2. Not that we can imagine this promise belongs to those, who mourn only on some worldly account: who are in sorrow and heaviness, merely on account of some worldly trouble or disappointment; such as the loss of their reputation, or friends; or the impairing of their fortune. As little title to it have they who are afflicting themselves, through fear of some temporal evil: or who pine away with anxious care, or that desire of earthly things which _maketh the heart sick_. Let us not think, these _shall receive any thing from the_ Lord: he is not in all their thoughts. Therefore it is that they thus _walk in a vain shadow, and disquiet themselves in vain_. And _this shall ye have of mine hand_, saith the Lord, _ye shall lie down in sorrow_.
3. The mourners of whom our Lord here speaks, are those that mourn on quite another account: they that mourn after God, after him in whom they did _rejoice, with joy unspeakable_, when he gave them to _taste the good_, the pardoning _word, and the powers of the world to come_. But he now _hides his face and they are troubled_; they cannot see him through the dark cloud. But they see temptation and sin, which they fondly supposed were gone never to return, arising again, following after them amain, and holding them in on every side. It is not strange if their soul is now disquieted within them, and trouble and heaviness take hold upon them. Nor will their great enemy fail to improve the occasion; to ask, “Where is now thy God? Where is now the blessedness whereof thou spakest? The beginning of the kingdom of heaven? Yea, hath God said, Thy sins are forgiven thee? Surely God hath not said it. It was only a dream, a mere delusion, a creature of thy own imagination. If thy sins are forgiven, why art thou thus? Can a pardoned sinner be thus unholy?”――And if then, instead of immediately crying to God, they reason with him that is wiser than they, they will be in heaviness indeed, in sorrow of heart, in anguish not to be exprest. Nay even when God shines again upon the soul, and takes away all doubt of his past mercy, still he that is _weak in faith_ may be tempted and troubled, on account of what is to come: especially, when inward sin revives, and thrusts sore at him that he may fall. Then may he again cry out,
“I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore!”
Lest I should make shipwreck of the faith, and my last state be worse than the first:
“Lest all my bread of life should fail And I sink down unchang’d to hell.”
4. Sure it is that this affliction _for the present is not joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it bringeth forth peaceable fruit unto them that are exercised thereby. Blessed_ therefore _are they that_ thus _mourn_, if they _tarry the_ Lord’s _leisure_, and suffer not themselves to be turned out of the way, by the miserable comforters of the world; if they resolutely reject all the comforts of sin, of folly and vanity; all the idle diversions and amusements of the world, all the pleasures which _perish in the using_, and which only tend to benumb and stupify the soul, that it may neither be sensible of itself nor God. Blessed are they who _follow on to know the_ Lord, and steadily refuse all other comfort. They shall be comforted by the consolations of his Spirit, by a fresh manifestation of his love; by such a witness of his accepting them in the Beloved, as shall never more be taken away from them. This _full assurance of faith_ swallows up all doubt, as well as all tormenting fear; God now giving them a sure hope of an enduring substance and _strong consolation through grace_. Without disputing, whether it be possible for any of those to _fall away, who were once enlightened and made partakers of the Holy Ghost_, it suffices them to say, by the power now resting upon them, [54]_Who shall separate us from the love of_ Christ? _I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come: nor height nor depth――shall be able to separate us from the love of_ God, _which is in_ Christ Jesus _our_ Lord!