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

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love casteth out fear; because fear hath torment; he who feareth is not made perfect in love."   -I John 4:18 [KJV] The wild fire of nature’s passions are often mistaken for heavenly love. These have hurried people into dreadful delusions. Some have pretended to be so perfect in love, as to have nothing but pure love in them, and that the being of sin was entirely taken out of them. But they have soon given awful evidence, that they “deceived themselves, and that the truth was not in them” (see I John 1:8.) Be wise by other’s harms. Study the word of God: abide by that. Live upon the perfect love of God: glory in that alone. For you are, and ever will be, while in the body, the subject of sin, therefore subject to that fear which hath torment: to fear God as an enemy, armed with almighty vengeance and vindictive wrath against you, a sinner. How is this tormenting fear to be cast out? By love; the perfect love of God in Chr...

"He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." -Isaiah 53:11 [KJV] Is not this covenant promise of thy faithful God and Father peculiarly suited, my soul, for thine evening meditation, after the subject of the morning, in contemplating the first cry of Jesus upon the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?"  And was not the cry answered in the case of the Jerusalem sinners at the day of Pentecost, soon after, when, under the apostle Peter's sermon, they were pricked to the heart, and cried out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"   Acts 2:37 . Ponder over the solemn expression, The travail of the Redeemer's soul . Did Jesus really sustain in soul somewhat like those throes of nature with which a woman is exercised in her hour of extremity? Did He travail in birth for His redeemed?—Pause, my soul, and very solemnly consider the subject. If the eighteenth Psalm be supposed to contain prophetic...

"Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise." -Jeremiah 17:14 [KJV] If we feel that we have ruined our own souls, that no human arm can save us, that we cannot bring salvation into our own consciences, nor of ourselves see any beauty, glory, sweetness, or suitability in the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet are striving with prayer and supplication to touch the hem of His garment, to taste the sweetness of His dying love, to feel the efficacy of His atoning blood, to be wrapped up in His glorious robe of righteousness, and to know Him in the sweet manifestations of His grace, we too can say, "Save me, and I shall be saved."  Here is this sin! save me from it: here is this snare! break it to pieces; here is this lust! Lord, subdue it; here is this temptation! deliver me out of it; here is my proud heart! Lord, humble it; my unbelieving heart! take it away, and give me faith; give me submission to Thy mind and wi...