XXX.

THE BEATITUDE OF MOURNERS.*

MATTHEW, v., 4: Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com

forted.

[Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, Lord's Day evening, June 22, 1828.]

THE object for which Christ came was to bless mankind by "turning away every one from his iniquities." He began his ministry by pointing out the object itself-blessedness-and the way of attaining it. He described those dispositions and principles which must be formed in the heart, to prepare us for true happiness, and He departed from the world in the act of blessing his followers.

In the text there appears something like a paradox, no two ideas being more opposite than those of mourning and blessedness. Mourning is the consequence of pain; how, then, can they that mourn be the happy? In saying this, our Lord speaks as one who saw the end from the beginning, and called things that are not as though they were: He points out what is essential as the way to happiness. It is not meant that the mourning is itself the happiness; but it constitutes that state of mind which is necessary to prepare for the reception of happiness. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”

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I. It may be proper, before we proceed to the immediate subject, to correct an error that prevails with many. It is often imagined by those who have suffered much in this world, and whose sufferings, perhaps, have been in great part owing to their own misconduct, that there is something expiatory in their sufferings; that they have thus made some kind of atonement for their sins, and, having suffered here, have the less to fear hereafter. It is unnecessary to inform any who are acquainted with Scripture, that nothing can be more foreign to the genius of Christianity than such an idea. Christianity knows nothing but the blood of Christ as the expiation for guilt. They must be strangely ignorant of God's character and the spirituality of his law, who can suppose any other expiation. There is nothing in the sorrows of time that can provide for eternity. Imagine not, because you are poor, unfortunate, despised by the world, or afflicted in body, that you are more exempt from the sentence of Divine justice. Present sufferings, which are the consequence of sin, not its antidote, have no value except so far as they are improved as the means of our sanctification. It is the natural effect of sin to produce suffering; it tends to destroy peace

*From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield.

health, reputation, property. Men of the world, thus afflicted, mourn the consequences of sin, not the cause of those consequences- -mourn the effects of sin, not sin itself. God complains in Hosea, vii., "They have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds!" They say "there is no hope," but their mourning springs from an excessive love of this world, from disappointed sensuality, avarice, or ambition. Like Micah, they exclaim, "Ye have taken away my gods!" Thus "the sorrow of the world' worketh death :" the world has many such martyrs; but they are not those of the Church, not the martyrs of penitence and piety.

II. We come now to state, positively, what sort of sorrow that is which makes the happy man.

1. It is " sorrow for sin after a godly sort;" not sorrow merely for the effects of sin, but sorrow for sin itself, and this "after a godly sort; for godly sorrow worketh repentance unto life, not to be repented of." It is not itself repentance, because this is a practical change; but it is a grand means of producing this change, and it arises from the view of sin in its true light, as contrariety to God, neglect of the highest good, ingratitude to the best Friend, rebellion against our Maker; the view of sin as sin, independent of its effects. This sorrow produces an abhorrence of sin; he who feels it will have no idea of retaining a single sin in his heart; he will cast away his sins, as idolaters their idols, to the moles and bats. The elements of repentance are found in the mourner's mind; he turns to the Lord in earnest, yields himself up to be guided by the Lord, and utters the language of Ephraim: "Surely after I was turned, I repented, I was ashamed, yea, confounded."

And such are blessed; they are comforted by the balm prepared for those who thus mourn; they hear that "our God is merciful, and will abundantly pardon." Yet their sorrow will not end here; their mourning assumes a higher character; it becomes more liberal and filial in its nature; they learn to love much, because much is forgiven. Like the Jews, when converted, they "look on Him whom they had pierced, and mourn apart with a great mourning." Ezekiel represents their case when he says, "That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee for all thou hast done." If God has forgiven them, yet they can never forgive themselves; and never do they see sin so great as in the cross of Christ, where they see at once its evil and God's mercy! Through his whole course, the Christian mourns; he mourns the remains of sin in the spirit of Paul: "The good that I would, I do not; but the evil I would not, that I do I find a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me; I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." This is a continual source of holy VOL. IV.-LL

mourning, that accompanies the saint even in his highest elevations; he can never forget that he is a sinner-never forget the wormwood and the gall; he carries the exercise of repentance to the very gates of heaven! Those, therefore, who mourn are in the way to happiness; and those who are in the way, are regarded in the text as having attained the end, as being the happy persons.

2. That sorrow which arises from a view of the moral state of the world is a blessed sorrow. The Christian cannot regard with unconcern the whole world lying in wickedness; neither his regard for God nor man permits him to be indifferent to such a scene. To see a world full of all the elements of misery and ruin, in arms against its Maker, saying to God, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways!" this has been a grief to good men in every age: "Rivers of tears," says the Psalmist, "flow down my cheeks, because men keep not thy law!” He beholds the transgressors, and is grieved; he remembers that the triumph of the wicked is short; no refinement of society, no polish of arts and manners, can reconcile him to the moral disorder of the world, or veil its real wretchedness from his view; he sees that many of its most distinguished favourites are only "whited sepulchres." Nothing is a surer indication of a right state of mind than a sincere concern for the moral condition of the world. When Paul visited Athens, he was not to be reconciled to the view of its ungodliness by all the splendour of its arts, or the inveterate custom of idolatry, though, perhaps, such a forbearance might have been admired by many who call themselves philosophers, as the mark of an enlarged and liberal mind. In the midst of all that he saw, "his spirit was stirred within him," and, through all that glittered around, he saw the symptoms of spiritual death and eternal ruin! And who, that ever mourned over himself, can fail to mourn over a race thus fallen? But such shall be comforted: there is the prospect of a period approaching, when "the Spirit shall be poured out on all flesh, and all shall know the Lord ;" and there is a day when the reasons of all this disorder, which we cannot now explain, shall be cleared up, and it shall be seen and owned that "He hath done all things well!"

3. A third cause of that mourning which our Lord pronounces blessed is, the very limited progress of Christianity in the world. Certainly it is a fact equally melancholy and strange, that such a religion, attested by such evidence, should have been so slow to spread, either in its internal influence or its outward profession; that the pagan world is still so vast; that still the greater part of those called Christians live as worldly lives as if heaven had never been brought to light, as if Christ had never come, indulging all the same passions, the same vanities and vices! "This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation." This would have done more to chill the ardour of the apostles than all the

persecutions they endured! But here, too, there is a consolation: God will once more set his hand to his work, retouch his creation, renovate the world, infuse a new life and spirit into the dead mass, and call into action new elements in the moral world! · When "his word shall have free course, and be glorified, and a pation shall be born in a day!"

4. The scandals occasioned to religion by professing Christians, by the inconsistent lives of those who call themselves the friends of religion, are a fourth cause of sorrow to a pious mind. This is the greatest wound that can be inflicted on the sacred cause, and affords the greatest strength to its enemies. And on this account the Christian feels humbled and concerned, "as when an armour-bearer fainteth." The wicked feel themselves confirmed in vice, their conscience is refreshed and invigorated; but the pious are grieved, as by a wound almost incurable, when the highest professors are found to have been only the most dexterous deceivers; when the foundations of all confidence in religious profession are shaken, and none can be known to be sincere. But grief on this account is a sign of your sincerity and your zeal for God: and ere long the Canaanite shall dwell no more in the land; none uncircumcised in heart shall remain among the people of God.

5. Sorrow that we can do so little good may be numbered in the list of blessed sorrows. Every sincere Christian feels himself a public character, called to do good to others, and he desires to be useful. What grief has arisen to many from the disappointment of this desire! How often, for instance, has the pious minister been ready to exclaim, "Who hath believed our report?" He waited long for the signs of a new life among those that were dead in sin, and was still condemned to see all the same as before, the same sensual, worldly, proud, avaricious, cold, and formal character as at first! But grief like this shall be comforted: his record is with God; probably the seed, hid for a time, will rise at last; the bread, cast on the waters, shall be found after many days: at any rate, the work returns to the bosom of God, to whom it was devoted; like David, who had it in his heart to build the Lord's house, and, though he built it not, his design was accepted, and the little success and encouragement that attended it gave the endeavour a stamp of greater sacredness. Such regret is more noble, and, perhaps, even more delightful, than any thing short of success, as it is of a divine

nature.

6. They that, from a sense that this world is not their congenial element and home, groan under the desire of a better, even a heavenly state, are blessed in their mourning. "We," says the apostle, "who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened, and being willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord." "We who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit groan in ourselves, waiting for the redemption of the body."

Place a Christian in the most elevated station of this life, he would not wish to linger in it long; he regards the present rather as a state of trial than as a scene of enjoyment: he feels himself a stranger, not at home; having had a glimpse of the heavenly city, he sighs after it, and he can never be satisfied until he sees God-until, with the Psalmist, he beholds his face in righteousness, awaken after his likeness, and is satisfied with it! The present is to him rather a state of fear and trembling than one of indulgence. He has had a view of that better world, such as makes all that could be offered him in this appear but as an insult and a mockery in comparison with such a portion!

And such a mourner shall be comforted: he shall not be disappointed of his hope: God will satisfy the desires which He infused the Christian shall depart to be with Christ, with the only happy* God!

Such is the character of the truly blessed man: but it is not the character of the worldling, who says, "Soul, take thine ease;" who rests in the world as his portion and home; who has lost the sense of his original, his birthright, his immortal prerogative, and judges himself unworthy of eternal life!"

But let not such a character as this belong to any of you, my brethren! Show yourselves to be men, by aspiring after the Only happiness for which man was made! Or, rather, to take a still higher and more sacred view, let us show ourselves to be Christians in spirit as well as name, by consecrating our hearts to the pursuit of those blessings which Christ came to bestow! Remember, if you will reap your harvest here, you cannot reap it hereafter; if you are determined to have your portion in this world, you must be content to pass into an eternity of infinite loss and destitution! But if, on the contrary, you are ready to suffer, should suffering be necessary, in the path of Christ, you shall also be glorified with Him; if you follow Him in the state of humiliation and patience, you shall follow Him to the state of bliss and glory in which He now dwells!

In unison with Dr. Campbell, whose lectures he had attended at Aberdeen, and whose version of the gospels he often commended, Mr. Hall preferred the term "happy," as an equivalent for the Greek pakopios, to "blessed," which more properly represents cuλoynros. In two places only is the former epithet applied to God: 1 Timothy, chap. i., v. 11, and chap. vi., v. 15. "Happy" refers to the state of mind, "blessed" to the Divine favour attendant on him whom we so represent.GRINFIELD.