A35541:122
The nature and principles of love, as the end of the commandment declared in…
The nature and principles of love, as the end of the commandment declared in some of the last sermons of Mr. Joseph Caryl ; with an epistle prefixed by John Owen ...
London : Printed, and are to be sold by John Hancock, senior and junior ..., 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First, The hardest thing that we have to do, is the purifying of our hearts, and the greatest kindness which God can do us, is to cleanse our hearts. The cleansing of the heart is the hardest piece of work, it is comparatively an easy thing to cleanse the hand, comparatively an easy thing to cleanse the Tongue, and to have that pure, but to have the heart purified, there's the great stick. And then,
First, The hardest thing that we have to do, is the purifying of our hearts, and the greatest kindness which God can do us, is to cleanse our hearts. The cleansing of the heart is the hardest piece of work, it is comparatively an easie thing to cleanse the hand, comparatively an easie thing to cleanse the Tongue, and to have that pure, but to have the heart purified, there's the great stick. And then,
Secondly, Look to the purity of your hearts, for they have certainly need of purifying. They whose hearts are still in their first natural state, they have need indeed, and they who are in a spiritual state, have need of daily purifying, look ⟨p. 73⟩(I say) therefore to the purifying of your hearts, for they have need to be purified, they are the filthiest part of us: If there be impurity in the hand, there's much more in the heart; and then,
'Tis indeed a vain thing, to go about to purify the hand, or Tongue, or life, if the heart be Impure. 'Twere a vain thing for any one to go and cleanse a stream, while he know's that there is a Fountain above that sends forth filthy, and unclean, and poisonous water. 'Tis just so in this case; till the heart be made pure, nothing can be pure.
'Tis indeed a vain thing, to go about to purify the hand, or Tongue, or life, if the heart be Impure. 'Twere a vain thing for any one to go and cleanse a stream, while he know's that there is a Fountain above that sends forth filthy, and unclean, and poysonous water. 'Tis just so in this case; till the heart be made pure, nothing can be pure.