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

"...and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father." -Revelation 1:6 [KJV] Christ has done a great work for us. But does He only call us to believe it, and then leave us just as we were, under the dominion of sin, Satan, and the world? No. He not only washes us from our sins, which He hates, in His blood, but He also dignifies our person, which He loves, by His power. Hail Jesus, lavish of strange gifts to man! Thine all the glory; man’s the boundless bliss. O miracle of grace! Christ hath made us kings and priests.  (1st.) Kings to rule over sin, the world, death, and hell. Sin brought death into the world. Death reigned over all that sinned. But they who receive abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life, by one Jesus Christ (Romans 5:17.) O believer, do not you too often forget your real dignity? Then you do not honour your King of kings.  Consider, you are made a king to reign in life. A spiritual life, over all that i...

"I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine, of the juice of my pomegranate." -Song of Solomon 8:2 [KJV] What, my soul, hast thou aught to offer to thy Jesus? Will He accept a present at thine hand? Yes, Jesus will accept those goings forth of His own grace, His own gifts, in the exercises of faith, and love, and joy, and praise; when, by His own sweet and reviving communications, He hath called to the north wind, and to the south wind, to blow a gracious gale upon my soul, and causeth the very graces He Himself hath planted in my heart to send forth all their powers in the enjoyment of His person and righteousness. And do not forget, my soul, for thine encouragement to this lovely and becoming frame, these will be more grateful to thy God and Saviour than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. These will be indeed like spiced wine, and the juice of the pomegranate, when those tears of faith, and love, and repentance drop at the mercy-seat, in the contemplat...

"For we which have believed do enter into rest." -Hebrews 4:3 [KJV] To rest is to lean upon something. Is it not? So spiritually. We want to lean upon something. The Lord Himself has given us this figure. "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved?" The figure of "a rock" on which the Church is built, "the foundation" which God has laid in Zion, points to the same idea, that of leaning or dependence. Now when the soul comes to lean upon Jesus, and depend wholly and solely on Him, it enters into the sweetness of the invitation. Have we not leant upon a thousand things? And what have they proved? Broken reeds that have run into our hands, and pierced us. Our own strength and resolutions, the world and the church, sinners and saints, friends and enemies, have they not all proved, more or less, broken reeds? The more we have leant upon them, like a man leaning upon a sword, the more have they pierced ou...

The world may appear smiling and happy, but its appearances are deceitful. This is a world of sin and trouble. Here, thorns and thistles grow around us; painful emblems of the human heart, and of the sad change which passed on Adam at the fall. Everything here in this world is fickle and changing. If I rest my hopes upon an earthly friend, death removes the prop, and I fall, and mourn, and weep. If I place my confidence on riches, they fly away as an eagle towards heaven, and leave me to regret the folly of my covetous desires. If I build upon the breath of fame, it dies away, or changes into scorn or slander. If I repose upon the rosy couch of earthly comforts, however lawful and endearing, these lovely flowers will quickly fade, and leave me nothing but the thorns. Jesus is the only source of comfort; the only spring of joy.   -copied

O the beauty of the person of Jesus, when seen with the eye of faith by the illumination of the Holy Spirit! As the light of the morning, when the sun arises, "as a morning without clouds," is our Well-Beloved unto us. The sight of the burning bush made Moses put off his shoes, but the transporting vision of Jesus makes us put off all the world! When once He is seen we can discern no beauties in all other creatures in the universe. He, like the sun, has absorbed all other glories into His own excessive brightness. This is the pomegranate which love feeds upon, the flagon wherewith it is comforted. A sight of Jesus causes such union of heart  with Him, such goings' out of the affections  after Him, and such meltings of the spirit  towards Him, that its expressions often  appear to carnal men to be extravagant and  forced; when they are nothing but the free,  unstudied, and honest effusions of its lov e.   Carnal men are themselves ignorant...

" Unto Him Who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." -Revelation 1:5 [KJV] Paul denounces the most dreadful curse upon every one who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 16:22.) Why does any sinner love Christ? Because he believes the love of Christ to sinners. See the awful curses of unbelief. It rejects the love of Christ: It sets at nought His salvation: It seals the sinner under the curse of his sins, the wrath due to his sins; and binds him over to eternal damnation for his sins. But the unawakened sinner smiles at all this: For he does not believe one word of it. Lord, leave not my soul under this sin of sins, of all sins the most heinous and cursed! O help my unbelief!  (1st.) See the preciousness of faith. It works by love; even by the love of Christ manifested to us. It receives and embraces His love to the heart: there it works peace in the conscience, delight in God, access to God, boldness before God, joy in God, fel...

"I am God, and not man." -Hosea 11:9 [KJV] We speak sometimes of the attributes of God, and we use the words to help our conception. But God, strictly speaking, has no attributes. His attributes are Himself. We speak, for instance, of the love of God, but God is love; of the justice of God, but God is just; of the holiness of God, but God is holy; of the purity of God, but God is pure. As He is all love, so He is all justice, all purity, all holiness. Love, then, is infinite, because God is infinite; His very name, His very character, His very nature, His very essence is infinite love. He would cease to be God if He did not love, and if that love were not as large as Himself, as infinite as His own self-existent, incomprehensible essence. The love of the Son of God, as God the Son, is co-equal and co-eternal with the love of the Father; for the holy Trinity has not three distinct loves, either in date or degree. The Father loves from all eternity; the Holy Ghost...