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_.