Matthew 5:8

PURITY OF HEART

‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.’

Matthew 5:8

The Beatitudes portray the ideal of the Christian life. They lay down the conditions of something more than happiness, something higher, more enduring—blessedness.

I. Purity of heart.—This is the simplest and most inward of all the Beatitudes, the very foundation of Christian sanctity. Definition of this purity includes three main lines of thought—

(a) The strict control and due regulation of the passions and desires. The heart in Holy Scripture includes the whole realm of moral and spiritual nature—our intellect, affections, wills, impulses, desires. Purity of heart implies a strict discipline of the passions.

(b) Purity of heart includes purity of intention. The value of any act, in God’s sight, depends not upon activity, energy, or talent, but is in exact proportion to the motive which prompts it.

(c) Advance in personal holiness, and gradual sanctification of the soul, by communication of Divine purity.

II. How shall this purity be attained?

(a) We must set before ourselves a lofty ideal. We must have but one ideal of purity, the highest; adopt but one attitude towards every form of impurity, uncompromising and stern.

(b) We must be wise concerning good and simple concerning evil. It is a hideous maxim, that the knowledge of evil does little harm! it wrecks households, degrades noble lives, crushes the peace of woman, ruins the honour of men, strews the path of thousands with withered leaves, mars the spiritual beauty of the soul, and brings many grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

(c) We must be watchful ovér our thoughts.—The heart is the fountain-head of evil; the thoughts defile (read St. Mark 7), not passing thoughts, but thoughts cherished and fondly hugged. ‘Try me, O God, and search my heart!’ Guard thy heart from empty, vain, unclean, envious, proud thoughts.

III. ‘They shall see God.’—The pure in heart see more than others now; they have a present reward; they see God in the beauties of nature more clearly; they hear His voice in His Word more plainly; they see the Divine purity reflected in their own hearts, and in the lives of His people. But they shall behold more loveliness; they shall see the King in His beauty.

Prebendary J. Storrs.

Illustration

‘There is no true purity apart from the absolute enthronement of God in the affections. It is not the absence of unholy affections, it is the presence of a holy and unsurpassingly earnest love, that makes us really pure. The soul is so supremely an altar that it must worship something in its inmost shrine, and unless it worship God there it cannot be pure. His presence there, and it alone, can rob temptation of its charm, dispel all carnal longings, throw back the fierce onset of ancient and besetting sins, and make the heart utterly holy.’