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

  Jesus is gone above the skies,   Where our weak senses reach Him not;   And carnal objects court our eyes,   To thrust our Savior from our thought.    He knows what wand’ring hearts we have,   Apt to forget His lovely face;   And, to refresh our minds, He gave   These kind memorials of His grace.    The Lord of life this table spread   With His own flesh and dying blood;   We on the rich provision feed,   And taste the wine, and bless the God.    Let sinful sweets be all forgot,   And earth grow less in our esteem;   Christ and His love fill every thought,   And faith and hope be fixed on Him.    While He is absent from our sight,   ’Tis to prepare our souls a place,   That we may dwell in heav’nly light,   And live for ever near His face.    Our eyes look upwards to the hills   Whence our returning Lord shall come;   We wait Thy chariot’s awesome...

" He who receiveth Me, receiveth Him Who sent Me." -Matthew 10:40 [KJV] It is very natural to think, if the Son of God were now upon earth, O how gladly would we receive Him into our houses. If you really would, you now cordially receive the report of Him, into your hearts: you now welcome it by faith, as the most precious truth that ever saluted your ears.  (1st.) What is it to receive Christ? There is endless perplexity in the consciences of many poor sinners, whether they have received Christ— when they received Him—what it is to receive Him—how they received Him—and whether they received Him right, etc. Satan gets great advantage here over many. Therefore he stirs up many (who nevertheless may do it ignorantly) who sadly puzzle weak Christians with nice and subtle refinements, about receiving Christ. You would have no difficulty to tell, whether you receive a dear friend—how your heart stood affected towards him—and what reception you gave him. How is it bet...

"Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." -I Peter 2:5 [KJV] God's people require many severe afflictions, harassing temptations, and many powerful exercises to hew them into anything like shape, to chisel them into any conformity to Christ's image. For they are not like the passive marble under the hands of the sculptor, which will submit without murmuring, and indeed without feeling, to have this corner chipped off, and that projecting angle rounded by the chisel; but God's people are living stones, and, therefore, feel every stroke.  We are so tender-skinned that we cannot bear a thread of trouble to lie upon us, we shrink from even the touch of the probe. To be hewed, then, and squared, and chiselled by the hand of God into such shapes and forms as please Him, O what painful work it is! But could the pillar know, could it tell what the sc...

"Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him." -Mark 9:25 [KJV] Oh! that the Lord Jesus, in a spiritual healing, would frame my powers anew in Himself, that neither dumbness nor deafness might ever more stop my voice of praise for the cure of my soul, as the Lord healed the poor man's son in his body! One should suppose that after the song of salvation had been once chanted in the renewed heart, that heart would never more be out of tune, nor feel a dumbness or deafness in the Lord's praise. But, alas! So much of unbelief lies lurking within, and so much of exercises come from without, that the harp is often hanging on the willow, and we seldom sing to the Lord's praise, or proclaim abroad His glory. Whereas the promise of Jehovah, in allusion to gospel-days, was, that His Israel should, even from the valley of Achor, find a door of hope; and the Lord added, that He would cause His church to sing there, ...