(1) If it is not pure, we differ nothing from a Pharisaical purity.
The Pharisees holiness consisted chiefly in externals. Theirs was an outside purity. They never minded the inside of the heart. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion,” and “Ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s hones” (Matthew 23:25, 27). The Pharisees were good only on the surface. They were whited over, not white. They were like a rotten post laid in vermilion color, like a fair chimney-piece gilded without, but within nothing but soot. We must go further. Be “pure in heart,” like the king’s daughter “all glorious within” (Psalm 45:13); else ours is but a Pharisaical purity; and Christ says, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).
(2) It is the chief seat or place of God’s residence.
God dwells in the heart. He takes up the heart for his own lodging (Isaiah 57:15; Ephesians 3:17), therefore it must be pure and holy. A king’s palace must be kept from defilement, especially his presence-chamber. How holy ought that to be! If the body be the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19), the heart is the holy of holies. Oh, take heed of defiling the room where God is to come. Let that room be washed with holy tears.
(3) It is the heart that sanctifies all we do.
If the heart be holy, all is holy – our affections holy, our duties holy. “The altar sanctifieth the gift” (Matthew 23:59). The heart is the altar that sanctifies the offering. The Romans kept their springs from being poisoned. The heart is the spring of all our actions; let us keep this spring from poison. Be “pure in heart.”
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