'Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.'--MATT.
v. 4.
An ordinary superficial view of these so-called Beatitudes is that they
are simply a collection of unrelated sayings. But they are a great deal
more than that. There is a vital connection and progress in them. The
jewels are not flung down in a heap; they are wreathed into a chain,
which whosoever wears shall have 'an ornament of grace about his neck.'
They are an outgrowth from a common root; stages in the evolution of
Christian character.
Now, I tried to show in the former sermon how the root of them all is
the poverty of spirit which is spoken of in the preceding verse; and how
it really does lie at the foundation of the highest type of human
character, and in its very self is sure of possessing the Kingdom of
Heaven. And now I turn to the second of these Beatitudes. Like all the
others, it is a paradox, for it starts from a wholly different
conception from the common one, of what is man's chief good. If the aims
which usually engross us are really the true aims of life, then there is
no meaning in this saying of our Lord, for then it had been better not
to sorrow at all than to sorrow and be comforted. But if the true
purpose for which we are all gifted with this solemn gift of life is
that we may become 'imitators of God as dear children,' then there are
few things for which men should be more thankful than the sacred sorrow,
than which there are few instruments more powerful for creating the type
of character which we are set here to make our own. All lofty,
dignified, serious thinkers and poets (who for the most of men are the
best teachers) had spoken this same thought as well as Christ. But He
speaks it with a difference all His own, which deepens incalculably its
solemnity, and sets the truth of the otherwise sentimental saying, which
flies often in the face of human nature, upon immovable foundations.
Let me ask you, then, to look with me, in the simplest possible way, at
the two thoughts of our text, as to who are the mourners that are
'blessed,' and as to what is the consolation that they receive.