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

"Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit."   -II Corinthians 7:7 [KJV]   “Cleanse ourselves!” What! was holy Paul the subject of filthiness? Yes: he, as well as the holy saints of Corinth, constantly wanted cleansing, by the blood of Christ. St. Paul, again and again, declares against the proud notion of sinless perfection. He well knew, that regenerating grace and adopting love, do not entirely destroy the infection of our nature; but hereby being brought into a holy state, we are set above the power of sin. We hate the defilement of it; and we ever have the precious blood of the Lamb to have recourse to, for cleansing from it. “The Son of God has made us free indeed” (John 8:36.) Free from the slavery of sin, and the bondage of the law: free, to come to Him, that we may wash our garments, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb.    Do you see and lament that you ar...

"A man in Christ." -II Corinthians 12:2 [KJV]   My soul! thy last evening's meditation was sweet, (was it not?) in contemplating thy Jesus, as glorious in His own person, and as glorified in His people. Wilt thou add to that subject, for it is part of the same, for thy present thoughts, what is suggested in this motto, "a man in Christ?" Dost thou fully enter into the pleasing apprehension of what the phrase implies? Now, who shall fully describe it; or who is competent fully to conceive the whole extent of it? "A man in Christ , " must imply every thing connected with a oneness, an union, a part of himself; yea, "a life hid with Christ in God." "A man in Christ" is as much a part in Christ's mystical body, as the head, or hand, or foot, is a part of that body to which those members belong.   Hence, (which is indeed a sweet part of the subject) every one who is "a man in Christ , " is, to all intents...

"Being justified freely by His grace." -Romans 3:24 [KJV] And it is because grace is free it can reach us. How free is the sun in sending forth its enlightening, warming beams; how free the clouds in discharging their watery treasures; how free the dew in falling from the face of heaven; how free the wind in blowing where it listeth. Now these are scriptural types and representatives of the free grace of God. It shines as freely as the sun; drops as freely as the rain; falls as freely as the dew; and blows as freely as the wind.  But not in grace as in nature to all men. I mean not that; but all to whom it comes it comes freely. And whenever it so comes it communicates precious things with it. As the sun lights and warms, as the rain fertilises, as the dew softens, as the wind invigorates, so it is with the grace of God which comes out of the fulness of Christ. It enlightens the understanding, warms the heart, fertilises the soul, softens the spirit, and invigo...