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

" And Israel said, It is enough ." -Genesis 45:28 [KJV] His soul seems fully satisfied with the Lord’s dealings and dispensations. He could ask no more. There was a perfect calm in his mind. He sings a sweet requiem to his soul. Like David, when he says, “return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the L ORD hath dealt bountifully with thee. For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the L ORD in the land of the living , ” (Psalm 116:7-9.)   Most precious resolution for such great bounties! Come, Christian, canst thou say with the hoary-headed patriarch, to-night, It is enough? What, could God have done more for me, which He hath not done? Could that one word, sounded in the ears of Jacob, “Joseph is yet alive,” cause such transports of joy to rush so suddenly upon him, as to be too impetuous to be resisted? How should that blessed word, Jesus is yet alive, transport thy soul? Was Joseph governor...

"Accepted in the Beloved. " -Ephesians 1:6 [KJV] We are ever looking for something in self to make ourselves acceptable to God, and are often sadly cast down and discouraged when we cannot find that holiness, that obedience, that calm submission to the will of God, that serenity of soul, that spirituality and heavenly-mindedness which we believe to be acceptable in His sight. Our crooked tempers, fretful, peevish minds, rebellious thoughts, coldness, barrenness and death, our alienation from good, and headlong proneness to ill, with the daily feeling that we get no better but rather worse, make us think that God views us just as we view ourselves. And this brings on great darkness of mind and bondage of spirit, till we seem to lose sight of our acceptance in Christ, and get into the miserable dregs of self, almost ready to quarrel with God because we are so vile, and only get worse as we get older. Now the more we get into these dregs of self, and the more we ke...

"And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." -I Corinthians 6:11 [KJV] It is profitable at times to see our mercies, and to trace them to their source, by considering what we once were, the better to apprehend what we now are. "Such," the apostle saith, when speaking of the vilest of the vile, "were some of you:" dead in trespasses and sins, hateful, and hating one another. But now, being washed from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, there is a justification by Christ, and a sanctification in Christ; and by the effectual work of God the Spirit in the heart, the believer stands complete before God, in the name of the Lord Jesus. This is a blessed testimony to the soul of the poor sinner, whom the Holy Ghost hath convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. For God the Father gave the promise, in the old testament...

" Then said one unto Him, Lord, are they few that be saved?" -Luke 13:23 [KJV] Peter’s fervent prayer, “Lord, save, or I perish!” was much better than this curious question. It was an unprofitable one. Suppose our Lord had given a direct answer to it, assured him there were but few that would be saved, and told him the exact number, what good would this querist have got by it?  Learn hence, (1st.) that unprofitable questions are to be avoided. They proceed from a vain curiosity, and are proposed to gratify the itch of a speculative humour. Indulge no thoughts in thy mind above, beyond, nor contrary to what is written. They may amuse and perplex, but cannot edify thy soul.  Observe, (2d.) the wisdom of thy Lord. He does not give a direct answer to this vain question, but improves it to general usefulness. As though He had said, Friend, thy question is impertinent. Thou art prying into a matter that concerns thee not! Thou hast a notion of salvation in thy head, ...

"Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." - Isaiah 28:17 [KJV] Wherever God the Holy Ghost begins and carries on a work of grace in the heart, He will weigh up, and mete out, from time to time, all a man's religion and try every inch of the way whether it lies straight and level with the Word and will of God. Depend upon it the Lord Who "weigheth the spirits" (Proverbs 16:2) , and by Whom "actions are weighed" (I Samuel 2:3) , will put into His righteous and unerring scales both nature and grace, both human and divine teaching, and make us know which is full weight in heaven's court. The religion of the present day is too much to confuse everything of an experimental nature; to cover and obscure the work of grace in the heart. But there can be no question that God will never suffer our religion, if, inde...

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you." -John 16:23 [KJV] My soul, do not fail to remark, in this blessed promise of thy Lord, how He hath secured the accomplishment of it. Here is a double verily if one will not do. And this is said by the faithful witness, and the amen of heaven. Had Jesus said but the words themselves, without a single verily, His bare word was enough to give confirmation to faith; but when He says, "Verily, verily," repeating it twice over, how gracious and condescending, as well as comforting and confirming, ought it to be to our dependance upon what He hath said. But the promise itself comes in with a blessed shall and will ; and that not to any limited request or petition, but extended to a whatsoever ; as if Jesus threw the reins of government into His people's hand. In some parts of scripture we find a may be for our encouragement. "It may be," said t...

" My soul followeth hard after Thee: Thy right hand upholdeth me." -Psalm 63:8 [KJV] David was no advocate for the merit of good works. He ascribes no glory to nature’s power and "free-will." Free-grace Paul says, “I laboured more abundantly than they all.” But he immediately corrects himself. “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me,” (I Corinthians 15:10.) So if David’s soul followed hard after God, he gives grace the honour of it: “Thy right hand upholdeth me.” This is the way both to improve and to enjoy lively frames of soul, to see and acknowledge the Lord’s hand to be the cause of them. O it is delightful when the soul follows hard after God.  For, (1st.) It implies such a discovery of the love and grace of the Lord, that the mind is fixed upon Him, the heart drawn out after Him, and the affections cleave unto Him. The language is, “What is there upon earth that I can desire beside Thee?” O, says the soul, “I am in His eyes as one...