All the wretchedness of which this world has been the scene, all its wars and bloodshed among the nations, all its selfishness and suffering, all its ambitions and jealousies, all its broken hearts and embittered lives, with all its daily unhappiness, have their origin in what this cursed, hellish pride, either our own, or that of others, has brought us. It is pride that made redemption needful; it is from our pride we need above everything to be redeemed.

Pride has its root and strength in a terrible spiritual power, outside of us as well as within us, as needful as it is that we confess and deplore it as our very own, is to know it in its satanic origin.

Until a humility which will rest in nothing less than the end of death of self; which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone; which absolutely makes and counts itself nothing, that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be exalted, -until such a humility be what we seek in Christ above our chief joy, and welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a religion that will conquer the world.

All want of love, all indifference to the needs, the feelings, the weakness of others; all sharp and hasty judgements and utterances, so often excused under the plea of being outright and honest; all manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation; all feelings of bitterness and estrangement have their root in nothing but pride, that ever seeks itself. When you consider this, your eyes will be opened to see how dark, shall I not say a devilish pride, creeps in almost everywhere, the assemblies of the saints not excepted.

Our salvation consists wholly in being saved from ourselves, or that which we are by nature.

“Except a man denies himself, he cannot be my disciple.” Self is the whole evil of fallen nature; self denial is our capacity of being saved; humility is our Savior …  Self is the root, the branches, the tree, of all the evil of our fallen state.

All the levels of fallen angels and men have their birth in the pride of self. On the other hand, all the virtues of the heavenly life are the virtues of humility. It is humility alone that makes the impassable gulf between heaven and hell.

What is then, or in what lies, the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies in the strife between pride and humility; pride and humility are the two master powers, the two kingdoms in strife for the eternal possession of man.

Pride and self have the all of man, till man has his all from Christ. William Law, 1761