We acknowledge no righteousness but what the obedience and satisfaction of Christ yields us. His blood, not our faith; his satisfaction, not our believing it, is the matter of our justification before God.
John FlavelIt is a common thing for men to benumb their own arms, and make them as dead and useless by leaning too much upon them: so it is in a moral as well as a natural way: all the prudence and pains in the world avail nothing without God. So saith the Psalmist, in Psalm cxxvii. 2.
John FlavelProvidence so orders the case, that faith and prayer come between our wants and supplies, and the goodness of God may be the more magnified in our eyes thereby.
John FlavelRegeneration expresses those supernatural, divine, new qualities imparted by the Spirit to the soul, which are the principle of all holy action.
John FlavelAh, did we but rightly understand what the demerit of sin is, we would rather admire the bounty of God than complain of the straithandedness of Providence. And if we did but consider that there lies upon God no obligation of justice or gratitud to reward any of our duties, it would cure our murmurs (Gen. 32:10).
John Flavel