That Is the Best Sermon

John Flavel, in The Fountain of Life, reflects on the excellency of Christ and its implications for preachers:

Certainly that is the highest commendation of a minister, to be an able minister of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit. He is the best artist, that can most lively and powerfully display Jesus Christ before the people, evidently setting him forth as crucified among them; and that is the best sermon, that is most full of Christ, not of art and language. I know that a holy dialect well becometh Christ’s ministers, they should not be rude and careless in language or method; but surely the excellency of a sermon lies not in that, but in the plainest discoveries and liveliest applications of Jesus Christ.