“They are flesh, a breath that passeth away and cometh not again.” (Psalm 78:39.)
Since, therefore, nothing is more weak or frail than our life, what means that confidence, as if our strength were deeply rooted? We ought therefore to cease from man; that is, we ought to lay aside groundless confidence; because man has his breath in his nostril, for when his breath goes out, he is immediately dissolved like water. We speak here of the breath of life, for nothing is more frail.
Besides, when we are forbidden to place confidence in men, let us begin with ourselves; that is, let us not in any respect trust to our own wisdom or industry. Secondly, let us not depend on the aid of man, or on any creature; but let us place our whole confidence in the Lord. Cursed. says Jeremiah, is he who trusteth in man, and who placeth his strength and his aid in flesh, that is, in outward resources. (Jeremiah 17:5.)
For wherein is he to be accounted of? This is the true method of repressing haughtiness. Nothing is left to men on which they ought to congratulate themselves; for the meaning is as if the Prophet had said that the whole glory of the flesh is of no value. It ought also to be observed that this is spoken comparatively, in order to inform us, that if there be in us anything excellent, it is not our own, but is held by us at the will of another. We know that God has adorned the human race with gifts which ought not to be despised. We know, also, that some excel others; but as the greater part of men neglect God, and flatter themselves beyond measure; and as irreligious men go so far as to think that they are more than gods, Isaiah wisely separates men from God, which the Holy Spirit also does in many other parts of Scripture: for when we look at them in themselves, we perceive more fully the frail, and fading, and transitory nature of their condition. Accordingly, as soon as men begin to make the smallest claim for themselves, they ought to have an opportunity of perceiving their vanity, that they may acknowledge themselves to be nothing. This single expression throws down the pompous applauses of free-will and merits, by which papists extol themselves in opposition to the grace of God. That intoxicated self-love, in which irreligious men indulge, is also shaken off. Lastly, we are brought back to God, the Author of every blessing, that we may not suppose that anything excellent is to be found but in hilly for he has not received what is due to hilly until the world has been stripped of all wisdom, and strength, and righteousness, and, in a word, of all praise.