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

     "Grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the ax of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf that they cannot hear Him, so dead that He Himself must open their graves and lift them into resurrection." -G. S. Bishop

"The heirs of promise."   -Hebrews 6:17 [KJV] Consider, (1st.) An heir of promise, is one who has no just right, or legal title, to an inheritance; but as it is ensured to him, by the promise of the owner: just so the Lord makes sinners, who have no right, or title, to this heavenly inheritance, a free promise that they shall be heirs to it.    (2d.) When was this promise made? Before the world began, God who cannot lie, promised eternal life , (see Titus 1:2.)     (3d.) To whom could the promise be made, seeing man was not then created? It was not made to man, but for man: not for any thing in man: nor does the promise receive any stability, by any thing done by men. It was made in the eternal council and covenant, by God the Father, to His co-equal Son; for and in behalf of all the heirs of God.    (4th.) Who are the heirs of promise? God knows every one of them. We know their name: it is sinner . In the fulness of time, He makes them manifest, an...

"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" -Hebrews 1:14 [KJV] My soul, art thou an heir of salvation? Think then of thy high privilege. "If," saith an apostle, "we are children, then heirs, yea, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ , " Romans 8:17. Though in this life, we be in a state of childhood, and, under age, yet by adoption and grace, we are made "heirs of God." Not like men of the world, in their earthly portions, where only one in a family can be the heir, and that the first-born; but all the church are included, for the church itself is called "the first-born which are written in heaven , " Hebrews 12:23. And in this heaven-born inheritance, thou hast, my soul, if thou be a child of God, a portion in God thy Father; for all His people are a nation of spiritual priests, who, like Aaron of old, "have the LORD for their portion , " Numbers 18:2...

"Having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." -I Timothy 4:8 [KJV] True religion lies deep; it is not a balloon hovering over us miles up in the air. It is like truth—it lies at the bottom of the well. We must go down, then, into religion, if we are to have it really in our hearts. The Lord Jesus Christ was "a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He took the lowest, last, and least place. He was always down; so that if we are to be companions with the Lord Jesus Christ, we must go down with Him—down into the valley, down into suffering, down into humiliation, down into trial, down into sorrow. When we get puffed up by worldly joy, or elated by carnal excitement, we do not sympathise with the Lord Jesus Christ in His suffering manhood; we do not go with Him then into the garden of Gethsemane, nor behold Him as "the Lamb of God" on the accursed tree.    We can do without Jesus very well when the world smiles, and carnal ...