SERMON VI.

PURITY OF HEART.

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

MATT. 5: 8.

THE text naturally suggests to the mind, an important distinction between the Gospel of Christ and other systems, in the fact, that it has mainly to do with the hearts of men, while they direct their efforts mostly to the regulation of the hands. They are satisfied when man yields an outward obedience to their commands; but Christianity is never satisfied, until the heart is purified, so that it can yield the obedience of love. Others could give directions for the government of the outward conduct; but it was the aim of Jesus to touch the heart, and bring it into subjection to the law of Divine love. It is, probably, for this reason, that the specific moral precepts of the Gospel are even less full and explicit, than those of some of the ancients; and its code consists rather of great first principles, than minute and particular details.

Christ saw that the source of human actions was deeper than his predecessors had imagined. The experience of ages had demonstrated the fact, that no mere arbitrary laws could control human action, or guide it in the path of duty, so long as the hearts of the children of men were fully set in them to do evil. Hence, he inculcated purity of heart, as the great boon to be sought, with all earnestness, and the only effectual remedy for sin, and safeguard of virtue. He sought to infuse into the soul those Divine truths, which should so exalt and purify the nature, that each individual man should become a law unto himself, and voluntarily walk in the way of truth and duty.

To hedge men around with laws, while they were bent on mischief, and while all was corrupt within, was, in his view, but to chain the furious maniac, and leave him a maniac still, to sunder his chains, and break out in acts of violence.

Better, by far, to speak the word, that had power to cast out the evil spirit, and restore the madman to his right mind, and then leave him to follow the promptings of the better spirit.

One holy principle of Heaven's truth-one pure and godlike feeling, breathed upon the soul, and diffused through the heart of universal humanity is more efficacious for good, than all the abstract laws, for the regulation of human hands and bodies, that were ever invented.

I hold it, therefore, as the glory of Christ, that, instead of tampering with the external, he appealed to the internal man, and labored so to breathe into the soul the breath Divine, that it might live the life of God, and spontaneously bring forth the abundant fruits of righteousness.

The benediction of the text is pronounced upon "the pure in heart," and their blessedness consists in the fact, that they shall see God. In pursuing the subject here presented, it will be proper to consider

I. The characters upon which the blessing is pronounced.

These are "the pure in heart." It is not presumable, that we are to understand, by purity of heart, a destitution of the passions, or propensities, common to human nature; for this would make the perfect stoic, cold as marble, and incapable of

an act, that should rise above the workings of an inanimate machine. God has made us, and endued us with all the passions we possess; and they are all proper, and necessary to our wellbeing. The difficulty is in the excess, or the wrong action, of the passions, and not in their harmonious development, or proper exercise. They are blind, and, if left uncontrolled, will certainly run into excess and evil. For this cause, God has exalted us above the brutes, by giving us an intellectual and moral nature; and these should direct, and guide, and regulate the passions, and bring them into subjection to the law of love, which is but an emanation from God himself the test and standard of all purity and goodness.

This great law of Divine love, in which all other laws are fulfilled, and which is the sum and substance of all the law and the prophets, should be the supreme rule- the great governing principle of the mind-hallowing every thought, and giving tone and direction to every act. In Christ," a new commandment" is given, that "we should love one another;" and strict

conformity to this great law, is the highest point of human purity. Let but this love be in us, and abound, and we shall be numbered among the pure in heart. Not, that we shall be stripped entirely of the common and universal attributes of humanity; but, love and kindness shall so pervade and sanctify the soul, that every passion shall be tuned to harmony, and brought to the obedience of Christ.

Purity of heart consists, not in a stoical apathy, or morbid insensibility, which enables a man to walk among his fellows like a marble statue, which, though beautiful and white, is cold and dead. The pure heart is warm, and alive to all the best and tenderest sensibilities of nature. Men may lift themselves, as they think, above the world, stand aloof from their race, and have no communion with its evil doings; but there is no evidence of real purity, in such a course. That blessed boon is not to be sought in the cell of the monk, or the cloister of the recluse, but in the busy world, where man was made to dwell, and to act. And it is not confined to the votaries of any creed, or to the professors of any sect. The