there is a great preponderance of coal, but there are small seams of slate running through the coal. The lower seam of coal is much thicker than the upper seam, and it is all pure, solid coal, without any slate. The upper seam resembles the regenerate heart in which there is a preponderance of grace, but there are also remains of the carnal mind, the rudiments of sin. The lower seam is like the believer's heart after entire sanctification has completed the work of purification; the pure love of God reigns alone without its opposites in any degree. There the graces of the Spirit exist in the soul without alloy, without mixture in simplicity. There is nothing contrary to them, and they exist in measure corresponding with the present capacity of the soul possessing them. Every buyer and seller is then excluded from the temple. No Canaanite remains in the land. We are "delivered out of the hand of our enemies," that we may "serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life." The soul then enters upon the Sabbath rest of the love of God, and is filled with perfect peace.

Τ

CHAPTER VI.

Purity and Maturity

HERE are various degrees of impurity, but, strictly speaking, there are no degrees of purity. According to Webster, the word pure means: "entire separation from all heterogeneous and extraneous matter, clear, free from mixture; as pure water, pure air, pure silver or gold." The word in the New Testament which is most frequently translated “pure occurs in some of its forms nearly seventy times. We may get at the idea the word was meant to convey by noting how the original is used. It is used of the body not smeared with paint or ointment, of an army rid of its sick and ineffective, of wheat, when all the chaff has been winnowed away, of vines without excrescences, and of gold without alloy. The idea is that that which is pure consists of one thing; it is uncompounded, without mixture or adulteration, it has all that belongs to it and nothing else. Gold that is free from alloy, unmixed with any baser metal, we call pure gold; milk that contains all that belongs to milk, and nothing else, is pure milk;

honey that is without wax is pure honey. In like manner a pure heart contains nothing adverse to God. Where there is mixture there cannot be purity. By purity of heart we mean that which is undefiled, untainted, free from evil stains, without earthly alloy. It is holiness unmixed with selfishness and pride, or any other polluting and debasing element. When this supernatural and divine work is wrought within us by the Holy Spirit, all the chaff, refuse, and dross are purged away and sifted out of the soul, and the precious residuum is the genuine, the true, the pure, and the good. Then the eye is single and the whole body is full of light. The graces exist in an unmixed state. Love exists without any germs of hatred, faith without any unbelief, humility without pride, meekness without any anger. "Purity of heart is the removal of whatever God could not admit into His immediate presence, and fellowship with Himself; in other words, the abolition of sin itself."

The

By maturity we mean all this, and much more. error of confusing purity of heart with maturity of Christian character lies at the base of nearly all the objections made to instantaneous and entire sanctification. Identifying and confounding these have occasioned most of the difficulties we find among Christians in reference to this doctrine. The scriptures always discriminate between purity of heart and the ripeness and fulness of Christian virtues. The one is a work wrought within us in a moment by the omnipotent power of the sanctifying Spirit, the other is a natural process involving culture and discipline. Purity has reference to kind or quality, but maturity has respect

to degree or quantity. In 2 Corinthians vii. 1, the difference is clearly taught between holiness as a complete and immediate deliverance from all sin and the seemingly paradoxical doctrine of progressive holiness. Holiness is both a gift and a process, and as such it is both instantaneous and gradual, as this Scripture recognises and explains: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit; perfecting holiness in the fear of God." By the "flesh" we understand the lower animal nature which we have in common with the brute creation. The "spirit" is the higher, nobler nature, designed to be the temple of God in man. The expression "all filthiness of the flesh and spirit," embraces the whole of those evil propensities of our nature which would lead us to any kind of inordinate sensual indulgence, and all evil tempers, such as pride, envy, self-will, malice, uncharitableness, etc. It is that carnal and fleshlymindedness of the heart which inheres to our fallen nature, the inward fountain, which we have already described, from which actual sins in the life have their rise. The phrase includes the whole of sin in man, the depraved nature in its entirety. Had the word "all" been omitted, we should have been puzzled to know from how much sin we may be saved, and from how much we may not be saved. But this word covers the whole ground, the remedy extends to the last remains of sin.

As to when this deliverance may take place, the verb "cleanse" is in the aorist tense, which denotes that it is an instantaneous work. According to the best

New Testament grammarians, we have no English tense exactly like the aorist in the Greek. It denotes a single momentary and decisive act, in opposition to a continuous and never-completed work. Hence says Dr. Beet: "It is worthy of notice that in the New Testament we never read expressly and unmistakably of sanctification as a gradual process." We grasp by faith the sin-consuming power which sweeps the heart clean at a stroke.

Cleansing is spoken of here as a human work, because it is by faith we appropriate the purifying power. On God's part all is done. The atonement is complete, the provisions ample. Christ's great work was restorative as well as atoning. Through the shedding of His blood He has procured for us cleansing as well as forgiveness. This is the teaching of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all." What is meant is that through His atoning work Christ has procured or purchased complete deliverance from sin for us exactly as He has made forgiveness possible to us. It is the will of God that we should be sanctified in the same way as we are justified "through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all." Provision is made for our sanctification as fully as for our justification. The human work in entire cleansing is to appropriate the salvation Christ has purchased and promised. The promises are the means and instruments of our cleansing. In order to cleanse a filthy garment, the fuller uses nitre and soap-both the fuller and soap are cleansers. So exactly is it with salvation, it is both a divine and