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

"And he looked up and said, I see men as trees, walking." -Mark 8:24 [KJV] I have often considered the case of this man as holding forth a sweet and comfortable lesson of instruction, to the small attainments of the followers of Jesus. Perhaps our gracious Lord, in the method He was pleased to adopt, in the opening of this man's eyes by gradual means, intended so to instruct His people.   My soul, look at it in this point of view; it may be profitable to thee. When the Son of God, who came to give light to the spiritually blind, as well as to restore vision to the eye of the body, first touched this poor man's eyes, the effect was that when he looked up, the men he saw were only like "trees, walking;" the sight was imperfect, and the objects obscure. And such is it very frequently in our apprehension of spiritual things; but then it should be remembered, and remembered with great thankfulness, that this imperfection of our sight differs altogether from tot...

"O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock." - Song of Solomon 2:14 [KJV] Jesus is the hiding-place, the only hiding-place from sin and self. "Thou art my hiding place, " said David of old. This was shewn to Moses, in figure, when the Lord put him into the cleft of a rock, which Toplady has so beautifully versified, to paint the longing desires of his soul:  "Rock of Ages, cleft for me,  Let me hide myself in Thee!"   It is on this "Rock of Ages" that God has built His Church. As a rock, He is deep as well as high—so deep as to have under-bottomed the depths of the fall, so high as to be God's fellow, seated at His right hand. As a rock, too, He is broad as well as long—broad enough to bear millions of living stones built on Him, and long enough to reach from eternity to eternity. The Apostle, therefore, prays that the Church at Ephesus may comprehend with all saints, "what is the breadth and length, and depth and height, and know ...