'Voices From The Past' Vol. 1 — May 6

The Lord Jesus Christ with all his precious benefits, becomes ours by his special and effectual application. When the efficacy of Christ's death and resurrection are effectively applied to the heart of any man, he cannot but turn from sin to God. He becomes a new creature, living and acting by new principles and rules. He does not naturally have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. These come to him from outside himself, even from Christ who is made all this to a sinner. No creature comes into the world under more natural weakness than man. All our excellencies are borrowed excellencies (1 Cor. 4:7). What intolerable pride and vanity would it be for a man that wears the rich and costly robe of Christ's righteousness, to parade proudly up and down in the world as if he himself had made it. There is not one thread of his own spinning, but all was made by free grace. O man, all your excellencies are borrowed from Christ! Holy men take care when they view their own gracious principles, or their best performances, to disclaim themselves, and own free grace as the sole author of it all. Thus, holy Paul, in viewing the principles of the divine life in himself, denied the least part of the praise and glory as belonging to him: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me' (Gal. 2:20). When Paul, in a just and necessary defence, was constrained to mention the duties he performed for God (and what mere man ever did more for God than Paul?), how carefully he adds: ‘I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me’ (1 Cor, 15:10). Well then, let the sense of your own emptiness endear you all the more to Christ from whom you have received all.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Devotional Readings 'Voices From The Past Vol.1.'
John Flavel, Works, II:15-26
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