A few years back, I spent a couple of years reading a lot of John Flavel. He was (is) one of my favorite puritan authors. I haven’t read any of Flavel, to speak of, for the past 10 years but when I ran across this quote on Justin Taylor’s blog I was reminded of why I always loved reading Flavel. He always brought me to think much about Jesus.
John Flavel:
Christ [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is congregation or meeting-place of all waters in the world: so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. . . .
His excellencies are pure and unmixed; he is a sea of sweetness without one drop of gall.
—The Method of Grace, from Sermon XII.