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

"I will walk before the LORD, in the land of the living." -Psalm 116:9 [KJV] When the king confers the honour of knighthood, he bestows an empty title, and nothing more. But when the King of saints calls a poor sinner into His presence, He confers on him not a mere title of an empty sound, but He dignifies him with a nature: He makes him a new creature. These two different kinds of spirits are to be avoided.  (1st.) Such as under a great shew of holiness, deny the fundamental doctrines of grace.  (2d.) Those who make a vile abuse of those doctrines. In the former pride reigns. Over the latter, lusts have the dominion. David reproves both.  Under the lively sense of distinguishing mercy and sovereign grace, he here makes a holy resolution. “Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.” What then? Now all is safe and well, I will flee to the tents of ungodliness, and gratify my lusts. Is this his language? No, nor his c...

"I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." -Revelation 1:11 [KJV] My soul, if the precious meditation of yesterday be not wholly gone off from thy poor forgetful mind this day, here is another blessed view to revive the thought afresh, in looking at the Mediator, as the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, in the same covenant engagements.  Jesus is indeed, as the 8th verse of this same chapter expresses it, the Alpha and Omega, as one with the Father, over all, God blessed for ever. But He is also here the Alpha and Omega, as the Mediator, both God and man. For He is the first and the last of all God's thoughts, and in His covenant engagements, of all Jehovah's work; for every thing in creation begins and concludes in Him.  From everlasting He was set up. So that though Adam was the first man openly, yet not the first man secretly, and as subsisting in covenant engagements. Here again, as was remarked before, and from an authority not to be disp...

"...and patience of hope." -I Thessalonians 1:3 [KJV] What is meant by the expression "patience?" It means endurance; as though hope had to endure, faith to work, and love to labour. It is the "patience of hope" that proves its reality and genuineness. Hope does not go forward fighting and cutting its way. Hope is like a quiet sufferer, patiently bearing what comes upon it. Hope is manifested in enduring, as faith is manifested in acting. For instance: when the Lord hides His face, when testimonies sink out of sight, when signs are not seen, when Satan tempts, when the work of grace upon the soul seems to be all obscured, and in consequence a feeling of despondency begins to set in, then the "patience of hope" is needed to endure all things—not to give way, but to maintain its hold. It acts in the same way, according to the beautiful figure of Paul, as the anchor holds the ship . What is the main value, the chief requisite in the ...

"Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" -Song of Solomon 3:3 [KJV] An abrupt question. Very oddly stated. Had this enquirer no name for her beloved? Can she suppose every one she asks, knew who was the beloved of her soul, and was acquainted with her loss of him? The spouse of Christ here seems to be in great discomposure of mind.  Just like a tender mother, who had lost the beloved son of her womb: or an affectionate wife, in search after an indulgent husband; thinking every one has heard of her distress, asks with the utmost eagerness, have you seen him? O for more of this love of Christ in our souls!  Observe here, the actings of a gracious heart, under the sense of Christ’s withdrawing His comforting presence. That Christ, for wise and good ends best known to Himself, doth withdraw Himself, is a truth that has been experienced by all His saints. You have not been long married to Christ, if you have not taken up the words of the church of old, “Verily Thou art a God...

"The LORD possessed me in the beginning of His way: before His works of old, I was set up from everlasting."   -Proverbs 8:22, 23 [KJV] Pause, my soul, over those most blessed words, and see what glories are contained in them. May God the Spirit glorify Christ to thy view while pondering these words! Who is it that speaks them? Is it not wisdom! Even Christ, the wisdom of God, as the apostle elsewhere calls Him? But how was He possessed by the Lord, and how set up from everlasting?  Not openly in the human form, that He was in the fulness of time to take upon Him for the purpose of redemption; but, as it should seem, secretly, as subsisting in covenant engagements from everlasting.  Mediator, was it not? Not as yet made flesh, but if we may from another scripture draw the conclusion, "as the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature"   (Colossians 1:15.) What a glory, beheld in this view, doth this precious scripture, with all that fol...

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." -Matthew 5:5 [KJV] Spiritual poverty is a miserable feeling of soul-emptiness before God, an inward sinking sensation that there is nothing in our hearts spiritually good, nothing which can deliver us from the justly merited wrath of God, or save us from the lowest hell. And intimately blended with the poignant feelings of guilt and condemnation, there is a spiritual consciousness that there is such a thing enjoyed by the elect as the Spirit of adoption, that there are such sweet realities as divine manifestations, that the blood of Jesus Christ is sprinkled by the Holy Ghost upon the consciences of the redeemed to cleanse them from all guilt and filth.  And thus by comparing its own wants with their blessings, and having an inward light wherein the truth of God's word is seen, and an inward life whereby it is felt, a soul wading in the depths of spiritual poverty, is brought to feel that it must be the manifestation of the l...

When you were marching to hell! Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy (see I Timothy 1:13.) Literally, "I was bemercied ." Christians, why might not you have been in the number of those who persist in sinning? Because God has bemiracled you with mercy! See what cause you have to admire the stupendous goodness of God, who has wrought a change in you--and checked you in your full career of sin! Christians, you who are vessels of election, were by nature as wicked as others; but God had compassion on you and plucked you as brands out of the fire! He stopped you in your course of sinning-- when you were marching to Hell! He turned you back to Him by sincere repentance. Oh, here is the banner of love displayed over you! Behold sovereign grace! Let your hearts melt in love to God. Admire His royal bounty. Set the crown of all your praises, upon the Head of free grace! "By the grace of God I am what I am!"   -I...