What are the natural and necessary indications of a pure heart?
A pure heart differs vitally from an impure one in the fact that its expressions of goodness are natural and spontaneous, the fruit of a gracious nature, and not unnatural and forced.
The Saviour says, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." The streams partake of the nature of the fountain. The heart gives character to the life by a law of necessity. It breathes itself through all our activities, and a pure heart will be indicated,
1. By pure and holy conversation. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." If the heart is right, the conversation will be sweet, truthful, humble, heavenly, and holy.
2. By opposition to all impurity. A pure heart loathes sin, and has no affinity for it. It shrinks from it instinctively as a worm would from a fire.
3. By watchfulness. The love of purity begets watchfulness against impurity. The pure heart is watchful instinctively.
4. By reluctance to mingle with the gay, the vain, and the worldly. It has no moral affinity for such society, and no taste for such associations. The charm of the world has been broken. The pure heart has tastes, motives, communings, and enjoyments totally dissimilar to the worldling.
This perfect love is a foretaste of the bliss of heaven.
Thomas Moore refers to it:
Go, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world,
As far as the universe spreads its flaming wall, Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,
One minute of Heaven is worth them all!
A pure heart differs vitally from an impure one in the fact that its expressions of goodness are natural and spontaneous, the fruit of a gracious nature, and not unnatural and forced.
The Saviour says, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." The streams partake of the nature of the fountain. The heart gives character to the life by a law of necessity. It breathes itself through all our activities, and a pure heart will be indicated,
1. By pure and holy conversation. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." If the heart is right, the conversation will be sweet, truthful, humble, heavenly, and holy.
2. By opposition to all impurity. A pure heart loathes sin, and has no affinity for it. It shrinks from it instinctively as a worm would from a fire.
3. By watchfulness. The love of purity begets watchfulness against impurity. The pure heart is watchful instinctively.
4. By reluctance to mingle with the gay, the vain, and the worldly. It has no moral affinity for such society, and no taste for such associations. The charm of the world has been broken. The pure heart has tastes, motives, communings, and enjoyments totally dissimilar to the worldling.
This perfect love is a foretaste of the bliss of heaven.
Thomas Moore refers to it:
Go, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world,
As far as the universe spreads its flaming wall, Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,
One minute of Heaven is worth them all!
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