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

"Adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." -Titus 2:10 [KJV] What pains and expense are we at to adorn our bodies, which must shortly turn to ignoble dust: and our dwellings, which must soon be burnt up with fire? And shall we not study, and take pains to adorn the precious doctrine of our loving God and Saviour in our lives? Let gay clothing and genteel furniture reprove us for, and remind us of this duty. Let us not be like asses with long ears to hear doctrines, but slow of feet to walk in the ways of holiness.  To avoid legality, let us not run into licentiousness. This awfully prevails amongst professors in our day. They incessantly dwell on doctrines. But if you aim to reduce them into experience and practice, they cry out, O, you are as legal as an Arminian . This is really like one who should receive food into his mouth, chew it for a season, and then spit it out again: but as it passed not into the stomach to be digested, the body is not nou...

"And He bearing His cross." -John 19:17 [KJV] Were grace always in lively exercise, how would every incident in the life of Jesus lead out the souls of His redeemed in endless contemplation Alas! My honoured Lord! How little do I think of Thee, and of Thy sufferings! Will Jesus, this evening, awaken me to the solemn subject? The bell of the neighbouring church is now tolling the curfew of the day. I hear it from my window. Alas! Why should I want such a call to think on my Lord! Awake, awake my soul, and let thy meditation take wing, and flee to Gethsemane, and from the garden, and the hall, behold the Lamb of God bearing His cross towards the place of execution. Oh! Pilate! Thou unjust judge! Is this thy pretended innocency, to suffer Him whom thou didst declare to be innocent, in the moment thou didst pass sentence for His death, to bear His cross also? See what long furrows the ploughers have ploughed upon His sacred back; and wilt thou compel Him to bear the...

"Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed."   -II Corinthians 4:9 [KJV] You may be cast down by many doubts and fears, and lose the sense of the Lord's love to your soul, but you cannot lose the reality, nor is your faith destroyed by the hottest flame. It is like gold; the fire melts away and separates the dross and tin, but never touches the gold. In your hottest trials your faith will not have lost a particle. Neither will your hope be destroyed, however you may be cast down about your state or standing; for not a particle of hope, or of any one Christian grace can ever be lost.  They may seem to suffer diminution as the apostle speaks, "If a man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss"   (I Corinthians 3:15) ; but it is no real loss,—it is merely the dross taken away, that he may come forth a vessel for the (-re)finer. The work of the Holy Spirit is as indestructible as the work of Christ; and thus every grace which He ...