The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 195

Ver. 4.-The 'blessednus qf the mourner. "Blessed are they that mourn," etc. Perhaps this Beatitude may be counted as the one that most amazed ears and minds, which were not a little amazed by each one in turn. How little real cheerfulness possessed the heart of the people among whom Jesus lived! There was a maddened, frivolous excitement on the one hand; on the other, a tamed-down and habitual dispiritednese. The heritage of the nation at this time was the millery and sense of degradation that came of many of the grossest forms of bodily disease, of the heart of religion eaten out, and of an oppressed and down-trodden political condition. .And both-the ever- memorable, ever-dear invitation, "Come to me, all ye that ere weary and heavy laden," and this Beatitude, "Blessed are they that mourn "-betray and bespeak in utter harmony with one another the prevailing tone and genius of the saddened nation, Nay, unless what Jesus now pronounces can be thoroughly maintained and made good, so suited is the word to the most patent aspects of the people's heart, that it might run the risk of seeming the refinement of a mocking flattery. But, whatever the people of the time thought and believed, or believed not, about this saying, nineteen centuries have fortified and still fortify its position. Even "the natural history " of the mourner, much more his spiritual history, passed in simplest review, will show that the saying of JellllS is not to take rank with the strained, unreal, arbitrary sayings of philosopher or quack, either optimist or pessimist, but is the saying of deep, abiding truth. l. MoUB:tUNG EXPRESSES AT THE LOWEST ESTIMATE A HOPEFUL SUSCEPTIBILITY. Where tears are, there is some susceptibility, at all events. Fatal fever does not rage, and is not doing its irremediable worst. Pitiless heat, shut-up heavens, unyielding drought, have not scorched up irrecoverably the verdure of the heart. One tear in the eye tells of at least one spring in the heart, though it lie ever so concealed. Eeau's deluge of tears testified that, though his birthright was irrecoverably lost, yet he himself was not so. The woman who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears had lost more, and more irrecoverably, than Esau lost, yet she herself was saved, and Jesus guaranteed it: "'l'hy faith hath saved thee: go in peace." Peter, at the fire of the judgment-hall, renounced his faith, hie Lord, hie hope; and was not hie conscience seared and hie soul branded for a lost soul? No, for he "went out and wept· bitterly." But there was another who also denied Jesus. He was close by, and he too" went out," but not to weep; we read not of one tea.r. So, even so, on the loweet showing, the mourner is hleseed.  OB. v.1-48.} THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 187