ant a house to live in'? And
pray how are you going to get your house without the foundations? Or
would he be a wise man who said, 'Oh, never mind about putting grapes
into the vine vat, and producing fermentation; give me the wine!' Yes!
But you must have the fermentation first. The process is not the result,
of course, but there is no result without the process. And according to
New Testament teaching, which, I am bold to say, is verified by
experience, there is no deep, all-swaying, sovereign, heart-uniting love
to God which is not drawn from the acceptance of the truth as it is in
Jesus Christ.

II. And so I come, secondly, to note the purifying which is needed prior
to such love.

Our text, as I said, divides the process into stages; or, if I may go
back to a former illustration, into levels. And on the level
immediately above the love, down into which the waters of the twin lakes
glide, are a pure heart and a good conscience. These are the requisites
for all real and operative love. Now they are closely connected, as it
seems to me, more closely so than with either the stage which precedes
or that which follows. They are, in fact, two twin thoughts, very
closely identified, though not quite identical.

A pure heart is one that has been defecated and cleansed from the
impurities which naturally attach to human affections. A 'good
conscience' is one which is void of offence towards God and man, and
registers the emotions of a pure heart. It is like a sheet of sensitive
paper that, with a broken line, indicates how many hours of sunshine in
the day there have been. We need not discuss the question as to which of
these two great gifts and blessings which sweeten a whole life come
first. In the initial stages of the Christian life I suppose the good
conscience precedes the pure heart. For forgiveness which calms the
conscience and purges it of the perilous stuff which has been injected
into it by our corruptions--forgiveness comes before cleansing, and the
conscience is calm before the heart is purified. But in the later stages
of the Christian life the order seems to be reversed, and there cannot
be in a man a conscience that is good unless there is a heart that is
pure.

But however that may be--and it does not affect the general question
before us--mark how distinctly Paul lays down here the principle that
you will get no real love of God or man out of men whose hearts are
foul, and whose consciences are either