well if
they were equally afraid of being imperfect; for it is imperfection that
grieves God. This dread of perfection has been called by some one, "a
scarecrow set up by the devil to frighten away God's people from the very
finest of the wheat.") "That is perfection!" Yes and no. It _is_ the
perfection which is not only allowed, but commanded in the Word of God.
But it is not _absolute_ perfection; it is not sinlessness. Let us look
carefully at the expression, "From all known, conscious sin;" "From all;"
yes, all, not some or nearly all, but from "all known sin"--known, that
is, to us, though not from all known to God; from "all known, conscious
sin," so that one might be able to say, in the language of the lowliest
of the apostles, "Herein do I also exercise myself to have a conscience
void of offense toward God and men alway" (Acts xxiv. 16); and "I know
nothing against myself" (1 Cor. iv. 4); or, in the language of the
disciple whom Jesus loved, "We keep His commandments, and do those things
that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John iii. 22). To have a clean heart,
then, is to be saved "from our sins," saved from sinning, saved by JESUS;
note it well! not saved by our own efforts, by our watching and praying,
and wrestling and fighting and struggling, but by Jesus. So it is not a
question of what _we_ can do, but of what _He_ can do. "Is anything too
hard for the Lord?" (Gen. xviii. 14.) Can He not "guard from stumbling?"
(Jude 24.) Can He not save from sin, from sinning? Is not this what is
meant when it is said, "He is able to save to the uttermost"? (Heb. vii.
25.) "Able to save," as Matthew Poole puts it, "to perfection, to the
full, to all ends, from sin, in its guilt, its stain, its power." Yes, He
is just as complete, as perfect a Saviour from the _power_ of sin, as He
is from its guilt and stain. He is equally powerful in each department of
His saving work. But after all is said and done, and one is being saved
from all known, conscious sin, saved from sinning, that is not to say
there is no sin remaining. We are face to face with the inspired
statement, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1 John i. 8).
How much sin may there be in us of which we are entirely unconscious, but
which is naked and open to those "Eyes like unto a flame of fire!" (Rev.
ii. 18).

"I know nothing against myself," cries Paul in 1 Cor. iv. 4, "yet am I
not hereby justified; but He that judgeth (examineth) me is the Lord.