Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect his strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to him in whom our strength lies.
The Bruised Reed
It is not so easy a matter to pray as men think. In regard of the unspiritualness of our nature compared with the duty itself in which we draw near to a holy God, we cannot endure to be separated from our lusts; and there is great rebellion in our hearts against everything that is good; and Satan also is our special enemy…. When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him, and therefore he opposes us all he can. But though some may mumble over a few prayers, yet (indeed) no man can pray as he ought, or in faith, that is not within the covenant of grace, nor without the Holy Ghost.
Insomuch as we give way to our will in sinning, in such a measure of distance we set ourselves from comfort. Sin against conscience is a thief in the candle which wastes our joy and thereby weakens our strength. We must know, therefore, that willful breaches in sanctification will much hinder the sense of our justification.
As Satan slanders Christ to us, so he slanders us to ourselves. If thou be not so much as smoking flax, then why dost thou not renounce thy interest in Christ and disclaim the covenant of grace? This thou darest not do. Why dost thou not give up thyself wholly to other enjoyments? This thy spirit will not suffer thee.
Prayer is a venting of our desires to God from the sense of our wants, and he that is sensible of his wants is empty. A poor man, by the Spirit, earnestly pours out supplications in Christ's name and wrestles with God in prayer.
God can pick sense out of a confused prayer. These desires cry louder in His ears than thy sins. Sometimes a Christian has such confused thoughts that he can say nothing, but as a child cries, "O Father," not able to show what it needs, as Moses at the Red Sea. These stirrings of spirit touch the bowels of God and melt Him into compassion toward us when they come from the spirit of adoption and from a striving to be better.
It is an office of love here to take away the stones and to smooth the way to heaven. Therefore, we must take heed that under pretense of avoidance of disputes we do not suffer an adverse party to get ground upon the truth, for thus may we easily betray both the truth of God and souls of men.
Humility will make you easy and contented in every condition of life. You will then be ready to be commanded, easy to be pleased, hard to be provoked, and generally beloved. A humble mind thinks every good it receives more than it deserves, and every evil less. It will not think itself too great or too good to stoop to the meanest services of an honest employment nor be wanting in a modest and respectful behavior to others.
Humility imports a deep sense of our own weakness with a hearty and affectionate acknowledgment of our owing all that we are to the divine bounty, which is always accompanied with a profound submission to the will of God and great deadness toward the glory of the world and applause of men.
Humility will keep the soul free from many darts cast by Satan and from many erroneous snares spread by him. As low trees and shrubs are free from many violent blasts of wind which shake and rend the taller ones, so humble souls are free from those blasts of error which rend and tear proud, lofty souls. Satan and the world have greater difficulty to fasten errors upon humble souls.
Seek not great things for yourselves in this world, for if your garments be too long, they will make you stumble; and one staff helps a man in his journey when many in his hands at once hinders him.
Let not great men put too much trust in their greatness; the longer the robe is, the more soil it contracts. Great power may prove the mother of great damnation.
The first step to humility is to see one's pride; the first step to self-denial is to be convinced of one's desire after self-exalting, self-admiring, self-advancing—O what a proud heart have I! What a self advancing heart have I! There is no believer till he is fully renewed but what has something of self. We had need therefore to be jealous of ourselves; and if at any time self break out, if at any time the soul begins to be advanced in regard of duty or spiritual things, let us fall down before God and humble ourselves for the pride of our hearts.