Ver. 15.- Pure-heartedness. "Unto the pure all things are pure." The gospel centres morality as well as religion in the heart. Men of corrupt tastes cannot have eorrect morals, because a man may sin against himself as well as against society An impure heart makes an impure world of its own within; and that, if it hurts none else, hurts the man himself, wrongs his own soul. Here we see that the eye sees what it wis'.ies to see, or what the inward taste desires to see. A pure man does not under- stand the double entendre; does not see the vision of evil beneath the veil of words or the disguise of art. I. THE Jl'IBST REQUIREMENT. "A pure heart." Make the tree good. A bad ma11 will find impure suggestion anywhere and everywbere--even in religious literature, eve11 in the unsuspecting words of holy men-for bis heart is not renewed. So possible is it r.,r men to find evil even in things good. H. THE GREAT SAJl'EGUABD. "All things are pure." There is no fa:se delir.acy. No 1•rud6ry, no affectation. In meditation or converHation they catch no stain of defile- ment from the subjects they are mentally brought into contact with. Their safety is from within; for "out of the heart are the issues of life."-W. M. S. Ver. 15.-lnner <bfilement. .. But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." Thb is the worst Nemesis of evil; it hurts the man. We cau injure the physical sen,es-tbe eye, the ear ; so we can injure the mind and the moral senses. I. THE DESCRIPTION OJI' CHARACTER. Why this couplet? "Defiled and unbelieving" seems at first a strange combination of ideas. Not so. To defile is to n,arch off-to file away from. So men leave the King's bigliway of holiness, purity, truth, and righteous- ness; aud they d.o this because they are unbelieving. They will not accept the revelation of God, that sin is loss, shame, misery, death; and that holiness is happiness and life eternal. II. THE DREAD ISSUE. Nothing is pure. All waters take the colonr of the soil over which they pass. The stained windows make a stained light. An impure heart colours everything-thought, imagination, observatio1,, converBBtion, and common life. And this is the doom·! Their mind and conscience are<lefiled. They feel it. They kn<>w it, and at times ihey coni"ess it. Many shrink from themselves who have never bad resolution to seek him who can "create a clean hABrt and renew a right spirit within tbem."-W. M. 8.
Vers. 1--4.-Redemptive truth. "Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ," etc. These words direct our attention to certain phases of redernpti ve truth. The substratum of tbe gospel is not merely truth, but redemptive truth. Truth, not merely to enlighten the intellect and to discipline the mental faculties, but to raise tb, human soul from spiritual ignorance to intelligence, from spiritual bondage to liber~:·. from selfishness to benevolence, from naterialism to spirituality, from the " prince of darkness" to the true and living God. Here it appears- I. Al A GRAND ENTEBPRISE. 1. An enterprise devoted to the liighest purpose. What is the purpose? It is here described: (1) As the promotion of the faith of God's ,lect. •• According to the faith of God's elect." The idea is, perhaps, the furtherance of true faith amongst those to whom God bad, in the exercise of bis sovereignty, sent the g::>spel. As a fact, all men have not had the opportunity of receiving the gospel; indeed, only an insignificant fraction of the race bavti bad it brought to them., '!'his fractiou is a class so highly privileged that thlly m1,y be designated the "elect." Why should TITUS. 0 18 THE EP[STLE TO TITUS. [on. 1. 1-16.