always participate in each other's feelings, and always are sub- jects of the same blessedness.
Let us, in the next place, inquire,]
II. In what their blessedness consists —
Doubtless, to carnal eyes, there is little in such characters that can render them objects of envy : to a superficial observer, they appear rather to be in a most melancholy and pitiable condition. But they are truly blessed :
1. Their privileges are great —
[" The kingdom of heaven is theirs, "even that kingdom which Christ has established in the world, and maintains in the hearts of men. The blessings of that kingdom are precisely such as they want ; and they are in the very state to which all those blessings are promised. The Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world, in order to seek and save them that were lost. In him is treasured up all that they can desire. " He is wis- dom" to the blind, " righteousness" to the guilty, " sanctifi- cation" to the polluted, "redemption" to the enslaved'. He addresses himself to the very persons who are thus mourning over their blind, naked, destitute condition ; and bids them accept at his hands, " gold, that they may be enriched ; raiment, that they may be clothed; and eye-salve, that they may see''." To feel and to lament their need of these things, is all the qualification that he requires for the reception of them. To those who are insensible of their need he will impart nothing ; but to the humble and contrite he will give more than they can either ask or think. Indeed the " kingdom of heaven" is theirs : they have not only a title to all its blessings, but an earnest of them already in their souls. Their poverty and contrition are evidences that the throne of Christ is already established in their hearts : and as certainly as they are made partakers of the kingdom of grace, so shall they in due time inherit the kingdom of glory.
And are not these persons justly called "happy'?" Who are " happy, but they who have their unrighteousness forgiven, and their sin covered™?" Who are happy, but they who have Christ for their friend, and heaven for their everlasting inhe- ritance ? ]
2. Their comforts are great also —
[Strange as it may appear, there is a comfort, an exceeding great comfort, in mourning for sin ; insomuch that the true
' 1 Cor. i. 30.
1^ Rev. iii. 17, 18
' fjaKapioi.
"^ Ps. xxxii. 1, 2.