frons. While they lament the fins that are prevalent in the condition of all men, they moft heavily lament their own. But they do not reft in unproductive grief: They mourn a godly forrow to repentance.

To those that mourn in this religious sense our Lord affigns a correfpondent bleffing: For they fhall be comforted.

This is a Beatitude which the world is unable to beftow. Amid the afflictions and miferies of life there is but faint and cold confolation in all fublunary things. Philofophy, though proud of its resources, could yield no efficient relief. And the grave, when confidered without any view beyond it, is but a melancholy refuge from the forrows of our nature. This we may observe in the practice of the Heathens. Having but faint notions of a fuperintending providence and the remunerative justice of a holy God, they were ready to fink under the preffure of calamity.

The Jews, when oppreffed with affliction, were taught to refort for confolation to the God of their Fathers, who had promifed, that if they turned unto him, he also would turn unto them, that if they adhered to him with all their hearts, he would never leave them nor forfake them. It was the of

fice

fice of the Prophets, not only to call them to repentance, but also to comfort them in all their depreffions. It was the frequent theme of Isaiah, the Herald of most welcome tidings to the Houfe of Ifrael, to invite his people to pious acts of joy and gratitude: For God would comfort Sion, and would have mercy on them who had been afflicted. He declares it to be one important and most gracious part of his prophetic office," to heal the broken hearted, to comfort them that mourn, to give them beauty for afhes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the fpirit of heaviness '.' And in the opening of his more exalted series of prophecy he breaks out into this cheering and animating strain "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, faith your God. Speak ye to the heart of Jerufalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquities are expiated, that the fhall receive at the hand of the Lord bleffings double to the punishment of all her fins m "

All these promises of divine confolation were fulfilled in the letter on the people of Ifrael, in their redemption from captivity to freedom; in their reftoration from exile to

! Isa. lxi. 1, 2, 3,

m Ifa. xl. I, 2.

the

the land of their Fathers. But in the fpiritual fense they have a plenary accomplishment on all that are Ifraelites indeed, in their redemption from the bondage of corruption to the glorious liberty of the children of God. It was the peculiar character of our bleffed Lord to be the Minister of peace and confolation to the world. Thus at his nativity the company of heaven announced to their fellow-fervants upon earth good tidings of great joy, which was to extend to all people. And when he entered upon his ministry, it was his gracious office, as Ifaiah had prefignified in his own perfon, to bind up the broken hearted, and to comfort them that mourn. He did not indeed gratify the carnal and ambitious views of those, who waited in a literal fenfe for the confolations of Ifrael. Yet to thofe, who mourned in a truly religious aim, he gave confolations of another kind, which did not depend upon the revolutions of earthly states or the viciffitudes of worldly things. And as he was liberal of his mercies to all, who laboured under the maladies and afflictions of human life, by reftoring fight to the blind and health to the fick, by giving foundnefs of body to the palfied and the lame, and foundness of understanding to the lunatic and the demoniac, fo, he was alfo liberal of

- his comforts to all thofe, who mourned with undiffembled forrow for their fins. To the truly penitent he laid open for their confolation the pardon and the peace of God. And as to those who laboured under the burden and anguish of bodily disease, he said, " Be whole," fo to thofe, who laboured under the heavier burden and the keener anguish of a troubled confcience, he said, "Your fins be forgiven you."

The fame confolation, which he gave in his perfonal miniftry, he ftill extends in the difpenfation of grace to all who mourn after a godly fort. Though he does not fufpend the operations of nature to administer relief, yet in his written word and in the still small voice of confcience he whispers peace to the troubled and dejected foul. The words, which he addreffed to his primitive Difciples, will apply to all who look upon him in full afsurance of faith: "Ye fhall be forrowful; but your forrow fhall be turned into joy." Whether they mourn the miseries and calamities, which await this fcene of discipline, or whether they mourn that far greater evil the moral miferies, which they fee in others, and more fenfibly experience in themselves, they find in his Gofpel a certain fource of confolation. Therein they have

affurance,

affurance, that those natural afflictions, under which they groan, are defigned by a wife and gracious providence to promote their own and the general good, that the moral evils, by which they are ftill more heavily oppreffed, are upon their repentance abfolved and forgiven through the atoning merits of their Redeemer. This indeed is a comfort beyond all fublunary bleffings; it is fuch a fatisfaction as the world cannot give. To all that truly mourn confolation is given in the words of their Redeemer: "Ye now therefore have forrow: But I will fee you again, and your hearts fhall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world ".

But the full and perfect fruit of this religious mourning is referved for the life to come. In the present state of being, however we may ftrive to elevate our minds above terreftrial forrows by the contemplation. of celeftial joys, yet as long as we bear about us the relations and the paffions of mortality, we must neceffarily feel as mortal men: