Now, the key which has unlocked for us, in previous sermons, the
treasures of meaning in these Beatitudes, is especially necessary here.
For, as I have said, if you take this to be a mere isolated saying, it
becomes a mockery and a pain. But if you connect it, as our Lord would
have us connect it, with all the preceding links of this wreathed chain
describing the characteristics of a devout soul, then it assumes an
altogether different appearance. 'The pure in heart' are they who have
exercised and received the previous qualifications and bestowments from
God. That is to say, there must precede all such purity as is capable of
the divine vision, the poverty of spirit which recognises its true
condition, the mourning which rightly feels the gravity and awfulness of
that condition, the desire for its opposite, which will never be the
'hunger and thirst' of a soul, except it is preceded by a profound sense
of sin and the penitence that ensues thereupon.
But when these things have gone before, and when they have been
accompanied, as they surely will be, with the results that flow from
them without an interval of time--viz. enrichment with possession of the
kingdom, the comforting and drying of the tears of penitence, and the
possession of a righteousness bestowed because it is desired, and not
won because it is worked for--then, and only then, will the heart be
purged and defecated from its evils and its self-regard, and its eyes
opened and couched and strengthened to behold undazzled the eternal
light of God. The word of my text, standing alone, ministers despair.
Regarded where Christ set it, as one of the series of characteristics
which He has been describing, it kindles the brightest and surest hope.
'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' No; but
God can change them; and the implication of my text, regarded in its due
relation to these other Beatitudes, is just that the requisite purity is
not of man's working, but is God's gift. The same truth which here
results from the study of the place of our text in this series is
condensed into a briefer, but substantially equivalent, form in the
saying of another part of the New Testament, about 'purifying their
hearts by faith.'
Dear brethren, we come back to the old truth--all a man's hope of, and
effort after, reformation and self-improvement must begin with the
consciousness of sin, the lament over it, the longing for divine
goodness, the opening of the heart for the reception thereof; and only
then can we rise to these serene heights of purity of heart. This, and
this alone, is the way by which 'a clean thing' can be brought 'out of
an unclean one.' and men stained and foul with evil, and bound under the
chains of that which is the mother of all evil, the undue making
themselves the centres of their lives, can be washed and cleansed and
emancipated, and God be made the end and the aim, the motive and the
goal, the power and the reward, of all their work. Righteousness is a
gift to begin with, and it is a gift bestowed on condition of
'repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.' We all have
longings after purity, suppressed, dashed, contradicted a thousand times
in our lives day by day, but there they are; and the only way by which
they can be fully satisfied is when we go with our foul hands, empty as
well as foul, and lift them up to God, and say, 'Give what Thou
commandest, even the clean heart, and we shall be clean.'
But then, do not let us forget, either, that this gift bestowed not once
and for ever, but continuously if there be continuous desire, is to be
utilised, appropriated, worked into our characters, and worked out in
our lives, by our own efforts, as well as by our own faith. 'Having,
therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from
all filthiniess of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of
the Lord.' 'Every man that hath this' gift bestowed, 'purifieth
_himself_ even as He is pure.' He that brings to us the gift of
regeneration, by which we receive the new nature which is free from sin,
calls to each of us as He presents to us the basin with the cleansing
water, 'Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings; ...
cease to do evil, learn to do well.' 'What God hath joined together let
not man put asunder,' viz. the act of faith by which we receive, the act
of diligence by which we use, the purifying power.