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

"Ready to be revealed in the last time." -I Peter 1:5 [KJV] My soul, hast thou ever considered the very great and blessed things contained in these few words? Sit down, this evening, and look them over. Dost thou ask, What is ready to be revealed in the last time? The answer is direct. All the fulness, glory, grace, provision, peace, and everlasting happiness, that are in the covenant of redemption, and all centered in the person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou hast now but obscure views of Jesus, and His fulness, suitableness, and all-sufficiency. Thou hast believed indeed unto salvation, and art resting upon Christ for thy justification, and sanctification, and comfort; but of the fulness in which believers stand complete in Christ, no saint upon earth hath ever had a conception equal to what it really is. "Beloved, (saith John) now are we the sons of God! and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appe...

"Exercise thyself unto godliness."   -I Timothy 4:7   "The LORD trieth the righteous." -Psalm  11:5   In fact, a righteous life is for the most part a tried life. There is not a child of God, whose graces are lively and active, that is not tried in his soul. I have no more belief that the soul can live without exercise than that the body can. The more the soul is exercised, the healthier it will be. Trial is one main source of exercise. If you are tried as to your standing; tried as to your state; tried as to the reality of the work of grace upon your soul; tried as to your experience; tried as to your manifestations, deliverances, and evidences; tried by your sins; tried by Satan; tried by professors; tried by profane; and above all tried by your own heart, and that continually—it will keep your soul in exercise. And this is "exercise unto godliness."   If these exercises are unto godliness, they lead to godliness, they take you on your way t...

"Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself."   -Luke 24:39 [KJV] One Amintos had performed some valiant acts, and lost part of his arm in the field of battle for his country’s good. His brother Aechylus was about to be condemned to die. Amintos came into court, spake not a word, but only lifted up the stump of his arm without a hand: as though he had said, See what I have lost in my country’s cause! His silent oratory prevailed, and saved his brother’s life. What a much more affecting sight does our dear Lord now present to His disciples! He called upon them, He calls upon us to behold: they, by the eye of sense; we, by the eye of faith. Consider, the reasons for this;    (1st.) To compose and comfort their minds. They were terrified and affrighted. They took Him for a spirit. Christ is touched with a feeling of our infirmities. He sympathizes with us in all our troubles. One cause of them is misapprehension of the nature of Christ: we too often forg...