Patrick Fairbairn on salvation being entirely of sovereign divine grace

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"...so here the prophet disclosed the utter absence of any personal claim on the Divine goodness, and showed that, whatever might henceforth be experienced, it must proceed from the upper spring of God’s own grace and righteousness. In himself alone could the Lord find the motive of benevolent action. And while this laid all human merit in the dust, it furnished, at the same time, a rich ground of consolation and hope, such as could not be found in any inferior consideration or fleshly confidence. For it carried the humble heart of faith above the very sins and backslidings which had caused the judgments of Heaven to alight, and presented to it a source of life and blessing, which even these could not stanch. And need we say, that as this was then the only hope of Israel, so now it is the one fountain-head of all the salvation that is experienced by the Christian? “Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but by his mercy, he saved us,” is the truth which is written on the threshold of faith, and which must pass into the experience of every sinner as he enters therein. No real life is attainable but such as carries in its bosom the death of all self-trust,and the renunciation of every personal claim on the goodness of God. And mortifying as this is to human pride, it yet provides the only solid and abiding peace for those w ho have come rightly to know the evil of sin; for it draws the soul up to God, and teaches it to form its expectations of good, not by any merit or demerit of its own, but by the large measures of God’s own free ands pontaneous beneficence, and the eternal principles of his high administration. The creature thus exchanges the vanity of a human ground for the infinite sufficiency of a Divine one, and the feebleness of an arm of flesh for the all prevailing might of omnipotence."

-- Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel and the Book of His Prophecy, commentary on Ezek. 36:22