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is not abstinence from outward deeds of profligacy alone; it is not a mere recoil from impurity in thought. It is that quick and sensitive delicacy to which even the very conception of evil is offensive; it is a virtue which has its residence within, which takes guardianship of the heart, as of a citadel or inviolated sanctuary, in which no wrong or worthless imagination is permitted to dwell. It is not purity of action that we contend for: it is the exalted purity of the heart, the ethereal purity of the third heaven; and if it is at once settled in the heart, it brings the peace, the triumph, and the untroubled serenity of heaven along with it; I had almost said, the pride of a great moral victory over the infirmities of an earthly and accursed nature. There is health and harmony in the soul; a beauty, which, though it effloresees in the countenance and outward path, is itself so thoroughly internal as to make purity of heart the most distinctive evidence of a character that is ripening and expanding for the glories of eternity.

(T. Chalmers, D. D.)

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KJV: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;

WEB: that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor,