Chapter 1

Humility: The Glory of the Creature

"They shall cast their crowns before the throne, so saying: Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory, and
the honor and the power: for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they are, and were created. " --Rev. 4:11

When God created the universe, it was with the one object of making the creature partaker of His perfection and blessedness,
and so showing forth in it the glory of His love and wisdom and power. God wished to reveal Himself in and through created
beings by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable of receiving. But this
communication was not a giving to the creature something which it could possess in itself, a certain life or goodness, of which
it had the charge and disposal. By no means. But as God is the ever-living, ever-present, ever-acting One, who upholdeth all
things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, the relation of the creature to God could only be one of
unceasing, absolute, universal dependence. As truly as God by His power once created, so truly by that same power must
God every moment maintain. The creature has not only to look back to the origin and first beginning of existence, and
acknowledge that it there owes everything to God; its chief care, its highest virtue, its only happiness, now and through all
eternity, is to present itself an empty vessel, in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness.

The life God bestows is imparted not once for all, but each moment continuously, by the unceasing operation of His mighty
power. Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue
of the creature, and the root of every virtue.

And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. It was when the now fallen angels began to look
upon themselves with self-complacency that they were led to disobedience, and were cast down from the light of heaven into
outer darkness. Even so it was, when the serpent breathed the poison of his pride, the desire to be as God, into the hearts of
our first parents, that they too fell from their high estate into all the wretchedness in which man is now sunk. In heaven and
earth, pride, self-exaltation, is the gate and the birth, and the curse, of hell.[1]

Hence it follows that nothing can be our redemption, but the restoration of the 'lost humility, the original and only true relation
of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us.
In heaven He humbled Himself to become man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him, He
brought it, from there. Here on earth "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death"; His humility gave His death its
value, and so became our redemption. And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a
communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit, His own humility, as the ground and root of His
relation to God and His redeeming work. Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of man, as a creature, by His life
of perfect humility. His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility.

And so the life of the saved ones, of the saints, must needs bear this stamp of deliverance from sin, and full restoration to
their original state; their whole relation to God and man marked by an all-pervading humility. Without this there can be no true
abiding in God's presence, or experience of His favor and the power of His Spirit; without this no abiding faith, or love or joy or
strength. Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and
failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude
before God, and allows Him as God to do all.

God has so constituted us as reasonable beings, that the truer the insight into the real nature or the absolute need of a
command, the readier and fuller will be our obedience to it. The call to humility has been too little regarded in the Church
because its true nature and importance has been too little apprehended. It is not a something which we bring to God, or He
bestows; it is simply the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make
way for God to be all. When the creature realizes that this is the true nobility, and consents to be with his will, his mind, and
his affections, the form, the vessel in which the life and glory of God are to work and manifest themselves, he sees that
humility is simply acknowledging the truth of his position as creature, and yielding to God His place.

In the life of earnest Christians, of those who pursue and profess holiness, humility ought to be the chief mark of their
uprightness. It is often said that it is not so. May not one reason be that in the teaching and example of the Church, it has
never had that place of supreme importance which belongs to it? And that this, again, is owing to the neglect of this truth, that
strong as sin is as a motive to humility, there is one of still wider and mightier influence, that which makes the angels, that
which made Jesus, that which makes the holiest of saints in heaven, so humble; that the first and chief mark of the relation of
the creature, the secret of his blessedness, is the humility and nothingness which leaves God free to be all?

I am sure there are many Christians who will confess that their experience has been very much like my own in this, that we
had long known the Lord without realizing that meekness and lowliness of heart are to be the distinguishing feature of the
disciple as they were of the Master. And further, that this humility is not a thing that will come of itself, but that it must be
made the object of special desire and prayer and faith and practice. As we study the word, we shall see what very distinct and
oft-repeated instructions Jesus gave His disciples on this point, and how slow they were in understanding Him. Let us, at the
very commencement of our meditations, admit that there is nothing so natural to man, nothing so insidious and hidden from
our sight, nothing so difficult and dangerous, as pride. Let us feel that nothing but a very determined and persevering waiting
on God and Christ will discover how lacking we are in the grace of humility, and how impotent to obtain what we seek. Let us
study the character of Christ until our souls are filled with the love and admiration of His lowliness. And let us believe that,
when we are broken down under a sense of our pride, and our impotence to cast it out, Jesus Christ Himself will come in to
impart this grace too, as a part of His wondrous life within us.
Chapter 2
Humility: The Secret of Redemption

"Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who emptied Himself; taking the form of a servant; and humbled
Himself; becoming obedient even unto death. Wherefore God also highly exalted Him. "Phil. 2: 5-9.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Through all its existence it can only live with the life that was in the
seed that gave it being. The full apprehension of this truth in its application to the first and the Second Adam cannot but help
us greatly to understand both the need and the nature of the redemption there is in Jesus.

The Need. -- When the Old Serpent, he who had been cast out from heaven for his pride, whose whole nature as devil was
pride, spoke his words of temptation into the ear of Eve, these words carried with them the very poison of hell. And when she
listened, and yielded her desire and her will to the prospect of being as God, knowing good and evil, the poison entered into
her soul and blood and life, destroying forever that blessed humility and dependence upon God which would have been our
everlasting happiness. And instead of this, her life and the life of the race that sprang from her became corrupted to its very
root with that most terrible of all sins and all curses, the poison of Satan's own pride. All the wretchedness of which this world
has been the scene, all its wars and bloodshed among the nations, all its selfishness and suffering, all its ambitions and
jealousies, all its broken hearts and embittered lives, with all its daily unhappiness, have their origin in what this cursed,
hellish pride, either our own, or that of others, has brought us. It is pride that made redemption needful; it is from our pride we
need above everything to be redeemed. And our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge
of the terrible nature of the power that has entered our being.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. The power that Satan brought from hell, and cast into man's life, is
working daily, hourly, with mighty power throughout the world. Men suffer from it; they fear and fight and flee it; and yet they
know not whence it comes, whence it has its terrible supremacy. No wonder they do not know where or how it is to be
overcome. Pride has its root and strength in a terrible spiritual power, outside of us as well as within us; as needful as it is that
we confess and deplore it as our very own, is to know it in its Satanic origin. If this leads us to utter despair of ever conquering
or casting it out, it will lead us all the sooner to that supernatural power in which alone our deliverance is to be found--the
redemption of the Lamb of God. The hopeless struggle against the workings of self and pride within us may indeed become
still more hopeless as we think of the power of darkness behind it all; the utter despair will fit us the better for realizing and
accepting a power and a life outside of ourselves too, even the humility of heaven as brought down and brought nigh by the
Lamb of God, to cast out Satan and his pride.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Even as we need to look to the first Adam and his fall to know the
power of the sin within us, we need to know well the Second Adam and His power to give within us a life of humility as real
and abiding and overmastering as has been that of pride. We have our life from and in Christ, as truly, yea more truly, than
from and in Adam. We are to walk "rooted in Him," "holding fast the Head from whom the whole body increaseth with the
increase of God." The life of God which in the incarnation entered human nature, is the root in which we are to stand and
grow; it is the same almighty power that worked there, and thence onward to the resurrection, which works daily in us. Our
one need is to study and know and trust the life that has been revealed in Christ as the life that is now ours, and waits for our
consent to gain possession and mastery of our whole being.

In this view it is of inconceivable importance that we should have right thoughts of what Christ is, of what really constitutes
Him the Christ, and specially of what may be counted His chief characteristic, the root and essence of all His character as our
Redeemer. There can be but one answer: it is His humility. What is the incarnation but His heavenly humility, His emptying
Himself and becoming man? What is His life on earth but humility; His taking the form of a servant? And what is His
atonement but humility? "He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death." And what is His ascension and His glory,
but humility exalted to the throne and crowned with glory? "He humbled Himself, therefore God highly exalted Him." In
heaven, where He was with the Father, in His birth, in His life, in His death, in His sitting on the throne, it is all, it is nothing but
humility. Christ is the humility of God embodied in human nature; the Eternal Love humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of
meekness and gentleness, to win and serve and save us. As the love and condescension of God makes Him the benefactor
and helper and servant of all, so Jesus of necessity was the Incarnate Humility. And so He is still in the midst of the throne,
the meek and lowly Lamb of God.

If this be the root of the tree, its nature must be seen in every branch and leaf and fruit. If humility be the first, the all-including
grace of the life of Jesus,--if humility be the secret of His atonement,--then the health and strength of our spiritual life will
entirely depend upon our putting this grace first too, and making humility the chief thing we admire in Him, the chief thing we
ask of Him, the one thing for. which we sacrifice all else.[2]

Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often feeble and fruitless, when the very root of the Christ life is neglected, is
unknown? Is it any wonder that the joy of salvation is so little felt, when that in which Christ found it and brings it, is so little
sought? Until a humility which will rest in nothing less than the end and death of self; which gives up all the honor of men as
Jesus did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone; which absolutely makes and counts itself nothing, that God may be
all, that the Lord alone may be exalted,--until such a humility be what we seek in Christ above our chief joy, and welcome at
any price, there is very little hope of a religion that will conquer the world.

I cannot too earnestly plead with my reader, if possibly his attention has never yet been specially directed to the want there is
of humility within him or around him, to pause and ask whether he sees much of the spirit of the meek and lowly Lamb of God
in those who are called by His name. Let him consider how all want of love, all indifference to the needs, the feelings, the
weakness of others; all sharp and hasty judgments and utterances, so often excused under the plea of being outright and
honest; all manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation; all feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root
in nothing but pride, that ever seeks itself, and his eyes will be opened to see how a dark, shall I not say a devilish pride,
creeps in almost everywhere, the assemblies of the saints not excepted. Let him begin to ask what would be the effect, if in
himself and around him, if towards fellow-saints and the world, believers were really permanently guided by the humility of
Jesus; and let him say if the cry of our whole heart, night and day, ought not to be, Oh for the humility of Jesus in myself and
all around me! Let him honestly fix his heart on his own lack of the humility which has been revealed in the likeness of Christ's
life, and in the whole character of His redemption, and he will begin to feel as if he had never yet really known what Christ and
His salvation is.

Believer! study the humility of Jesus. This is the secret, the hidden root of thy redemption. Sink down into it deeper day by
day. Believe with thy whole heart that this Christ, whom God has given thee, even as His divine humility wrought the work for
thee, will enter in to dwell and work within thee too, and make thee what the Father would have thee be.
Chapter 3
Humility in The Life Of Jesus

"I am in the midst of you as he that serveth." Luke 22: 27

In the Gospel of John we have the inner life of our Lord laid open to us. Jesus speaks frequently of His relation to the Father,
of the motives by which He is guided, of His consciousness of the power and spirit in which He acts. Though the word humble
does not occur, we shall nowhere in Scripture see so clearly wherein His humility consisted. We have already said that this
grace is in truth nothing but that simple consent of the creature to let God be all, in virtue of which it surrenders itself to His
working alone. In Jesus we shall see how both as the Son of God in heaven, and as man upon earth, He took the place of
entire subordination, and gave God the honor and the glory which is due to Him-- And what He taught so often was made true
to Himself: "He that humbleth him: shall be exalted." As it is written, "He humbled Himself, therefore God highly exalted Him."

Listen to the words in which our Lord speaks of His relation to the Father, and how unceasingly He uses the words not, and
nothing, of Himself. The not I, in which Paul expresses his relation to Christ, is the very spirit of what Christ says of His
relation the Father.

"The Son can do nothing of Himself" (John 5: 19) "I can of My own self do nothing; My judgment is just, because I seek not
Mine own will" (John 5: 30) "I receive not glory from men" (John 5: 41) "I am come not to do Mine own will" (John 6:38) "My
teaching is not Mine" (John 7:16) "I am not come of Myself" (John 7:28) "I do nothing of Myself" (John 8:28) "I have not come
of Myself, but He sent Me" (John 8: 42). "I seek not Mine own glory" (John 8:50) "The words that I say, I speak not from
Myself" (John 14: 10). "The word which ye hear is not Mine" (John 14: 24).

These words open to us the deepest roots of Christ's life and work. They tell us how it was that the Almighty God was able to
work His mighty redemptive work through Him. They show what Christ counted the state of heart which became Him as the
Son of the Father. They teach us what the essential nature and life is of that redemption which Christ accomplished and now
communicates. It is this: He was nothing, that God might be all. He resigned Himself with His will and His powers entirely for
the Father to work in Him. Of His own power, His own will, and His own glory, of His whole mission with all His works and His
teaching, of all this He said, It is not I; I am nothing; I have given Myself to the Father to work; I am nothing, the Father is all.

This life of entire self-abnegation, of absolute submission and dependence upon the Father's will, Christ found to be one of
perfect peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving all to God. God honored His trust, and did all for Him, and then exalted Him
to His own right hand in glory. And because Christ had thus humbled Himself before God, and God was ever before Him, He
found it possible to humble Himself before men too, and to be the Servant of all. His humility was simply the surrender of
Himself to God, to allow Him to do in Him what He pleased, whatever men around might say of Him, or do to Him.

It is in this state of mind, in this spirit and disposition, that the redemption of Christ has its virtue and efficacy. It is to bring us
to this disposition that we are made partakers of Christ. This is the true self-denial to which our Savior calls us, the
acknowledgment that self has nothing good in it, except as an empty vessel which God must fill, and that its claim to be or do
anything may not for a moment be allowed. It is in this, above and before everything, in which the conformity to Jesus
consists, the being and doing nothing of ourselves, that God may be all.

Here we have the root and nature of true humility. It is because this is not understood or sought after, that our humility is so
superficial and so feeble. We must learn of Jesus, how He is meek and lowly of heart. He teaches us where true humility
takes its rise and finds its strength--in the knowledge that it is God who worketh all in all, that our place is to yield to Him in
perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves. This is the life Christ came to reveal
and to impart--a life to God that came through death to sin and self. If we feel that this life is too high for us and beyond our
reach, it must but the more urge us to seek it in Him; it is the indwelling Christ who will live in us this life, meek and lowly. If
we long for this, let us, meantime, above everything, seek the holy secret of the knowledge of the nature of God, as He every
moment works all in all; the secret, of which all nature and every creature, and above all, every child of God, is to be the
witness,--that it is nothing but a vessel, a channel, through which the living God can manifest the riches of His wisdom, power,
and goodness. The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but
what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.

It was because this humility was not only a temporary sentiment, wakened up and brought into exercise when He thought of
God, but the very spirit of His whole life, that Jesus was just as humble in His intercourse with men as with God. He felt
Himself the Servant of God for the men whom God made and loved; as a natural consequence, He counted Himself the
Servant of men, that through Him God might do His work of love. He never for a moment thought of seeking His honor, or
asserting His power to vindicate Himself. His whole spirit was that of a life yielded to God to work in. It is not until Christians
study the humility of Jesus as the very essence of His redemption, as the very blessedness of the life of the Son of God, as
the only true relation to the Father, and therefore as that which Jesus must give us if we are to have any part with Him, that
the terrible lack of actual, heavenly, manifest humility will become a burden and a sorrow, and our ordinary religion be set
aside to secure this, the first and the chief of the marks of the Christ within us.

Brother, are you clothed with humility? Ask your daily life. Ask Jesus. Ask your friends. Ask the world. And begin to praise
God that there is opened up to you in Jesus a heavenly humility of which you have hardly known, and through which a
heavenly blessedness you possibly have never yet tasted can come in to you.
Chapter 4
Humility in the Teaching of Jesus

"Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. "--Matt. xi. 29. "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant,
even as the Son of Man came to server." Matt.10:27.

We have seen humility in the life of Christ, as He laid open His heart to us: let us listen to His teaching. There we shall hear
how He speaks of it, and how far He expects men, and specially His disciples, to be humble as He was. Let us carefully study
the passages, which I can scarce do more than quote, to receive the full impression of how often and how earnestly He
taught it: it may help us to realize what He asks of us.

1. Look at the commencement of His ministry. In the Beatitudes with which the Sermon on the Mount opens, He
speaks:"Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the
earth." The very first words of His proclamation of the kingdom of heaven reveal the open gate through which alone we enter.
The poor, who have nothing in themselves, to them the kingdom comes. The meek, who seek nothing in themselves, theirs
the earth shall be. The blessings of heaven and earth are for the lowly. For the heavenly and the earthly life, humility is the
secret of blessing.

2. "Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls."Jesus offers Himself as Teacher. He
tells what the spirit both is, which we shall find Him as Teacher, and which we can learn and receive from Him. Meekness and
lowliness the one thing He offers us; in it we shall find perfect rest of soul. Humility is to be a salvation.

3. The disciples had been disputing who would be the greatest in the kingdom, and had agreed to ask the Master (Luke 9:46;
Matt. 18:3). He set a child in their midst and said, "Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, shall be exalted. " "Who
the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" The question is indeed a far-reaching one. What will be the chief distinction in the
heavenly kingdom? The answer, none but Jesus would have given. The chief glory of heaven, the true heavenly-mindedness,
the chief of the graces, is humility. "He that is least among you, the same shall be great."

4. The sons of Zebedee had asked Jesus to sit on His right and left, the highest place in the kingdom. Jesus said it was not
His to give, but the Father's, who would give it to those for whom it was prepared. They must not look or ask for it. Their
thought must be of the cup and the baptism of humiliation. And then He added, "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him
be your servant. Even as the Son of Man came to serve. " Humility, as it is the mark of Christ the heavenly, will be the one
standard of glory in heaven: the lowliest is the nearest to God. The primacy in the Church is promised to the humblest.

5. Speaking to the multitude and the disciples, of the Pharisees and their love of the chief seats, Christ said once again (Matt.
23:11), "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Humiliation is the only ladder to honor in God's kingdom.

6. On another occasion, in the house of a Pharisee, He spoke the parable of the guest who would be invited to come up
higher (Luke 14:1-11), and added, "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be
exalted." The demand is inexorable; there is no other way. Self-abasement alone will be exalted.

7. After the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, Christ spake again (Luke18: 14), "Everyone that exalteth himself shall
be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." In the temple and presence and worship of God, everything is
worthless that is not pervaded by deep, true humility towards God and men.

8. After washing the disciples' feet, Jesus said (John 13:14), "If I then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also
ought to wash one another's feet." The authority of command, and example, every thought, either of obedience or conformity,
make humility the first and most essential element of discipleship.

9. At the Holy Supper table, the disciples still disputed who should be greatest (Luke 22:26). Jesus said, "He that is greatest
among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. I am among you as he that serveth." The
path in which Jesus walked, and which He opened up for us, the power and spirit in which He wrought out salvation, and to
which He saves us, is ever the humility that makes me the servant of all.

How little this is preached. How little it is practiced. How little the lack of it is felt or confessed. I do not say, how few attain to
it, some recognizable measure of likeness to Jesus in His humility. But how few ever think, of making it a distinct object of
continual desire or prayer. How little the world has seen it. How little has it been seen even in the inner circle of the Church.

"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." Would God that it might be given us to believe that Jesus
means this! We all know what the character of a faithful servant or slave implies. Devotion to the master's interests, thoughtful
study and care to please him, delight in his prosperity and honor and happiness. There are servants on earth in whom these
dispositions have been seen, and to whom the name of servant has never been anything but a glory. To how many of us has
it not been a new joy in the Christian life to know that we may yield ourselves as servants, as slaves to God, and to find that
His service is our highest liberty,--the liberty from sin and self? We need now to learn another lesson,--that Jesus calls us to
be servants of one another, and that, as we accept it heartily, this service too will be a most blessed one, a new and fuller
liberty too from sin and self. At first it may appear hard; this is only because of the pride which still counts itself something. If
once we learn that to be nothing before God is the glory of the creature, the spirit of Jesus, the joy of heaven, we shall
welcome with our whole heart the discipline we may have in serving even those who try to vex us. When our own heart is set
upon this, the true sanctification, we shall study each word of Jesus on self-abasement with new zest, and no place will be too
low, and no stooping too deep, and no service too mean or too long continued, if we may but share and prove the fellowship
with Him who spake, "I am among you as he that serveth".
Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down! This was what Jesus ever said to the disciples who were
thinking of being great in the kingdom, and of sitting on His right hand and His left. Seek not, ask not for exaltation; that is
God's work. Look to it that you abase and humble yourselves, and take no place before God or man but that of servant; that
is your work; let that be your one purpose and prayer. God is faithful. Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so
the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless. He that humbleth
himself -- that must be our one care -- shall be exalted; that is God's care; by His mighty power and in His great love He will
do it.

Men sometimes speak as if humility and meekness would rob us of what is noble and bold and manlike. Oh that all would
believe that this is the nobility of the kingdom of heaven, that this is the royal spirit that the King of heaven displayed, that this
is Godlike, to humble oneself, to become the servant of all! This is the path to the gladness and the glory of Christ's presence
ever in us, His power ever resting on us.

Jesus, the meek and lowly One, calls us to learn of Him the path to God. Let us study the words we have been reading, until
our heart is filled with the thought: My one need is humility. And let us believe that what He shows, He gives; what He is, He
imparts. As the meek and lowly One, He will come in and dwell in the longing heart.
Chapter 5
Humility in the Disciples of Jesus

"Let him that is chief among you be as he that doth serve." --Luke 22:26.

We have studied humility in the person and teaching of Jesus; let us now look for it in the circle of His chosen
companions-the twelve apostles. If, in the lack of it we find in them, the contrast between Christ and men is brought out more
clearly, it will help us to appreciate the mighty change which Pentecost wrought in them, and prove how real our participation
can be in the perfect triumph of Christ's humility over the pride Satan had breathed into man.

In the texts quoted from the teaching of Jesus, we have already seen what the occasions were on which the disciples had
proved how entirely wanting they were in the grace of humility. Once, they had been disputing the way which of them should
be the greatest Another time, the sons of Zebedee with their mother had asked for the first places--the seat on the right hand
and the left. And, later on, at the Supper table on the last night, there was again a contention which should be accounted the
greatest. Not that there were not moments when they indeed humbled themselves before their Lord. So it was with Peter
when he cried out, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." So, too, with the disciples when they fell down and
worshiped Him who had stilled the storm. But such occasional expressions of humility only bring out into stronger relief what
was the habitual tone of their mind, as shown in the natural and spontaneous revelation given at other times of the place and
the power of self. The study of the meaning of all this will teach us most important lessons.

First,. How much there may be of earnest and active, religion while humility is still sadly wanting.--See it in the disciples.
There was in them fervent attachment to Jesus. They had forsaken all for Him. The Father had revealed to them that He was
the Christ of God. They believed in Him, they loved Him, they obeyed His commandments. They had forsaken all to follow
Him. When others went back, they clave to Him. They were ready to die with Him. But deeper down than all this there was a
dark power, of the existence and the hideousness of which they were hardly conscious, which had to be slain and cast out,
ere they could be the witnesses of the power of Jesus to save. It is even so still. We may find professors and ministers,
evangelists and workers, missionaries and teachers, in whom the gifts of the Spirit are many and manifest, and who are the
channels of blessing to multitudes, but of whom, when the testing time comes, or closer intercourse gives fuller knowledge, it
is only too painfully manifest that the grace of humility, as an abiding characteristic, is scarce to be seen. All tends to confirm
the lesson that humility is one of the chief and the highest graces; one of the most difficult of attainment; one to which our first
and chiefest efforts ought to be directed; one that only comes in power, when the fullness of the Spirit makes us partakers of
the indwelling Christ, and He lives within us.

Second, How impotent all external teaching and all personal effort is, to conquer pride or give the meek and lowly heart.--For
three years the disciples had been in the training school of Jesus. He had told them what the chief lesson was He wished to
teach them: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." Time after time He had spoken to them, to the Pharisees, to the
multitude, of humility as the only path to the glory of God. He had not only lived before them as the Lamb of God in His divine
humility, He had more than once unfolded to them the inmost secret of His life: "The Son of Man came not to be served, but
to serve"; "I am among you as one that serveth." He had washed their feet, and told them they were to follow His example.
And yet all had availed but little. At the Holy Supper there was still the contention as to who should be greatest. They had
doubtless often tried to learn His lessons, and firmly resolved not again to grieve Him. But all in vain. To teach them and us
the much needed lesson, that no outward instruction, not even of Christ Himself; no argument however convincing; no sense
of the beauty of humility, however deep; no personal resolve or effort, however sincere and earnest,--can cast out the devil of
pride. When Satan casts out Satan, it is only to enter afresh in a mightier, though more hidden power. Nothing can avail but
this, that the new nature in its divine humility be revealed in power to take the place of the old, to become as truly our very
nature as that ever was.

Third, It is only by the indwelling of Christ in His divine humility that we become truly humble. We have our pride from another,
from Adam; we must have our humility from Another too. Pride is ours, and rules in us with such terrible power, because it is
ourselves, our very nature. Humility must be ours in the same way; it must be our very self, our very nature. As natural and
easy as it has been to be proud, it must be, it will be, to be humble. The promise is, "Where," even in the heart, "sin
abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly." All Christ's teaching of His disciples, and all their vain efforts, were the
needful preparation for His entering into them in divine power, to give and be in them what He had taught them to desire. In
His death He destroyed the power of the devil, He put away sin, and effected an everlasting redemption. In His resurrection
He received from the Father an entirely new life, the life of man in the power of God, capable of being communicated to men,
and entering and renewing and filling their lives with His divine power. In His ascension He received the Spirit of the Father,
through whom He might do what He could not do while upon earth, make Himself one with those He loved, actually live their
life for them, so that they could live before the Father in a humility like His, because it was Himself who lived and breathed in
them. And on Pentecost He came and took possession. The work of preparation and conviction, the awakening of desire and
hope which His teaching had effected,was perfected by the mighty change that Pentecost wrought. And the lives and the
epistles of James and Peter and John bear witness that all was changed, and that the spirit of the meek and suffering Jesus
had indeed possession of them.

What shall we say to these things? Among my readers I am sure there is more than one class. There may be some who have
never yet thought very specially of the matter, and cannot at once realize its immense importance as a life question for the
Church and its every member. There are others who have felt condemned for their shortcomings, and have put forth very
earnest efforts, only to fail and be discouraged. Others, again, may be able to give joyful testimony of spiritual blessing and
power, and yet there has never been the needed conviction of what those around them still see as wanting. And still others
may be able to witness that in regard to this grace too the Lord has given deliverance and victory, while He has taught them
how much they still need and may expect out of the fullness of Jesus. To whichever class we belong, may I urge the pressing
need there is for our all seeking a still deeper conviction of the unique place that humility holds in the religion of Christ, and
the utter impossibility of the Church or the believer being what Christ would have them be, as long as His humility is not
recognized as His chief glory, His first command, and our highest blessedness. Let us consider deeply how far the disciples
were advanced while this grace was still so terribly lacking, and let us pray to God that other gifts may not so satisfy us, that
we never grasp the fact that the absence of this grace is the secret cause why the power of God cannot do its mighty work. It
is only where we, like the Son, truly know and show that we can do nothing of ourselves, that God will do all.

It is when the truth of an indwelling Christ takes the place it claims in the experience of believers, that the Church will put on
her beautiful garments and humility be seen in her teachers and members as the beauty of holiness.
Chapter 6
Humility in Daily Life

"He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"--1 John 4:20.

What a solemn thought, that our love to God will be measured by our everyday intercourse with men and the love it displays;
and that our love to God will be found to be a delusion, except as its truth is proved in standing the test of daily life with our
fellow-men. It is even so with our humility. It is easy to think we humble ourselves before God: humility towards men will be
the only sufficient proof that our humility before God is real; that humility has taken up its abode in us; and become our very
nature; that we actually, like Christ, have made ourselves of no reputation. When in the presence of God lowliness of heart
has become, not a posture we pray to Him, but the very spirit of our life, it will manifest itself in all our bearing towards our
brethren. The lesson is one of deep import: the only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in
prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignificance of daily life are the
importance and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most
unguarded moments that we really show and see what we are. To know the humble man, to know how the humble man
behaves, you must follow him in the common course of daily life.

Is not this what Jesus taught? It was when the disciples disputed who should be greatest; when He saw how the Pharisees
loved the chief place at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues; when He had given them the example of washing their
feet,--that He taught His lessons of humility. Humility before God is nothing if not proved in humility before men.

It is even so in the teaching of Paul. To the Romans He writes: "In honor preferring one another"; "Set not your mind on high
things, but condescend to those that are lowly." "Be not wise in your own conceit." To the Corinthians: "Love," and there is no
love without humility as its root, "vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not its own, is not provoked." To the Galatians:
"Through love be servants one of another. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another."
To the Ephesians, immediately after the three wonderful chapters on the heavenly life: "Therefore, walk with all lowliness and
meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love"; "Giving thanks always, subjecting yourselves one to another
in the fear of Christ." To the Philippians: "Doing nothing through faction or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting
other better than himself. Have the mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who emptied Himself, taking the form of a
servant, and humbled Himself." And to the Colossians: "Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness,
long-suffering, forebearing one another, and forgiving each other, even as the Lord forgave you." It is in our relation to one
another, in our treatment of one another, that the true lowliness of mind and the heart of humility are to be seen. Our humility
before God has no value, but as it prepares us to reveal the humility of Jesus to our fellow-men. Let us study humility in daily
life in the light of these words.

The humble man seeks at all times to act up to the rule, "In honor preferring one another; Servants one of another; Each
counting others better than himself, Subjecting yourselves one to another." The question is often asked, how we can count
others better than ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in holiness, in natural gifts, or in grace
received. The question proves at once how little we understand what real lowliness of mind is. True humility comes when, in
the, light of God, we have seen ourselves to be nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be all. The
soul that has done this, sand can say, So have I lost myself in finding Thee, no longer compares itself with others. It has given
up forever every thought of self in God's presence; it meets its fellow-men as one who is nothing, and seeks nothing for itself;
who is a servant of God, and for His sake a servant of all. A faithful servant may be wiser than the master, and yet retain the
true spirit and posture of the servant. The humble man looks upon every, the feeblest and unworthiest, child of God, and
honors him and prefers him in honor as the son of a King. The spirit of Him who washed the disciples' feet, makes it a joy to
us to be indeed the least, to be servants one of another.

The humble man feels no jealousy--or envy. He can praise God when others are preferred and blessed before him. He can
bear to hear others praised and himself forgotten, because in God's presence he has learnt to say with Paul, "I am nothing."
He has received the spirit of Jesus, who pleased not Himself, and sought not His own honor, as the spirit of his life.

Amid what are considered the temptations to impatience and touchiness, to hard thoughts and sharp words, which come from
the failings and sins of fellow-Christians, the humble man carries the oft-repeated injunction in his heart, and shows it in his
life, "Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as the Lord forgave you." He has learnt that in putting on the
Lord Jesus he has put on the heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering. Jesus has taken the
place of self, and it is not an impossibility to forgive as Jesus forgave. His humility does not consist merely in thoughts or
words of self-depreciation, but, as Paul puts it, in "a heart of humility," encompassed by compassion and kindness, meekness
and longsuffering,--the sweet and lowly gentleness recognized as the mark of the Lamb of God.

In striving after the higher experiences of the Christian life, the believer is often in danger of aiming at and rejoicing in what
one might call the more human, the manly, virtues, such as boldness, joy, contempt of the world, zeal, self-sacrifice,--even
the old Stoics taught and practiced these,--while the deeper and gentler, the diviner and more heavenly graces, those which
Jesus first taught upon earth, because He brought them from heaven; those which are more distinctly connected with His
cross and the death of self,--poverty of spirit, meekness, humility, lowliness,-are scarcely thought of or valued. Therefore, let
us put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering; and let us prove our Christlikeness, not only in
our zeal for saving the lost, but before all in our intercourse with the brethren, forbearing and forgiving one another, even as
the Lord forgave us.

Fellow-Christians, do let us study the Bible portrait of the humble man. And let us ask our brethren, and ask the world,
whether they recognize in us the likeness to the original. Let us be content with nothing less than taking each of these texts
as the promise of what God will work in us, as the revelation in words of what the Spirit of Jesus will give as a birth within us.
And let each failure and shortcoming simply urge us to turn humbly and meekly to the meek and lowly Lamb of God, in the
assurance that where He is enthroned in the heart, His humility and gentleness will be one of the streams of living water that
flow from within us. 1

(1- I knew Jesus, and He was very precious to my soul: but I found something in me that would not keep sweet and patient
and kind. I did what I could to keep it down, but it was there. I besought Jesus to do something for me, and when I gave Him
my will, He came to my heart, and took out all that would not be sweet, all that would not be kind, all that would not be patient,
and then He shut the door."--George Foxe)

Once again I repeat what I have said before. I feel deeply that we have very little conception of what the Church suffers from
the lack of this divine humility,--the nothingness that makes room for God to prove His power. It is not long since a Christian,
of an humble, loving spirit, acquainted with not a few mission stations of various societies, expressed his deep sorrow that in
some cases the spirit of love and forbearance was sadly lacking. Men and women, who in Europe could each choose their
own circle of friends, brought close together with others of uncongenial minds, find it hard to bear, and to love, and to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And those who should have been fellow-helpers of each other's joy, became a
hindrance and a weariness. And all for the one reason, the lack of the humility which counts itself nothing, which rejoices in
becoming and being counted the least, and only seeks, like Jesus, to be the servant, the helper and comforter of others, even
the lowest and unworthiest.

And whence comes it that men who have joyfully given up themselves for Christ, find it so hard to give up themselves for their
brethren? Is not the blame with the Church? It has so little taught its sons that the humility of Christ is the first of the virtues,
the best of all the graces and powers of the Spirit. It has so little proved that a Christlike humility is what it, like Christ, places
and preaches first, as what is in very deed needed, and possible too. But let us not be discouraged. Let the discovery of the
lack of this grace stir us to larger expectation from God. Let us look upon every brother who tries or vexes us, as God's
means of grace, God's instrument for our purification, for our exercise of the humility Jesus our Life breathes within us. And
let us have such faith in the All of God, and the nothing of self, that, as nothing in our own eyes, we may, in God's power, only
seek to serve one another in love.
Chapter 7
Humility and Holiness

"Which say, Stand by thyself... for I am holier than thou." --Isaiah 65: 5

We speak of the Holiness movement in our times, and praise God for it. We hear a great deal of seekers after holiness and
professors of holiness, of holiness teaching and holiness meetings. The blessed truths of holiness in Christ, and holiness by
faith, are being emphasized as never before. The great test of whether the holiness we profess to seek or to attain, is truth
and life, will be whether it be manifest in the increasing humility it produces. In the creature, humility is the one thing needed
to allow God's holiness to dwell in him and shine through him. In Jesus, the Holy One of God who makes us holy, a divine
humility was the secret of His life and His death and His exaltation; the one infallible test of our holiness will be the humility
before God and men which marks us. Humility is the bloom and the beauty of holiness.

The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility. Every seeker after holiness needs to be on his guard, lest
unconsciously what was begun in the spirit be perfected in the flesh, and pride creep in where its presence is least expected.
Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. There is no place or position so sacred
but the Pharisee can enter there. Pride can lift its head in the very temple of God, and make His worship the scene of its self
exaltation. Since the time Christ so exposed his pride, the Pharisee has put on the garb of the publican, and the confessor of
deep sinfulness equally with the professor of the highest holiness, must be on the watch. Just when We are most anxious to
have our heart the temple of God, we shall find the two men coming up to pray. And the publican will find that his danger is
not from the Pharisee beside him, who despises him, but the Pharisee within who commends and exalts. In God's temple,
when we think we are in the holiest of all, in the presence of His holiness, let us beware of pride. "Now there was a day when
the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them."

"God, I thank thee, I am not as the rest of men, or even as this publican." It is in that which is just cause for thanksgiving, it is
in the very thanksgiving which we render to God, it may be in the very confession that God has done it all, that self finds its
cause of complacency. Yes, even when in the temple the language of penitence and trust in God's mercy alone is heard, the
Pharisee may take up the note of praise, and in thanking God be congratulating himself. Pride can clothe itself in the
garments of praise or of penitence. Even though the words, "I am not as the rest of men" are rejected and condemned, their
spirit may too often be found in our feelings and language towards our fellow-worshipers and fellow-men. Would you know if
this really is so, just listen to the way in which Churches and Christians often speak of one another. How little of the
meekness and gentleness of Jesus is to be seen. It is so little remembered that deep humility must be the keynote of what the
servants of Jesus say of themselves or each other. Is there not many a Church or assembly of the saints, many a mission or
convention, many a society or committee, even many a mission away in heathendom, where the harmony has been disturbed
and the work of God hindered, because men who are counted saints have proved in touchiness and haste and impatience, in
self-defense and self-assertion, in sharp judgments and unkind words, that they did not each reckon others better than
themselves, and that their holiness has but little in it of the meekness of the saints? In their spiritual history men may have
had times of great humbling and brokenness, but what a different thing this is from being clothed with humility, from having an
humble spirit, from having that lowliness of mind in which each counts himself the servant of others, and so shows forth the
very mind which was also in Jesus Christ.

"Stand by; for I am holier than thou!" What a parody on holiness! Jesus the Holy One is the humble One: the holiest will ever
be the humblest. There is none holy but God: we have as much of holiness as we have of God. And according to what we
have of God will be our real humility, because humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all.
The holiest will be the humblest. Alas! though the bare-faced boasting Jew of the days of Isaiah is not often to be found, even
our manners have taught us not to speak thus, how often his spirit is still seen, whether in the treatment of fellow-saints or of
the children of the world. In the spirit in which opinions are given, and work is undertaken, and faults are exposed, how often,
though the garb be that of the publican, the voice is still that of the Pharisee: "Oh God, I thank Thee that I am not as other
men."

And is there, then, such humility to be found, that men shall indeed still count themselves "less than the least of all saints," the
servants of all? There is. "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not its own." Where the spirit of love is shed
abroad in the heart, where the divine nature comes to a full birth where Christ the meek and lowly Lamb of God is truly
formed within, there is given the power of a perfect love that forgets itself and finds its blessedness in blessing others, in
bearing with them and honoring them, however feeble they be. Where this love enters, there God enters. And where God has
entered in His power, and reveals Himself as All, there the creature becomes nothing. And where the creature becomes
nothing before God; it cannot be anything but humble towards the fellow-creature. The presence of God becomes not a thing
of times and seasons, but the covering under which the soul ever dwells, and its deep abasement before God becomes the
holy place of His presence whence all its words and works proceed.

May God teach us that our thoughts and words and feelings concerning our fellow-men are His test of our humility towards
Him, and that our humility before Him is the only power that can enable us to be always humble with our fellow-men. Our
humility must be the life of Christ, the Lamb of God, within us.

Let all teachers of holiness, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, and all seekers after holiness, whether in the closet or the
convention, take warning. There is no pride so dangerous, because none so subtle and insidious, as the pride of holiness. It
is not that a man ever says, or even thinks, "Stand by; I am holier than thou." No, indeed, the thought would be regarded with
abhorrence. But there grows up, all unconsciously, a hidden habit of soul, which feels complacency its attainments, and
cannot help seeing how far it is in advance of others. It can be recognized, not always in any special self-assertion or
self-laudation, but simply in the absence of that deep self-abasement which cannot but be the mark of the soul that has seen
the glory of God (Job 42: 5, 6; Isa.6: 5). It reveals itself, not only in words or thoughts, but in a tone, a way of speaking of
others, in which those who have the gift of spiritual discernment cannot but recognize the power of self. Even the world with
its keen eyes notices it, and points to it as a proof that the profession of a heavenly life does not bear any specially heavenly
fruits. O brethren! let us beware. Unless we make, with each advance in what we think holiness, the increase of humility our
study, we may find that we have been delighting in beautiful thoughts and feelings, in solemn acts of consecration and faith,
while the only sure mark of the presence of God, the disappearance of self, was all the time wanting. Come and let us flee to
Jesus, and hide ourselves in Him until we be clothed upon with His humility. That alone is our holiness.
Chapter 8
Humility and Sin

"Sinners, of whom I am chief."--1 Tim.1:15

Humility is often identified with penitence and contrition. As a consequence, there appears to be no way of fostering humility
but by keeping the soul occupied with its sin. We have learned, I think, that humility is something else and something more.
We have seen in the teaching of our Lord Jesus and the Epistles how often the virtue is inculcated without any reference to
sin. In the very nature of things, in the whole relation of the creature to the Creator, in the life of Jesus as He lived it and
imparts it to us, humility is the very essence of holiness as of blessedness. It is the displacement of self by the enthronement
of God. Where God is all, self is nothing.

But though it is this aspect of the truth I have felt it specially needful to press, I need scarce say what new depth and intensity
man's sin and God's grace give to the humility of the saints. We have only to look at a man like the Apostle Paul, to see how,
through his life as a ransomed and a holy man, the deep consciousness of having been a sinner lives inextinguishably. We all
know the passages in which he refers to his life as a persecutor and blasphemer. "I am the least of the apostles, that am not
worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God ...I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I,
but the grace of God which was with me" (I Cor. 15: 9,10). "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace
given, to preach to the heathen" (Eph.3: 8). "I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; howbeit I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief ...Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief" (1
Tim.1:13,15). God's grace had saved him; God remembered his sins no more for ever; but never, never could he forget how
terribly he had sinned. The more he rejoiced in God's salvation, and the more his experience of God's grace filled him with joy
unspeakable, the clearer was his consciousness that he was a saved sinner, and that salvation had no meaning or sweetness
except as the sense of his being a sinner made it precious and real to him. Never for a moment could he forget that it was a
sinner God had taken up in His arms and crowned with His love.

The texts we have just quoted are often appealed to as Paul's confession of daily sinning. One has only to read them
carefully in their connection, to see how little this is the case. They have a far deeper meaning, they refer to that which lasts
throughout eternity, and which will give its deep undertone of amazement and adoration to the humility with which the
ransomed bow before the throne, as those who have been washed from their sins in the blood of the Lamb. Never, never,
even in, glory, can they be other than ransomed sinners; never for a moment in this life can God's child live in the full light of
His love, but as he feels that the sin, out of which he has been saved, is his one only right and title to all that grace has
promised to do. The humility with which first he came as a sinner, acquires a new meaning when he learns how it becomes
him as a creature. And then ever again, the humility, in which he was born as a creature, has its deepest, richest tones of
adoration, in the memory of what it is to be a monument of God's wondrous redeeming love.

The true import of what these expressions of St. Paul teach us comes out all the more strongly when we notice the
remarkable fact that, through his whole Christian course, we never find from his pen, even in those epistles in which we have
the most intensely personal unbosomings, anything like confession of sin. Nowhere is there any mention of shortcoming or
defect, nowhere any suggestion to his readers that he has failed in duty, or sinned against the law of perfect love. On the
contrary, there are passages not a few in which he vindicates himself in language that means nothing if it does not appeal to
a faultless life before God and men. "Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and righteously, and unblamably we
behaved ourselves toward you" (1 Thess.2:10). "Our glorying is this, this testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and
sincerity of God we .behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you ward" (2 Cor.1:12). This is not an ideal or
an aspiration; it is an appeal to what his actual life had been. However we may account for this absence of confession of sin,
all will admit that it must point to a life in the power of the Holy Ghost, such as is but seldom realized or expected in these our
days.

The point which I wish to emphasize is this--that the very fact of the absence of such confession of sinning only gives the
more force to the truth that it is not in daily sinning that the secret of the deeper humility will be found, but in the habitual,
never for a moment to be forgotten position, which just the more abundant grace will keep more distinctly alive, that our only
place,, the only place of blessing, our one abiding position before God, must be that of those whose highest joy it is to
confess that they are sinners saved by grace.

With Paul's deep remembrance of having sinned so terribly in the past, ere grace had met him, and the consciousness of
being kept from present sinning, there was ever coupled the abiding remembrance of the dark hidden power of sin ever ready
to come in, and only kept out by the presence and power of the indwelling Christ. "In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing;"--these words of Rom. 7 describe the flesh as it is to the end. The glorious deliverance of Rom.8--"The law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus hath now made me free from the law of sin, which once led me captive"--is neither the annihilation nor
the sanctification of the flesh, but a continuous victory given by the Spirit as He mortifies the deeds of the body. As health
expels disease, and light swallows up darkness, and life conquers death, the indwelling of Christ through the Spirit is the
health and light and life of the soul. But with this, the conviction of helplessness and danger ever tempers the faith in the
momentary and unbroken action of the Holy Spirit into that chastened sense of dependence which makes the highest faith
and joy the handmaids of a humility that only lives by the grace of God.

The three passages above quoted all show that it was the wonderful grace bestowed upon Paul, and of which he felt the need
every moment, that humbled him so deeply. The grace of God that was with him, and enabled him to labor more abundantly
than they all; the grace to preach to the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ; the grace that was exceeding abundant
with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus, it was this grace of which it is the very nature and glory that it is for sinners, that
kept the consciousness of his having once sinned, and being liable to sin, so intensely alive. "Where sin abounded, grace did
abound more exceedingly." This reveals how the very essence of grace is to deal with and take away sin, and how it must
ever be the more abundant the experience of grace, the more intense the consciousness of being a sinner. It is not sin, but
God's grace showing a man and ever reminding him what a sinner he was, that, will keep him truly humble. It is not sin, but
grace, that will make me indeed know myself a sinner, and-- make the sinner's place of deepest self-abasement the place I
never leave.

I fear that there are not a few who, by strong expressions of self-condemnation and self-denunciation, have sought to humble
themselves, and have to confess with sorrow that a humble spirit, a "heart of humility," with its accompaniments of kindness
and compassion, of meekness and forbearance, is still as far off as ever. Being occupied with self, even amid the deepest
self-abhorrence, can never free us from self. It is the revelation of God, not only by the law condemning sin but by His grace
delivering from it, that will make us humble. The law may break the heart with fear; it is only grace that works that sweet
humility which becomes a joy to the soul as its second nature. It was the revelation of God in His holiness, drawing nigh to
make Himself known in His grace, that made Abraham and Jacob, Job and Isaiah, bow so low. It is the soul in which God the
Creator, as the All of the creature in its nothingness, God the Redeemer in His grace, as the All of the sinner in his sinfulness,
is waited for and trusted and worshiped, that will find itself so filled with His presence, that there will be no place for self. So
alone can the promise be fulfilled: "The haughtiness of man shall be brought low, and the Lord alone be exalted in that day."

It is the sinner dwelling in the full light of God's holy, redeeming love, in the experience of that full indwelling of divine love,
which comes through Christ and the Holy Spirit, who cannot but be humble. Not to be occupied with thy sin, but to be
occupied with God, brings deliverance from self.
Chapter 9
Humility and Faith

"How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another, and the glory that cometh from the only God ye seek not?"--John
5: 44

In an address I lately heard, the speaker said that the blessings of the higher Christian life were often like the objects exposed
in a shop window,--one could see them clearly and yet could not reach them. If told to stretch out his hand and take, a man
would answer, I cannot; there is a thick pane of plate-glass between me and them. And even so Christians may see clearly
the blessed promises of perfect peace and rest, of overflowing love and joy, of abiding communion and fruitfulness, and yet
feel that there was something between hindering the true possession. And what might that be? Nothing but pride. The
promises made to faith are so free and sure; the invitations and encouragements so strong; the mighty power of God on
which it may count is so near and free,--that it can only be something that hinders faith that hinders the blessing being ours. In
our text Jesus discovers to us that it is indeed pride that makes faith impossible. "How can ye believe, which receive glory
from one another?" As we see how in their very nature pride and faith are irreconcilably at variance, we shall learn that faith
and humility are at root one, and that we never can have more of true faith than we have of true humility; we shall see that we
may indeed have strong intellectual conviction and assurance of the truth while pride is kept in the heart, but that it makes the
living faith, which has power with God, an impossibility.

We need only think for a moment what faith is. Is it not the confession of nothingness and helplessness, the surrender and
the waiting to let God work? Is it not in itself the most humbling thing there can be, the acceptance of our place as
dependents, who can claim or get or do nothing but what grace bestows?! Humility is 'simply the disposition which prepares
the soul for living on trust. And every, even the most secret breathing of pride, in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, or self
exaltation, is just the strengthening of that self which cannot enter the kingdom, or possess the things of the kingdom,
because it refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be there-- the All in All.

Faith is the organ or sense for the perception and apprehension of the heavenly world and its blessings. Faith seeks .the
glory that comes from God, that only comes where God is All. As long as we take glory from one another, as long as ever we
seek and love and jealously guard the glory of this life, the honor and reputation that comes from men, we do not seek, and
cannot receive the glory that comes from God. Pride renders faith impossible. Salvation comes through a cross and a
crucified Christ. Salvation is the fellowship with the crucified Christ in the Spirit of His cross. Salvation is union with and
delight in, salvation is participation in, the humility of Jesus. Is it wonder that our faith is so feeble when pride still reigns so
much, and we have scarce learnt even to long or pray for humility as the most needful and blessed part of salvation?

Humility and faith are more nearly allied in Scripture than many know. See it in the life of Christ. There are two cases in which
He spoke of a great faith. Had not the centurion, at whose faith He marveled, saying, "I have not found so great faith, no, not
in Israel!" spoken, "I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof"? And had not the mother to whom He spoke, "O
woman, great is thy faith!" accepted the name of dog, and said, "Yea, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs'? It is the humility
that brings a soul to be nothing before God, that also removes every hindrance to faith, and makes it only fear lest it should
dishonor Him by not trusting Him wholly.

Brother, have we not here the cause of failure in the pursuit of holiness? Is it not this, though we knew it not, that made our
consecration and our faith so superficial and so short-lived? We had no idea to what an extent pride and self were still
secretly working within us, and how alone God by His incoming and His mighty power could cast them out. We understood
not how nothing but the new and divine nature, taking entirely the place of the old self, could make us really humble. We
knew not that absolute, unceasing, universal humility must be the root-disposition of every prayer and every approach to God
as well as of every dealing with man; and that we might as well attempt to see without eyes, or live without breath, as believe
or draw nigh to God or dwell in His love, without an all-pervading humility and lowliness of heart.

Brother, have we not been making a mistake in taking so much trouble to believe, while all the time there was the old self in
its pride seeking to possess itself of God's blessing and riches? No wonder we could not believe. Let us change our course.
Let us seek first of all to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God: He will exalt us. The cross, and the death, and the
grave, into which Jesus humbled Himself, were His path to the glory of God. And they are our path. Let our one desire and
our fervent prayer be, to be humbled with Him and like Him; let us accept gladly whatever can humble us before God or men;
-- this alone is the path to the glory of God.

You perhaps feel inclined to ask a question. I have spoken of some who have blessed experiences, or are the means of
bringing blessing to others, and yet are lacking in humility. You ask whether these do not prove that they have true, even
strong faith, though they show too clearly that they still seek too much the honor that cometh from men. There is more than
one answer can be given. But the principal answer in our present connection is this: They indeed have a measure of faith, in
proportion to which, with the special gifts bestowed upon them, is the blessing they bring to others. But in that very blessing
the work of their faith is hindered, through the lack of humility. The blessing is often superficial or transitory, just because they
are not the nothing that opens the way for God to be all. A deeper humility would without doubt bring a deeper and fuller
blessing. The Holy Spirit not only working in them as a Spirit of power, but dwelling in them in the fullness of His grace, and
specially that of humility, would through them communicate Himself to these converts for a life of power and holiness and
steadfastness now all too little seen.

"How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another?" Brother! nothing can cure you of the desire of receiving glory
from men, or of the sensitiveness and pain and anger which come when it is not given, but giving yourself to seek only the
glory that comes from God. Let the glory of the All-glorious God be everything to you. You will be freed from the glory of men
and of self, and be content and glad to be nothing. Out of this nothingness you will grow strong in faith, giving glory to God,
and you will find that the deeper you sink in humility before Him, the nearer He is to fulfill the every desire of your Faith.
Chapter 10
Humility and Death to Self

"He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death." --Phil.2: 8.

Humility is the path to death, because in death it gives the highest proof of its perfection. Humility is the blossom of which
death to self is the perfect fruit. Jesus humbled Himself unto death, and opened the path in which we too must walk. As there
was no way for Him to prove His surrender to God to the very uttermost, or to give up and rise out of our human nature to the
glory of the Father but through death, so with us too. Humility must lead us to die to self; so we prove how wholly we have
given ourselves up to it and to God; so alone we are freed from fallen nature, and find the path that leads to life in God, to that
full birth of the new nature, of which humility is the breath and joy.

We have spoken of what Jesus did for His disciples when He communicated His resurrection life to them, when in the
descent of the Holy Spirit He, the glorified and enthroned Meekness, actually came from heaven Himself to dwell in them. He
won the power to do this through death: in its inmost nature the life He imparted was a life out of death, a life that had been
surrendered to death, and been won through death. He who came to dwell in them was Himself One who had been dead and
now lives for evermore. His life, His person, His presence, bear the marks of death, of being a life begotten out of death. That
life in His disciples ever bears the death-marks too; it is only as the Spirit of the death, of the dying One, dwells and works in
the soul, that the power of His life can be known. The first and chief of the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus, of the
death-marks that show the true follower of Jesus, is humility. For these two reasons: Only humility leads to perfect death;
Only death perfects humility. Humility and death are in their very nature one: humility is the bud; in death the fruit is ripened to
perfection.

Humility leads to perfect death. Humility means the giving up of self and the taking of the place of perfect nothingness before
God. Jesus humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. In death He gave the highest, the perfect proof of having
given up His will to the will of God. In death He gave up His self, with its natural reluctance to drink the cup; He gave up the
life He had in union with our human nature; He died to self, and the sin that tempted Him; so, as man, He entered into the
perfect life of God. If it had not been for His boundless humility, counting Himself as nothing except as a servant to do and
suffer the will of God, He never would have died.

This gives us the answer to the question so often asked, and of which the meaning is so seldom clearly apprehended: How
can I die to self? The death to self is not your work, it is God's work. In Christ you are dead to sin. The life there is in you has
gone through the process of death and resurrection; you may be sure you are indeed dead to sin. But the full manifestation of
the power of this death in your disposition and conduct depends upon the measure in which the Holy Spirit imparts the power
of the death of Christ And here it is that the teaching is needed: if you would enter into full fellowship with Christ in His death,
and know the full deliverance from self, humble yourself. This is your one duty. Place yourself before God in your utter
helplessness; consent heartily to the fact of your impotence to slay or make alive yourself; sink down into your own
nothingness, in the spirit of meek and patient and trustful surrender to God. Accept every humiliation, look upon every
fellow-man who tries or vexes you, as a means of grace to humble you. Use every opportunity of humbling yourself before
your fellow-men as a help to abide humble before God. God will accept such humbling of yourself as the proof that your
whole heart desires it, as the very best prayer for it, as your preparation for His mighty work of grace, when, by the mighty
strengthening of His Holy Spirit, He reveals Christ fully in you, so that He, in His form of a servant, is truly formed in you, and
dwells in your heart. It is the path of humility which leads to perfect death, the full and perfect experience that we are dead in
Christ.

Then follows: Only this death leads to perfect humility. Oh, beware of the mistake so many make, who would fain be humble,
but are afraid to be too humble. They have so many qualifications and limitations, so many reasonings and questionings, as
to what true humility is to be and to do, that they never unreservedly yield themselves to it. Beware of this. Humble yourself
unto the death. It is in the death to self that humility is perfected. Be sure that at the root of all real experience of more grace,
of all true advance in consecration, of all actually increasing conformity to the likeness of Jesus, there must be a deadness to
self that proves itself to God and men in our dispositions and habits. It is sadly possible to speak of the death-life and the
Spirit-walk, while even the tenderest love cannot but see how much there is of self. The death to self has no surer death-mark
than a humility which makes itself of no reputation, which empties out itself, and takes the form of a servant. It is possible to
speak much and honestly of fellowship with a despised and rejected Jesus, and of bearing His cross, while the meek and
lowly, the kind and gentle humility of the Lamb of God is not seen, is scarcely sought. The Lamb of God means two
things--meekness and death. Let us seek to receive Him in both forms. In Him they are inseparable: they must be in us too.

What a hopeless task if we had to do the work! Nature never can overcome nature, not even with the help of grace. Self can
never cast out self, even in the regenerate man. Praise God! the work has been done, and finished and perfected for ever.
The death of Jesus, once and forever, is our death to self. And the ascension of Jesus, His entering once and for ever into the
Holiest, has given us the Holy Spirit to communicate to us in power, and make our very own, the power of the death-life. As
the soul, in the pursuit and practice of humility, follows in the steps of Jesus, its consciousness of the need of something more
is awakened, its desire and hope is quickened, its faith is strengthened, and it learns to look up and claim and receive that
true fullness of the Spirit of Jesus, which can daily maintain His death to self and sin in its full power, and make humility the all
pervading spirit of our life.(See note at end of this chapter.)

"Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Reckon yourselves to be dead
unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Present yourself unto God, as alive from the dead. " The whole
self-consciousness of the Christian is to be imbued and characterized by the spirit that animated the death of Christ. He has
ever to present himself to God as one who has died in Christ, and in Christ is alive from the dead, bearing about in his body
the dying of the Lord Jesus. His life ever bears the two-fold mark: its roots striking in true humility deep into the grave of
Jesus, the death to sin and self; its head lifted up in resurrection power to the heaven where Jesus is.
Believer, claim in faith the death and the life of Jesus as thine. Enter in His grave into the rest from self and its work -- the rest
of God. With Christ, who committed His spirit into the Father's hands, humble thyself and descend each day into that perfect,
helpless dependence upon God. God will raise thee up and exalt thee. Sink every morning in deep, deep nothingness into the
grave of Jesus; every day the life of Jesus will be manifest in thee, Let a willing, loving, restful, happy humility be the mark
that thou hast indeed claimed thy birthright -- the baptism into the death of Christ. "By one offering He has perfected for ever
them that are sanctified."The souls that enter into His humiliation will find in Him the power to see and count self dead, and,
as those who have learned and received of Him, to walk with all lowliness and meekness, forbearing one another in love. The
death-life is seen in a meekness and lowliness like that of Christ.

Note: "To die to self, or come from under its power, is not, cannot be done, by any active resistance we can make to it by the
powers of nature. The one true way of dying to self is the way of patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God. This is
the truth and perfection of dying to self ... For if I ask you what the Lamb of God means, must you not tell me that it is and
means the perfection of patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God? Must you not therefore say that a desire and
faith in these virtues is an application to Christ, is a giving up yourself to Him and the perfection of faith in Him? And then,
because this inclination of your heart to sink down in patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God, is truly giving up
all that you are and all that you have from fallen Adam, it is perfectly leaving all you have to follow Christ; it is your highest act
of faith in Him. Christ is nowhere but in these virtues; when they are there, He is in His own kingdom. Let this be the Christ
you follow.

"The Spirit of divine love can have no birth in any fallen creature, until it wills and chooses to be dead to all self, in a patient,
humble resignation to the power and mercy of God. "I seek for all my salvation through the merits and mediation of the meek,
humble, patient, suffering Lamb of God, who alone hath power to bring forth the blessed birth of these heavenly virtues in my
soul. There is no possibility of salvation but in and by the birth of the meek, humble, patient, resigned Lamb of God in our
souls. When the Lamb of God hath brought forth a real birth of His own meekness, humility, and full resignation to God in our
souls, then it is the birthday of the Spirit of love in our souls, which, whenever we attain, will feast our souls with such peace
and joy in God as will blot out the remembrance of everything that we called peace or joy before.

"This way to God is infallible. This infallibility is grounded in the twofold character of our Savior: 1. As He is the Lamb of God,
a principle of all meekness and humility in the soul; 2. As He is the Light of heaven, and blesses eternal nature, and turns it
into a kingdom of heaven. When we are willing to get rest to our souls in meek, humble resignation to God, then it is that He,
as the Light of God and heaven, joyfully breaks in upon us, turns our darkness into light, and begins that kingdom of God and
of love within us, which will never have an end." -- William Law
Chapter 11
Humility and Happiness

"Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the strength of Christ may rest upon me. Wherefore I take
pleasure in weakness: for when I am weak then am I strong." --2 Cor.12:9,10.

Lest Paul should exalt himself, by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was sent him to
keep him humble. Paul's first desire was to have it removed, and he besought the Lord thrice that it might depart. The answer
came that the trial was a blessing; that, in the weakness and humiliation it brought, the grace and strength of the Lord could
be the better manifested. Paul at once entered upon a new stage in his relation to the trial: instead of simply enduring it, he
most gladly gloried in it; instead of asking for deliverance, he took pleasure in it. He had learned that the place of humiliation
is the place of blessing, of power, of joy.

Every Christian virtually passes through these two stages in his pursuit of humility. In the first he fears and flees and seeks
deliverance from all that can humble him. He has not yet learnt to seek humility at any cost. He has accepted the command to
be humble, and seeks to obey it, though only to find how utterly he fails. He prays for humility, at times very earnestly; but in
his secret heart he prays more, if not in word, then in wish, to be kept from the very things that will make him humble. He is
not yet so in love with humility as the beauty of the Lamb of God, and the joy of heaven, that he would sell all to procure it. In
his pursuit of it, and his prayer for it, there is still somewhat of a sense of burden and of bondage; to humble himself has not
yet become the spontaneous expression of a life and a nature that is essentially humble. It has not yet become his joy and
only pleasure. He cannot yet say, "Most gladly do I glory in weakness, I take pleasure in whatever humbles me."

But can we hope to reach the stage in which this will be the case? Undoubtedly. And what will it be that brings us there? That
which brought Paul there -- a new revelation of the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the presence of God can reveal and expel self. A
clearer insight was to be given to Paul into the deep truth that the presence of Jesus will banish every desire to seek anything
in ourselves, and will make us delight in every humiliation that prepares us for His fuller manifestation. Our humiliations lead
us, in the experience of the presence and power of Jesus, to choose humility as our highest blessing. Let us try to learn the
lessons the story of Paul teaches us.

We may have advanced believers, eminent teachers, men of heavenly experiences, who have not yet fully learnt the lesson
of perfect humility, gladly glorying in weakness. We see this in Paul. The danger of exalting himself was coming very near. He
knew not yet perfectly what it was to be nothing; to die, that Christ alone might live in him; to take pleasure in all that brought
him low. It appears as if this were the highest lesson that he had to learn, full conformity to his Lord in that self-emptying
where he gloried in weakness that God might be all.

The highest lesson a believer has to learn is humility. Oh that every Christian who seek to advance in holiness may
remember this well! There may be intense consecration, and fervent zeal and heavenly experience, and yet, if it is not
prevented by very special dealings of the Lord, there may be an unconscious self-exaltation with it all. Let us learn the lesson
-- the highest holiness is the deepest humility; and let us remember that comes not of itself, but only as it is made a matter of
special dealing on the part of our faithful Lord and His faithful servant.

Let us look at our lives in the light of this experience, and see whether we gladly glory in weakness, whether we take
pleasure, as Paul did, in injuries, in necessities, in distresses. Yes, let us ask whether we have learnt to regard a reproof, just
or unjust, a reproach from friend or enemy, an injury, or trouble, or difficulty into which others bring us, as above all an
opportunity of proving Jesus is all to us, how our own pleasure or honor are nothing, and how humiliation is in very truth what
we take pleasure in. It is indeed blessed, the deep happiness of heaven, to be so free from self that whatever is said of us or
done to us is lost and swallowed up, in the thought that Jesus is all.

Let us trust Him who took charge of Paul to take charge of us too. Paul needed special discipline, and with it special
instruction, to learn, what was more precious than even the unutterable things he had heard in heaven -- what it is to glory in
weakness and lowliness. We need it, too, oh so much. He who cared for him will care for us too. He watches over us with a
jealous, loving care, "lest we exalt ourselves". When we are doing so, He seeks to discover to us the evil, and deliver us from
it. In trial and weakness and trouble He seeks to bring us low, until we so learn that His grace is all, as to take pleasure in the
very thing that brings us and keeps us low. His strength made perfect in our weakness, His presence filling and satisfying our
emptiness, becomes the secret of a humility that need never fail. It can, as Paul, in full sight of what God works in us, and
through us, ever say, "In nothing was I behind the chiefest apostles, though I am nothing." His humiliations had led him to true
humility, with its wonderful gladness and glorying and pleasure in all that humbles.

"Most gladly will I glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me; wherefore I take pleasure in
weaknesses." The humble man has learnt the secret of abiding gladness. The weaker he feels, the lower he sinks; the
greater his humiliations appear, the more the power and the presence of Christ are his portion, until, as he says, "I am
nothing," the word of his Lord brings ever deeper joy: "My grace is sufficient for thee."

I feel as if I must once again gather up all in the two lessons: the danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think, and the
grace for humility too.

The danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think, and that especially at the time of our highest experiences. The
preacher of spiritual truth with an admiring congregation hanging on his lips, the gifted speaker on a Holiness platform
expounding the secrets of the heavenly life, the Christian giving testimony to a blessed experience, the evangelist moving on
as in triumph, and made a blessing to rejoicing multitudes -- no man knows the hidden, the unconscious danger to which
these are exposed. Paul was in danger without knowing it; what Jesus did for him is written for our admonition, that we may
know our danger and know our only safety. If ever it has been said of a teacher or professor of holiness, he is so full of self;
or, he does not practice what he preaches; or, his blessing has not made him humbler or gentler -- let it be said no more.
Jesus, in whom we trust, can make us humble.

Yes, the grace for humility is greater and nearer, too, than we think. The humility of Jesus is our salvation: Jesus Himself is
our humility. Our humility is His care and His work. His grace is sufficient for us, to meet the temptation of pride too. His
strength will be perfected in our weakness. Let us choose to be weak, to be low, to be nothing. Let humility be to us joy and
gladness. Let us gladly glory and take pleasure in weakness -- in all that can humble us and keep us low. The power of Christ
will rest upon us. Christ humbled Himself, therefore God exalted Him. Christ will humble us, and keep us humble; let us
heartily consent, let us trustfully and joyfully accept all that humbles; the power of Christ will rest upon us. We shall find that
the deepest humility is the secret of the truest happiness, of a joy that nothing can destroy.
Chapter 12
Humility and Exaltation

"He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. "Luke 14:11, 18:14. "God giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourself in the sight
of the Lord, and He shall exalt you." Jas. 4:10. "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may
exalt you in due time. " 1 Peter 5:6.

Just yesterday I was asked the question, How am I to conquer this pride? The answer; was simple. Two things are needed.
Do what God says is your work: humble yourself. Trust Him to do what He says is His work: He will exalt you.

The command is clear: humble yourself. That does not mean that it is your work to conquer and cast out the pride of your
nature, and to form within yourself the lowliness of the holy Jesus. No, this is God's work; the very essence of that exaltation,
wherein He lifts you up into the real likeness of the beloved Son. What the command does mean is this: take every
opportunity of humbling yourself before God and man. In the faith of the grace that is already working in you; in the assurance
of the more grace for victory that is coming; up to the light that conscience each time flashes upon the pride of the heart and
its workings; notwithstanding all there may be of failure and falling, stand persistently as under the unchanging command:
humble yourself. Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in
grace, to remind you of your need of humbling, and to help you to it. Reckon humility to be indeed the mother-virtue, your very
first duty before God, the one perpetual safeguard of the soul, and set your heart upon it as the source of all blessing. The
promise is divine and sure: He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. See that you do the one thing God asks: humble
yourself. God will see that He does the one thing He has promised. He will give more grace; He will exalt you in due time.

All God's dealings with man are characterized by two stages. There is the time of preparation, when command and promise,
with the mingled experience of effort and impotence, of failure and partial success, with the holy expectancy of something
better which these waken, train and discipline men for a higher stage. Then comes the time of fulfillment, when faith inherits
the promise, and enjoys what it had so often struggled for in vain. This law holds good in every part of the Christian life, and in
the pursuit of every separate virtue. And that because it is grounded in the very nature of things. In all that concerns our
redemption, God must needs take the initiative. When that has been done, man's turn comes. In the effort after obedience
and attainment, he must learn to know his impotence. In self-despair he must die to himself, and so be fitted voluntarily and
intelligently to receive from God the promise, the completion of that which he had accepted in the beginning in ignorance. So,
God who had been the Beginning, ere man rightly knew Him, or fully understood what His purpose was, is longed for and
welcomed as the End, as the All in All.

It is even thus, too, in the pursuit of humility. To every Christian the command comes from the throne of God Himself: humble
yourself. The earnest attempt to listen and obey will be rewarded -- yes, rewarded -- with the painful discovery of two things.
The one, what depth of pride, that is of unwillingness to count oneself and to be counted nothing, to submit absolutely to God,
there was, that one never knew. The other, what utter impotence there is in all our efforts, and in all our prayers too for God's
help, to destroy the hideous monster. Blessed the man who now learns to put his hope in God, and to persevere,
notwithstanding all the power of pride within him, in acts of humiliation before God and Men. We know the law of human
nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly-formed will is character. It is
not otherwise in the work of grace. As acts, persistently repeated, beget habits and dispositions, and these strengthened the
will, He who works both to will and to do comes with His mighty power and Spirit; and the humbling of the proud heart with
which the penitent saint cast himself so often before God, is rewarded with the "more grace" of the humble heart, in which the
Spirit of Jesus has conquered, and brought the new nature to its maturity, and He the meek and lowly One now dwells for
ever.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will exalt you. And wherein does the exaltation consist? The highest glory
of the creature is in being only a vessel, to receive and enjoy and show forth the glory of God. It can do this only as it is willing
to be nothing in itself, that God may be all. Water always fills first the lowest places. The lower, the emptier a man lies before
God, the speedier and the fuller will be the inflow of the divine glory. The exaltation God promises is not, cannot be, any
external thing apart from Himself: all that He has to give or can give is only more of Himself, Himself to take more complete
possession. The exaltation is not, like an earthly prize, something arbitrary, in no necessary connection with the conduct to be
rewarded. No, but it is in its very nature the effect and result of the humbling of ourselves. It is nothing but the gift of such a
divine indwelling humility, such a conformity to and possession of the humility of the Lamb of God, as fits us for receiving fully
the indwelling of God.

He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Of the truth of these words Jesus Himself is the proof; of the certainty of their
fulfillment to us He is the pledge. Let us take His yoke upon us and learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart. If we are
but willing to stoop to Him, as He has stooped to us, He will yet stoop to each one of us again, and we shall find ourselves not
unequally yoked with Him. As we enter deeper into the fellowship of His humiliation, and either humble ourselves or bear the
humbling of men, we can count upon it that the Spirit of His exaltation, "the Spirit of God and of glory," will rest upon us. The
presence and the power of the glorified Christ will come to them that are of an humble spirit. When God can again have His
rightful place in us, He will lift us up. Make His glory thy care in humbling thyself; He will make thy glory His care in perfecting
thy humility, and breathing into thee, as thy abiding life, the very Spirit of His Son. As the all-pervading life of God possesses
thee, there will be nothing so natural, and nothing so sweet, as to be nothing, with not a thought or wish for self, because all is
occupied with Him who filleth all. "Most gladly will I glory in my weakness, that the strength of Christ may rest upon me."

Brother, have we not here the reason that our consecration and our faith have availed so little in the pursuit of holiness? It
was by self and its strength that the work was done under the name of faith; it was for self and its happiness that God was
called in; it was, unconsciously, but still truly, in self and its holiness that the soul rejoiced. We never knew that humility,
absolute, abiding, Christlike humility and self-effacement, pervading and marking our whole life with God and man, was the
most essential element of the life of the holiness we sought for.
It is only in the possession of God that I lose myself. As it is in the height and breadth and glory of the sunshine that the
littleness of the mote playing in its beams is seen, even so humility is taking our place in God's presence as nothing but a
mote dwelling in the sunlight of His love.

"How great is God! How small am I! Lost, swallowed up in Love's immensity! God only there, not I."

May God teach us to believe that to be humble, to be nothing in His presence, is the highest attainment, and the fullest
blessing of the Christian life. He speaks to us: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him the is of a contrite and humble
spirit." Be this our portion!

"Oh, to be emptier, lowlier, Mean, unnoticed, and unknown, And to God a vessel holier, Filled with Christ, and Christ alone!"

A Secret of Secrets: Humility the Soul of True Prayer.

Till the spirit of the heart be renewed, till it is emptied of all earthly desires, and stands in an habitual hunger and thirst after
God, which is the true spirit of prayer; till then, all our prayer will be, more or less, but too much like lessons given to scholars;
and we shall mostly say them, only because we dare not neglect them. But be not discouraged; take the following advice, and
then you may go to church without any danger of mere lip-labor or hypocrisy, although there should be a hymn or a prayer,
whose language is higher than that of your heart. Do this: go to the church as the publican went to the temple; stand inwardly
in the spirit of your mind in that form which he outwardly expressed, when he cast down his eyes, and could only say, "God
be merciful to me, a sinner." Stand unchangeably, at least in your desire, in this form or state of heart; it will sanctify every
petition that comes out of your mouth; and when anything is read or sung or prayed, that is more exalted than your heart is, if
you make this an occasion of further sinking down in the spirit of the publican, you will then be helped, and highly blessed, by
those prayers and praises which seem only to belong to a heart better than yours.

This, my friend, is a secret of secrets; it will help you to reap where you have not sown, and be a continual source of grace in
your soul; for everything that inwardly stirs in you, or outwardly happens to you, becomes a real good to you, if it finds or
excites in you this humble state of mind. For nothing is in vain, or without profit to the humble soul; it stands always in a state
of divine growth; everything that falls upon it is like a dew of heaven to it. Shut up yourself, therefore, in this form of Humility;
all good is enclosed in it; it is a water of heaven, that turns the fire of the fallen soul into the meekness of the divine life, and
creates that oil, out of which the love to God and man gets its flame. Be enclosed, therefore, always in it; let it be as a
garment wherewith you are always covered, and a girdle with which you are girt; breathe nothing but in and from its spirit; see
nothing but with its eyes; hear nothing but with its ears. And then, whether you are in the church or out of the church, hearing
the praises of God or receiving wrongs from men and the world, all will be edification, and everything will help forward your
growth in the life of God.

A Prayer For Humility

I will here give you an infallible touchstone, that will try all to the truth. It is this: retire from the world and all conversation, only
for one month; neither write, nor read, nor debate anything with yourself; stop all the former workings of your heart and mind:
and, with all the strength of your heart, stand all this month, as continually as you can, in the following form of prayer to God.
Offer it frequently on your knees; but whether sitting, walking, or standing, be always inwardly longing, and earnestly praying
this one prayer to God: "That of His great goodness He would make known to you, and take from your heart, every kind and
form and degree of Pride, whether it be from evil spirits, or your own corrupt nature; and that He would awaken in you the
deepest depth and truth of that Humility, which can make you capable of His light and Holy Spirit." Reject every thought, but
that of waiting and praying in this matter from the bottom of your heart, with such truth and earnestness, as people in torment
wish to pray and be delivered from it ... If you can and will give yourself up in truth and sincerity to this spirit of prayer, I will
venture to affirm that, if you had twice as many evil spirits in you as Mary Magdalene had, they will all be cast out of you, and
you will be forced with her to weep tears of love at the feet of the holy Jesus.

Notes

* "All this is to make it known the region of eternity that pride can degrade the highest angels into devils, and humility raise
fallen flesh and blood to the thrones of angels. Thus, this is the great end of God raising a new creation out of a fallen
kingdom of angels: for this end it stands in its state of war betwixt the fire and pride of fallen angels, and the humility of the
Lamb of God, that the last trumpet may sound the great truth through the depths of eternity, that evil can have no beginning
but from pride, and no end but from humility. The truth is this: Pride may die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.
Under the banner of the truth, give yourself up to the meek and humble spirit of the holy Jesus. Humility must sow seed, or
there can be no reaping in Heaven. Look not at pride only as an unbecoming temper, nor at humility only as a decent virtue:
for the one is death, and the other is life; the one is all hell, the other is all heaven. So much as you have of pride within you,
you have of the fallen angels alive in you; so much as you have of true humility, so much you have of the Lamb of God within
you. Could you see what every stirring of pride does to your soul, you would beg of everything you meet to tear the viper from
you, though with the loss of a hand or an eye. Could you see what a sweet, divine, transforming power there is in humility,
how it expels the poison of your nature, and makes room for the Spirit of God to live in you, you would rather wish to be the
footstool of all the world than want the smallest degree of it." --Spirit of Prayer, [Link], p.73, Edition of Moreton, Canterbury,
1893.

* "We need to know two things: 1. That our salvation consists wholly in being saved from ourselves, or that which we are by
nature; 2. That in the whole nature of things nothing could be this salvation or savior to us but such a humility of God as is
beyond all expression. Hence the first unalterable term of the Savior to fallen man: Except a man denies himself, he cannot
be My disciple. Self is the whole evil of fallen nature; self-denial is our capacity of being saved; humility is our savior ... Self is
the root, the branches, the tree, of all the evil of our fallen state. All the evils of fallen angels and men have their birth in the
pride of self. On the other hand, all the virtues of the heavenly life are the virtues of humility. It is humility alone that makes the
unpassable gulf between heaven and hell. What is then, or in what lies, the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies in the strife
between pride and humility: pride and humility are the two master powers, the two kingdoms in strife for the eternal
possession of man. There never was, nor ever will be, but one humility, and that is the one humility of Christ. Pride and self
have the all of man, till man has his all from Christ. He therefore only fights the good fight whose strife is that the
self-idolatrous nature which he hath from Adam may be brought to death by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life
in him."--W. Law, Address to the Clergy, p. 52. [I hope that this book of Law on the Holy Spirit may be issued by my publisher
in the course of the year.]

A free ebook from [Link]