and William Cowper – HARVEY Christian Publishers

Edwin and Lillian Harvey, authors of the compilation Royal Insignia, included quotations from many authors, preachers, and missionaries who discovered by personal experience that pride is, as J. N. Darby puts it, “the greatest of all evils that beset us. “And,” Darby continues, “of all our enemies it is that which dies the slowest and hardest; even the children of the world are able to discern this. Madam de Stael said on her deathbed, ‘Do you know what is the last to die in man? It is “self-love.”’

“God hates pride above all things because it gives to man the place that belongs to Him Who is above, exalted over all. Pride intercepts communion with God, and draws down His chastisement, for ‘God resisteth the proud.’ Royal Insignia, p. 87.

But not only does Royal Insignia include many warnings regarding the danger of pride, it extols the beauty of being nothing. “If I be content to be nothing,” says R. C. Chapman, “I cannot take offence; and when I am really humble and know myself a worm, I shall not complain if trampled on. Ibid, p. 82

Luther said, “Never are men more unfit than when they think themselves most fit, and best prepared for their duty; never more fit, than when most humbled and ashamed under a sense of their own unfitness.” P. 96

What is all righteousness that men devise?
What, but a sordid bargain for the skies?
But Christ as soon would abdicate His own,
As stoop from Heaven to sell the proud a throne.
—William Cowper. P. 96

Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their online Christian Bookstore.

Royal Insignia, compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, contains many inspiring quotations on varied aspects of humility which, as the title suggests, is the badge of every true believer in Christ. The following excerpts are on the subject of nothingness, a subject none too popular in today’s culture but indispensible, nevertheless, to those of us who strive to follow in our Master’s footsteps.

Thus though worn, and tried, and tempted,
Glorious calling, saint, is thine;
Let the Lord but find thee emptied,
Living branch in Christ, the Vine!
Vessels of the world’s despising,
Vessels weak, and poor, and base,
Bearing wealth God’s heart is prizing,
Glory from Christ’s blessed face.

Oh to be but emptier, lowlier,
Mean, unnoticed, and unknown,
And to God a vessel holier,
Filled with Christ and Christ alone!
Naught of earth to cloud the glory,
Naught of self the light to dim,
Telling forth His wondrous story,
Emptied, to be filled with Him.
–Paul Gerhardt, Royal Insignia, p. 108

We are nothing unless we abide in God; we can do nothing apart from Christ. We know and admit this as a doctrine, but to realize it as a fact, painful and humbling experience is often needed. But in this lowest humiliation is our true and highest exaltation. God takes all things from us that we may turn again to Him as our sure Portion; He makes us feel our weakness, our poverty, our ignorance, in order that we may return to Him.—Adolph Saphir in The Hidden Life, quoted in Royal Insignia, p. 112

Beware of too sublime a sense
Of your own worth and consequence.
The man who dreams himself so great,
And his importance of such weight,
That all around in all that’s done
Must move and act for him alone,
Will learn in school of tribulation
The folly of his expectation.
—William Cowper. Royal Insignia, p. 114

Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

Tag: and William Cowper

Self Love

Walk as He Walked.