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

Do you see yourself liable to the curse of the law, and the just vengeance of God, for the innate depravity of your nature, and the transgressions of your life? Do you come to Christ humbled and self-condemned, sensible that unless you are clothed with the merits of Him, our Elder Brother, you are ruined and undone and can never stand with joy or safety before the holy Lord God? If so, lift up thy head; redemption is thine; thou art in a state of grace; thou art translated from death to life; thou art an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. But if you never felt, nor desire to feel this work of the Holy Ghost upon thy heart, this conviction of sin, this penitential faith, all the supposed righteousness of thine own, wherein thou trusted is but a broken reed; a painted sepulchre; and the trappings of a Pharisee.  —preacher Augustus Toplady

" I stir up your pure minds, by way of remembrance." -II Peter 3:1 [KJV] All the children of God are the subjects of pure minds. Many of them complain of bad memories. All need to have their minds stirred up, and their memories quickened. There is no doubt but Peter had a pure mind, when he denied his Lord. But he seems to display a very treacherous memory, in sadly forgetting himself, his Lord, and His words. Forgetfulness of dangers, causes us to fall into them. Forgetting our own weakness to stand, causes us to fall.  Consider, (1st.) What is a pure mind. That which we are all destitute of by nature. “Our mind and conscience is defiled, and unbelieving.” (Tit. 1:15.) Our mind is made pure, when our hearts are sprinkled from an evil or guilty conscience, by the blood of Christ through faith. (Heb. 10:22.) So that a pure mind is a believing mind, which receives the truth as it is in Jesus, in the power and purity of it; and holds the mystery of faith in a pure ...