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

"A door opened in heaven." -Revelation 4:1  [KJV] Lord! give me, as Thou didst to Thy servant John, a call to "come up hither," and by faith behold the glories which shall be revealed; and immediately I shall be in the spirit as he was, and so substantiate and realize, in present enjoyment, those felicities in Jesus, that this evening my soul will be, by happy faith, in the very suburbs of that blessed city, "which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God!" Is it not true, Lord, that all Thy possessions are mine? And shall I not take the map of them from scripture, and look over them with holy rapture and delight?   Do men of the earth take pride in their lands and manors; the very holding of which is precarious, even in the moment of possession, and which begin to slide from under their feet, as soon as they enter upon them; and shall not an heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ, rejoice in having a kingdom which cannot be moved? Come, my soul,...

"Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." - Luke 24:45 [KJV] Blessed opening, when He that hath the key of David puts in His hand by the hole of the door, and opens our heart to receive His own word. Then when we go to the Word of Truth, after it has come to us, our fingers drop with sweetsmelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock. It is said that "the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." O, to hear the voice of the Son of God in our hearts! Surely it shall make our dead hearts, cold frames, withering hopes, drooping love, dying faith, languishing prayers, and fainting minds live; yea, revive as the corn and grow as the vine.   What is all religion without a divine beginning, middle, and end, commencing, carried on, and accomplished with a heavenly power, supernatural life, and spiritual unction? Well may we be ashamed and sick of, and sorry for all our thoughts, words, and works, all ...

"Unto the pure, all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving, is nothing pure." -Titus 1:15  [KJV] An union with Christ brings with it the sweet and sanctified use and enjoyment of all things. My soul, ponder, this evening, what the apostle here saith, with an eye to this, and behold thy blessedness in Jesus . Every thing which comes into the account of what may be called real good, can be so no farther than as it is found and enjoyed in Christ. Creature comforts have nothing in them of good, but what is derived from the blessedness of the covenant in them. To the pure in Christ, all things are pure. His gracious leaven in them, leaveneth the whole lump. And wherefore is it, that to them that are in a state of unrenewed nature, being defiled and unbelieving, there is nothing pure; but because there is nothing of Christ in them? They, and all they have, are under the curse; for every thing is so out of Christ. It is Jesus which must put a blessing and a...

"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."   - Hebrews 6:19 [KJV] Anchors, you know, are made of different sizes. You may walk in the Queen's Dockyard, and there you may see anchors for a boat, and anchors for a three-decker. Yet all anchors are made in the same way, and are designed for the same purpose; and the little anchor that holds the boat is as useful and as much an anchor as that which holds the three-decker. So spiritually. There is hope in the heart of the babe. But the hope in the heart of a babe is but as the anchor of a boat; yet it holds that babe as firmly as the anchor holds the boat to which it is moored. But as the Lord increases hope, He increases the size of the anchor; and as the vessel and its anchor always bear a proportion to each other, so when He enlarges the size of the anchor He increases the size of the ship. Nay more, as He increases the size of the ship, He increases...

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy" -Psalm 137:5-6  [KJV] My soul! Sit down this evening, and contemplate the languishing state of Zion. Did ever the church of Christ lie in more desolate circumstances than now? Amidst a great profession of zeal for religion, how little possession of the divine life is to be met with among men! And who is there that seriously lays it to heart? For whom doth a throne of grace witness, that they are holy mourners for Zion, and are earnestly wrestling, night and day, with the Lord, that He would visit Zion, and make His glory to appear? Where is the priest, the minister of the Lord, that is weeping between the porch and the altar, and saying,  "Spare Thy people, O LORD! and give not Thine heritage to reproach?" (Joel 21:17) And where are the people that seriously lay it to heart?    ...

"O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles." - Psalm 43:3 [KJV] A living man cannot, in his right mind, bear the idea of standing still, that is to say, standing still so as to have no spiritual work going on within; and still less can he bear the idea of going backward. He wants to go forward. He is often dissatisfied with his state; he feels how little he knows; he is well certified of the shallowness of his attainments in the divine life, as well as of the ignorance and the blindness that are in him; and therefore, laboring under the feeling of his own shortcomings for the past, his helplessness for the present, and his ignorance for the future, he wants to go forward wholly and solely in the strength of the Lord , to be led, guided, directed, kept, not by the wisdom and power of the creature, but by the supernatural entrance of light and truth into his soul.   The mercy-seat is continually covered w...

"And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? " -Judges 15:18  [KJV] Here is a sweet thought, my soul, suggested in these words of Samson, and wilt thou not hope that the Holy Ghost may make it blessed to thy evening: meditation? The Lord had wrought a great deliverance for Samson, in the discomfiture of his enemies: and now on a renewed pressing occasion, he makes this the plea of looking up for being again delivered. "Thou hast given," saith he, "this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant, and shall I now die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?" As if he had said, "Shall my God cease to be God; or shall I now want His help, who hath always helped me in what has passed? Hath He begun to deliver; and will He now cease to do so?" Pause, my soul! And when th...