV] What a blessed, what a glorious end is this; what a prize to win, what a victory to gain, what a crowning consummation of all that faith has believed, hope expected or love embraced! Whatever doubts and fears may have harassed the mind, whatever sore temptations may have distressed the soul, whatever deep afflictions, painful trials, heavy guilt, and hard bondage may have sunk it low, so low sometimes, as if it never would get over them or rise out of them, still that faith, which is God's gift and work, lives through all, and there is a blessed end in store for it—the salvation of the soul .   And O, what does this not comprehend and imply? Think of what salvation is from; think of what salvation is unto. Neither the one nor the other can be fully known on this side of eternity. You may have had some glimpses of hell, you may have had some glimpses of heaven; some taste of the wrath