Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. I. If the heart must be created anew before it can be a clean heart, certainly, before it is thus new-formed, it is AN IMPURE AND UNCLEAN HEART. And this that is here implied is frequently in the Scriptures directly affirmed (Genesis 7:5; Jeremiah 17:19; Mark 7:21). All the evils that are in the world are but evidences of the impurity of the heart, that unclean fountain and original of them. II. WHEREIN THE UNCLEANNESS OF THE HEART CONSISTS. A clean heart is such a heart as hath clean desires and affections; an unclean heart is that which hath unclean and impure desires, a heart full of evil concupiscence. III. THE CAUSES OF THIS UNCLEANNESS OF THE HEART. 1. The impetuousness and continual solicitations of the sensual appetite, which continually sends up its foul exhalations and steams into the heart, and thereby taints and infects it. 2. The weakness and the defect of the imperial part of the soul, the reason and understanding. IV. HOW IT COMES TO PASS THAT A HEART THUS NATURALLY UNCLEAN IS CLEANSED, which in general is by a restitution of the soul to its proper and native sovereignty and dominion over the sensual appetite; and those lusts that arise from the constitution of the body, and the connection of the soul to it. (Sir M. Hale.) Parallel Verses KJV: Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.WEB: Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. |
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