Humility

HUMILITY may be defined to be a habit of mind and heart corresponding to our comparative unworthiness and vileness before God, or a sense of our own comparative meanness in His sight, with the disposition to a behaviour answerable thereto. And a truly humble man is sensible of the small extent of his own knowledge, and the great extent of his ignorance, and of the small extent of his understanding as compared with the understanding of God. He is sensible of his weakness, how little his strength is, and how little he is able to do. He is sensible of his natural distance from God, of his dependence on Him, of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for; and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and his might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.

Humility tends to prevent an aspiring and ambitious behaviour amongst men. The man that is under the influence of an humble spirit is content with such a situation amongst men as God is pleased to allot to him, and is not greedy of honour, and does not affect to appear uppermost and exalted above his neighbours. Humility tends also to prevent an arrogant and assuming behaviour. On the contrary, humility disposes a person to a condescending behaviour to the meekest and lowest and to treat inferiors with courtesy and affability, as being sensible of his own weakness and despicableness before God. . .

Click here to read the full article (READ PDF).