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

" To reveal His Son in me." -Galatians 1:16 [KJV] From hence begins spiritual life: a life from God, in God, with God, and to God. By the gospel the Son of God is revealed to us. By the Spirit, He is revealed in us. External revelation by the word, and internal by the Spirit, are both necessary to salvation. Though St. Paul was separated from his mother’s womb, to be called by the grace of God, yet he had not this inward revelation of Jesus Christ to his heart, till he heard the external word of Christ with his ear, saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4.) Hence learn to prize, both the outward testimony of the word and the inward testimony of the Spirit.  Consider, (1st.) to reveal, signifies to discover, or make clear to a person, what he did not know before. So, (Philippians 3:15) “If in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal this unto you.” So the gospel is a revelation of Jesus Christ, without which we could never have known...

"The L ORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." -Zephaniah 3:17 [KJV] What a mighty God we have to deal with! And what would suit our case but a mighty God? Have we not mighty sins? Have we not mighty trials? Have we not mighty temptations? Have we not mighty foes and mighty fears? And who is to deliver us from all this mighty host except the mighty God? It is not a little God (if I may use the expression) that will do for God's people. They need a mighty God because they are in circumstances where none but a mighty God can interfere in their behalf. Why, if you did not know feelingly and experimentally your mighty sins, your mighty trials, your mighty temptations, and your mighty fears, you would not want a mighty God. This sense of our weakness and His power, of our misery and His mercy, of our ruin and His recovery, of the aboundings of our sin and the superaboundings of His grace—a feeling sense, I say, of these opposite yet harmonious things brings...

"A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence." -I Peter 2:8 [KJV] O my Lord! how wonderful is it, that Thy coming should have given such offence to Thy people? The prophet, indeed, said it should be so, and thereby gave one among the many testimonies to Thy character. "He , " saith the prophet (Isaiah 8:14) "that shall be for a sanctuary, shall be but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." But what was there, my Lord, in Thee, and the gracious purpose for which Thou came, that could have furnished occasion for stumbling? Thy birth, indeed, was humble, thy life marked with sorrow, thy death ignominious, and every thing about Thee debased.  But under all these things, did not the Godhead burst forth in acts which none but God could perform? And is the offence of the cross ceased in the present hour? Alas! what multitudes of sinners now, as much as then, still live to despise salvation by Thy blood ...