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

"For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." -II Timothy 4:10 [KJV] Was this the same Demas of whom the apostle spake, Colossians 4:14? I should hope not. But if it was, it becomes no proof of a man's falling from grace. The apostle no where speaks of this man as being a partaker of grace. And a man cannot fall from grace, who never possessed grace. Professors there may be, who follow the means of grace, as Demas followed Paul; but the world, as in his instance, is still in their heart. But, my soul, what the apostle hath said of him, may well serve for an instruction to thee. If Jesus, and the love of Jesus, with all His sweetness, beauty, suitableness, and delight, be come into thine heart, then will the love of this present world be gone out. Both cannot dwell nor live together in the same heart.   A believer in Christ Jesus will carry with him his affection to Jesus even into the world, wherever the business or duties of life, in the honest maintena...

"But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?" - Job 19:28 [KJV] In almost every plant it is at the root that disease begins. If ever you see even a plant in a flower-pot unhealthy, depend upon it there is something wrong at the root. It is overwatered or underwatered, or from some other cause the root has become diseased, and what is called root-action is suspended or unhealthy. So it is in religion: if there is anything wrong with a man, it is almost sure to be something wrong at the root. "The root of the matter," Job said, "is found in me." Job could appeal unto God that the root of his religion was right.   If "the root" had been wrong, "the matter" would not have been right; but as long as the root was sound, like "the teil tree" of which the prophet speaks, though "it cast its leaves, the substance would still be in it," to put forth in due time boughs like a plant (...