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

" Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" -II Corinthians 13:5 [KJV] Happy for ministers, when their mission from Christ is called in question, they can appeal to their people’s hearts, to prove that Christ is spoken to them. Happy for Christians, to examine, prove, and know themselves, and to find Christ is in them. Ignorance of ourselves lies at the bottom of all error, and self deceit. Lord help us deeply to consider of this important question.  (1st.) Know ye not your own selves? Come you are very ready to judge ministers, find fault with them, and call their gifts and graces in question. Look at home. Know yourselves. Be not puffed up. Consider yourselves. Be humble. Your hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Your nature is totally corrupt and abominable. In your flesh dwelleth no good thing. Its motions are, to bring forth fruit unto death. Its lustings are, continually unto sin. Kno...

" And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean . And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed ." -Matthew 8:2, 3 [KJV] Behold, my soul, in the instance of this leper, thine own circumstances. What he was in body, such wert thou in soul. As his leprosy made him loathsome and offensive before men, so thy polluted soul made thee odious in the sight of God! He would not have sought a cure, had he not been conscious of his need of it. Neither wouldest thou ever have looked to Jesus, had He not convinced thee of thy helplessness and misery without Him. Moreover, he would not, though convinced how much he needed healing, have sought that mercy from Jesus, had he not been made sensible of Jesus's ability to the cure. Neither wouldest thou ever have come to Jesus, hadst thou not been taught who Jesus is, and how fully competent to deli...

"Let Thy mercies come also unto me, O L ORD , even Thy salvation, according to Thy word. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in Thy word." -Psalm 119:41, 42 [KJV] A living soul wants to return an answer to him that reproaches it. But he cannot do it of himself, for he has not a word to speak in self-justification; that is utterly cut off; and therefore he wants to have that which shall furnish him with an answer to these reproaches. And what alone can furnish him with an answer? The mercies of God in his soul. "Let Thy mercies come also unto me, O L ORD , even Thy salvation, according to Thy word. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me." The coming in of "mercies" into the soul, and the manifestation of "salvation" to the heart afford an answer "to him that reproacheth us." If you will observe, the word "mercies" is in the plural number, there being many me...