6. But what shall he give in exchange for his soul, which is forfeited to the just vengeance of God? _Wherewithal shall he come before the_ Lord? How shall he pay him that he oweth? Were he from this moment to perform the most perfect obedience to every command of God, this would make no amends for a single sin, for any one act of past disobedience: seeing he owes God all the service he is able to perform from this moment to all eternity; could he pay this, it would make no manner of amends, for what he ought to have done before. He sees himself therefore utterly helpless, with regard to atoning for his past sins; utterly unable to make any amends to God, to pay any ransom for his own soul.
But if God would forgive him all that is past, on this one condition, that he should sin no more, that for the time to come he should entirely and constantly obey all his commands: he well knows that this would profit him nothing, being a condition he could never perform. He knows and feels, that he is not able to obey, even the outward commands of God: seeing these cannot be obeyed, while his heart remains in its natural sinfulness and corruption: inasmuch as an evil tree, cannot bring forth good fruit. But he cannot cleanse a sinful heart: with men this is impossible. So that he is utterly at a loss, even how to begin walking in the path of God’s commandments. He knows not how to get one step forward in the way. Incompassed with sin and sorrow and fear, and finding no way to escape, he can only cry out, Lord, _save, or I perish_!
7. *_Poverty of spirit_ then, as it implies the first step we take in running the race which is set before us, is, a just sense of our inward and outward sins, and of our guilt and helplessness. This some have monstrously stiled, the _virtue of humility_; thus teaching us to be proud of knowing we deserve damnation. But our Lord’s expression is quite of another kind; conveying no idea to the hearer, but that of mere want, of naked sin, of helpless guilt and misery.
8. The great apostle, where he endeavours to bring sinners to God, speaks in a manner just answerable to this, [53]_The wrath of_ God, saith he, _is revealed from heaven, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men_: a charge which he immediately fixes on the Heathen world, and thereby proves, they were under the wrath of God. He next shews, that the Jews were no better than they, and were therefore under the same condemnation: and all this, not in order to their attaining “The noble virtue of humility,” but _that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before_ God.
He proceeds to shew, that they were helpless as well as guilty; which is the plain purport of all those expressions, _Therefore by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified――But now the righteousness of_ God, _which is by faith, of_ Jesus Christ, _without the law is manifested――We conclude, that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law_: expressions all tending to the same point, even to _hide pride from man_: to humble him to the dust, without teaching him to reflect upon his humility as a virtue; to inspire him with that full piercing conviction of his utter sinfulness, guilt and helplessness, which casts the sinner, stript of all, lost and undone, on his strong helper, _Jesus Christ the righteous_.
9. One cannot but observe here, that Christianity begins, just where Heathen morality ends: _poverty of spirit, conviction of sin_, the _renouncing ourselves_, the _not having our_ own _righteousness_, the very first point in the religion of _Jesus Christ_, leaving all Pagan religion behind. This was ever hid from the wise men of this world: insomuch that the whole _Roman_ language, even with all the improvements of the _Augustan_ age, does not afford so much as a name for _humility_: (the word from whence we borrow this, is as well known, bearing in _Latin_ a quite different meaning:) no, nor was one found in all the copious language of _Greece_, ’till it was _made_ by the great apostle.
10. O that we may feel what they were not able to express! Sinner, awake! Know thyself! Know and feel, that thou wert _shapen in wickedness, and that in sin did thy mother conceive_ thee; and that thou thyself hast been heaping up sin upon sin, ever since thou couldst discern good from evil. Sink under the mighty hand of God, as guilty of death eternal: and cast off, renounce, abhor all imagination, of ever being able to help thyself! Be it all thy hope to be washed in his blood, and renewed by his almighty Spirit, _who himself bare all our sins in his own body on the tree_. So shalt thou witness, _Happy are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven_.