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

" The Father seeketh such to worship Him." -John 4:23 [KJV] Error is natural to fallen man. He sets his face against truth, and turns his back upon it with contempt. The more error abounds with pride and self-sufficiency, so much the more it is suited to our corrupt nature. Hence, we are naturally Pelagians : we cannot think Adam’s sin has hurt us. Or else, Semi-pelagians : though we confess our souls are wounded by Adam’s sin, yet we cannot think we are totally dead to God thereby; but, as it were, only half dead: so that we still possess some power and ability, to seek God and to please Him, if we will but exert ourselves.  This is the popular doctrine of our day: it is suited to man’s pride, and keeps up his self-importance. Hence, this dry, shriveled comment is put upon our Lord’s words: “That, if we will but stir up ourselves to seek God, possess our minds with an habitual sense of religion, and worship Him in spirit and truth, He then will seek us, and del...

"Thus saith the L ORD ; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown ." -Jeremiah 2:2 [KJV] Pause, my soul, over this condescending token of God's love to Israel; and see whether it doth not hold forth to thee a blessed portion for thy encouragement. Israel had been most undeserving; but yet the Lord would put Israel in remembrance, by assuring His people that He remembered their love when God first formed Israel into a people. When He led them into the wilderness, and married Israel, they sung the praise of Jehovah in their love-songs, on the day of their espousals. 'Now,' saith the Lord, - 'I remember thee in these things; for these were tokens of affection when thou wentest after Me in following the pillar of cloud through the desert; in trusting to a harvest, though as yet the land was not sown.' And may I, blessed Lord, sweetly interp...

"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." -I Peter 1:2 [KJV] Foreknowledge of the persons of the elect in the divine economy precedes election. "Whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate ; " and this foreknowledge was not any eternal foreview of their faith or love in time, as if that were the ground of God's choice of them; but it implies, first, that thorough knowledge which God had of them, and of all that should concern them, of all the depths of sin and rebellion, disobedience and ungodliness, of which they might be guilty before called by grace, and of all their grievous backslidings, slips, and falls, with all the base returns that they should make for His goodness and mercy toward them after He had touched their hearts by His finger. And secondly and chiefly, it signifies the good will and pleasure, with that everlasting love of God the Father, whereby He foreknew them with a holy approbation of them, a divine affection...