As a body without a soul, much wood without fire, a bullet in a gun without powder, so are words in prayer without spirit.Commentary on Old/New Testaments 5 - 334
A man may as truly say, the sea burns, or fire cools, as that certainty of salvation breeds security and looseness.Commentary on the Old and New Treatments, 5
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.
God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves and knows our thoughts long before, as a gardener knows what flowers he shall have at spring because he knows the roots.
A contented man cannot be a poor man, especially if a godly man. For why? The Father, that Ancient of Days, fills his memory; the Son, the wisdom of the Father, fills his understanding; the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, fills his will. And so he must needs have all that thus has the Haver of All.
Many there are that suffer the sun not only to go down upon their anger, but to run his whole race— yes, many races—ere they can be reconciled, whereby their anger becomes inveterate and turns into malice, for anger and malice differ but in age.
Anger is a tender virtue and such as by reason of our unskillfulness may be easily corrupted and made dangerous. He that in his anger would not sin must not be angry at anything but sin.
Where the Scripture hath no tongue we need not have ears, but must content ourselves with a learned ignorance, lest we fall into the sin of those angel worshipers (Col. 2:18).