True versus False Humility (2)

(4) True humility proceeds from faith and is in the faithful not only when judgment is upon them, but before the judgment comes. True humility quakes at the threats, as the very frowns of a father will distress a dutiful child. Carnal people are like men that, hearing thunderclaps afar off, are never a whit moved; but when it is present over their heads, then they tremble. So, hypocrites care not for judgments that are far off. It is of no benefit for a man to be humbled when the judgment is upon him, for so Pharaoh was, who yet, when the judgment was off, then he goes to his old bias again. The carnal say, 'If any judgment come upon me, then I will repent, and cry to God for mercy; and why should I deny myself of my pleasures of sin before?' Oh, this is but a forced humiliation, not from love to God, but love to self. This is but Ahab's and Pharaoh's humiliation. It is not out of any love to God, but merely forced. It is too late to do it when God has seized upon us for judgment.
(5) True humility is joined with hope. The devils do chafe, vex, and fret themselves, in regard of their desperate estate, because they have no hope. If there be no hope, it is impossible there should be true and sound humiliation; but true humiliation does carry us to God. That what we have taken out of ourselves by humiliation, we may recover it in God. Humility is such a grace, that though it makes us nothing in ourselves, yet does it carry us to God, who is all in all. Humility works between God and us, and makes the heart leave itself, to plant and pitch itself upon God, and looks for comfort and assurance from him. There is nothing more profitable in the world than humility, because, though it seems to have nothing, yet it carries the soul to him who fills all in all.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Josiah's Reformation, pp. 73-75 [57-59]
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