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

"Kiss the Son."     - Psalm 2:12 [KJV]   A short command. For brevity, like the poesy of a ring: but comprehensive, like the book of God. For it compriseth all that the Scriptures require of us, and promise to us. It means, that we live in holy love, and walk in sweet friendship with the Son of God.    For, (1st.) a kiss is a token of reconciliation. Kiss and be friends, is a common proverb. “The kisses of an enemy are deceitful,” (Proverbs 27:6.) Christ has experienced this, by the kiss of Judas. Though sinners against Christ, yet He loved us: though enemies to Him, yet He died for us. The belief of this love destroys our enmity. The breach between God and us is made up. We are reconciled to God, and have peace with Him, through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1.) How did reconciling grace operate upon the heart of that vile sinner, Mary? She kissed her Lord’s feet, while, with tears of penitential sorrow, she washed them (Luke 7:38.) O! give the recon...

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." -Job 19:25-27 [KJV]   What sublimity is in these words! and what blessed glorious truths do they contain! Here is Job's creed. My soul, see if it be thine. Job did not say, that he had heard of a Redeemer, and that he hoped it was true, and he gave credit to it; but he saith, he knoweth it . And observe who this Redeemer is. Job calls him his Goel, his Kinsman-Redeemer . For the right of redemption belonged to the nearest of kin, and he might redeem; Leviticus 25:25. We have lost our inheritance, forfeited our possession, and are poor indeed, both in person and in substance.    Now as Christ, by virtue of His being our nearest of kin, is the one, the Blessed One, the only One to whom the right of redemption bel...

"Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the LORD of hosts." - Zechariah 13:7 [KJV] Would we see, feel, and realise the exceeding sinfulness of sin, it is not by viewing the lightnings and hearing the thunders of Sinai's fiery top, but in seeing the agony and bloody sweat, and hearing the groans and cries of the suffering Son of God, as made sin for us, in the garden and upon the cross.  To look upon Him whom we have pierced will fill heart and eyes with godly sorrow for sin, and a holy mourning for and over a martyred, injured Lord. To see, by the eye of faith, as revealed to the soul by the power of God, the darling Son of God bound, scourged, buffeted, spit upon, mocked, and then, as the climax of cruel scorn and infernal cruelty, crucified between two thieves,—this believing sight, this fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, will melt the hardest heart into contrition and compunction.  But when we see, by the eye...