attention, and which indeed you can hardly fail to notice in studying these words, is the wide diversity, or rather, the diametrical opposition, between the judgment of the Son of God, and the judgment of the world, as to the path by following which true happiness is to be attained. A worldly man need only glance his eye over these verses to satisfy himself, that wherever happiness is to be found, the road to it does not lie in such a state of mind as is here depicted. These are the very feelings and dispositions which above all others he would shun, as certain to lead him into the region farthest from the object of his search. God's ways indeed are not our ways; and so true is it, that if a man be in Christ he is a new creature, and that except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Let us now consider the first in order, of the blessings pronounced by Christ. "Blessed," he says, "are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

The persons concerned in this blessing are described as "the poor in spirit." What is the meaning of this expression? It is not identical with that which occurs in the following verse,

"they that mourn;" for our Divine Teacher

uses no tautology. "The poor in spirit" are those who are sensible of their own spiritual poverty and emptiness. All of us alike are, in fact, spiritually poor, whether we are sensible of it or not; but those who are taught of God differ from others in this respect, that they know and feel their poverty.

Has the Holy Spirit taught you that fear of the Lord which is the very beginning of wisdom? You cannot know what you really are yourself, unless you know what God is. You cannot know the extent of your fall in Adam, and your real wretchedness apart from Christ, unless you have learned the true character of that God with whom you have to do. You cannot know how empty you are of everything that constitutes "the true riches," unless you understand something of the purity and holiness of that God, whose image you have lost. The more you know of God, the deeper and more genuine will be your humility, and the poorer you will be in spirit. It is only in God's light that we shall see light; and as a bright stream of sunshine reveals innumerable motes which before were hidden, so that they almost seem then first to start into existence, thus the revelation which God makes of himself in the soul, brings out into vivid contrast our own defilement. This was the secret of Job's submission; "I have

heard of thee," he says, "with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I

abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." This was what laid low another eminent servant of God. What said Isaiah, when he saw his glory, and spake of him? "Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

When, however, God brings thus low, he raises up again. But "Woe," says the same prophet, "unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." Woe unto those who imagine that they are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing. Woe unto those who are not "poor in spirit." rich towards God. However they may now appear to themselves to flourish, their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust.

They cannot be

If you have not received from Him who holds all the gifts of the Spirit, that tried faith which is much more precious than gold, you are miserably poor. If you are not clothed in white raiment,-washed, and made white in the blood of the Lamb, you are naked as sin can make you. If you have not anointed your eyes with eyesalve;

if you are not believing and following Him who is come a Light into the world, you are blind, walking in darkness, without the light of life. Unless you have made a covenant with death, ask of Him in whom all fulness dwells, the Spirit of grace, to teach you what in God's sight you are. Walk humbly with thy God; for before honour must be humility. The blessedness connected with such a state of soul consists in this, that the sense of your own emptiness is that which capacitates you for receiving of God's fulness. And this is the explanation of our Saviour's saying, that "whosoever shall humble himself as a little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven;" or, as he spoke before by the mouth of Solomon, that "by humility and the fear of the Lord, are riches, and honour, and life."

It is the blessing which belongs to the poor in spirit, that "theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Oh that men would see the end of the Lord; that he is very pitiful and of tender mercy. When he empties the soul of its selfsufficiency, it is that he may fill it with his own everlasting fulness. When he thus brings down to the dust, it is because he has of his own goodness prepared for the poor,-to give them the

earnest of his Spirit in their hearts, until the redemption of the purchased possession; and then to set them among princes, and make them inherit the throne of glory. The Kingdom of Heaven, in all its length and breadth; the unutterable and inexhaustible blessedness which radiates from the favour of him who is King of kings, and who invites his people to sit with him upon his throne; the exceeding and eternal weight of glory;-these are the portion and inheritance of his poor when he setteth them on high from affliction.

The next blessing which Christ pronounces is upon "them that mourn; for they," he says, "shall be comforted." In the parallel passage in St. Luke's Gospel, he expresses the same thing somewhat differently," Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh."

But what is the cause of this weeping and mourning that shall issue in consolation and in joy? Is all sorrow thus blessed? By sorrow of heart," says Solomon, "the spirit is broken ;" and "a broken spirit drieth the bones." self only tends to crush the sufferer. A wounded spirit who can bear? The sorrow of the world worketh death. But with such sorrow St. Paul contrasts another kind, which he calls "a godly

Sorrow in it