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

DID THE SPIRIT OF GOD EVER CONVINCE YOU OF SIN? 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 ( Christ JESUS The LORD our righteousness ), 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 (1740-1778 A.D.)

Has God decreed all things that come to pass? Then there is nothing that falls out by chance, nor are we to ascribe what we meet with either to good or bad luck and fortune. There are many events in the world which men look upon as mere accidents, yet all these come by the counsel and appointment of Heaven. Solomon tells us, Prov. 16:33. that "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD."  However disordered and fortuitous things may be with respect to us, yet they are all determined and directed by the Lord. When that man drew a bow at random, 1 Kings 22:34, it was merely accidental with respect to him, yet it was God that guided the motion of the arrow so as to strike the king of Israel rather than any other man. Nothing then comes to pass, however random and uncertain it may seem to be, but what was decreed by God. . .  Let the people of God comfort themselves in all cases by this doctrine of the divine decrees; and, amidst w...