SERMON X,

183

MATTHEW V. 4.

Bleed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

A

S the bleffed Saviour and Redeemer SERM.

of mankind, came down upon earth to confute the wifdom of the wife, and to put to filence the ignorance of foolish men, we shall find many of his doctrines, and more especially thofe which he delivered in his fermon on the mount, in direct oppofition to those opinions which were generally received and established; and amongst these, there is not perhaps one more apparently paradoxical and uncommon than that which is expreffed

X.

SERM. in the words of my text: Bleffed, fays

X.

1

he, are they that mourn. It feemeth indeed to contradict the voice of nature, to oppofe our reason, and to give the lye to our fenfe and feeling. It is impoffible, one would imagine, that pain and forrow, which render us miferable, can ever make us bleffed; or that what we have fo long confidered as the object of fear and averfion, can ever become pleasing and defirable. But he who made and conftituted all things, can change the nature, effence, and difpofition of them. There is nothing so bitter and calamitous which the power and goodness of God cannot render productive of joy and happinefs. Our Saviour therefore doth with great truth affert, (which the more we confider the more we fhall be convinced of) that the forrows, pains, and afflictions of this world, which we too often. fo grievously complain of, are attended

by