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

  "Thus shalt thou say unto him, The L ORD saith thus, Behold, that which I have built, will I break down; and that which I have planted, I will pluck up ." -Jeremiah 45:4 [KJV] My soul, ponder well these words; and when thou hast duly meditated, behold and see, in the instance of the church at large, and in thine own circumstances in particular, whether the powerful operations of the Lord's grace be not thus frequently carried on, by seemingly opposite means? Doth not the Lord appear to be often breaking down what His own right hand hath built, and withering what He hath planted, when providences appear to run counter to His promises, and the way to their accomplishment seems impossible?   Thus the gourd of Jonah was blasted when the prophet needed most a covering: thus the poor man's child, in the gospel, when in the view of Christ, was thrown down by the devil, and torn more than ever he had been before; Mark 9:26 . Thus the children of Israel felt Pharaoh's ...

"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."   - Romans 5:20 [KJV] In order to know what grace is in its reign over sin, and in its superaboundings over the aboundings of iniquity, we must be led experimentally into the depths of the fall. We must be led by God Himself into the secrets of our own heart; we must be brought down into distress of mind on account of our sin and the idolatry of our fallen nature. And when, do what we will, sin will still work, reign, and abound, and we are brought to soul poverty, helplessness, destitution, and misery, and cast ourselves down at the footstool of His mercy— then we begin to see and feel the reign of grace, in quickening our souls, in delivering us from the wrath to come, and in preserving us from the dominion of evil. We begin to see then that grace superabounds over all the aboundings of sin in our evil hearts, and as it flows through the channel of the Saviour's sufferings, that it will never leave its favoured objec...