nt and sin. All the
rest of the morality of the Sermon is founded on this. It is the root of
all that is heavenly and divine in character. So this teaching is dead
against the modern pagan doctrine of self-reliance, and really embodies
the very principle for the supposed omission of which some folk like
this Sermon; namely, that our proud self-confidence must be broken down
before God can do any good with us, or we can enter His kingdom.

The promises attached to the Beatitudes are in each case the results
which flow from the quality, rather than the rewards arbitrarily given
for it. So here, the possession of the kingdom comes by consequence from
poverty of spirit. Of course, such a kingdom as could be so inherited
was the opposite of that which the narrow and fleshly nationalism of the
Jews wanted, and these first words must have cooled many incipient
disciples. The 'kingdom of heaven' is the rule of God through Christ. It
is present wherever wills bow to Him; it is future, as to complete
realisation, in the heaven from which it comes, and to which, like its
King, it belongs even while on earth. Obviously, its subjects can only
be those who feel their dependence, and in poverty of spirit have cast
off self-will and self-reliance. 'Theirs is the kingdom' does not mean
'they shall rule,' but 'of them shall be its subjects.' True, they shall
rule in the perfected form of it; but the first, and in a real sense the
only, blessedness is to obey God; and that blessedness can only come
when we have learned poverty of spirit, because we see ourselves as in
need of all things.

II. Each Beatitude springs from the preceding, and all twined together
make an ornament of grace upon the neck, a chain of jewels. The second
sounds a more violent paradox than even the first. Sorrowing is blessed.
This, of course, cannot mean mere sorrow as such. That may or may not
be a blessing. Grief makes men worse quite as often as it makes them
better. Its waves often flow over us like the sea over marshes, leaving
them as salt and barren as it found them. Nor is sorrow always sure of
comfort. We must necessarily understand the word here so as to bring it
into harmony with the context, and link it with the former Beatitude as
flowing from it, as well as with the succeeding. The only intelligible
explanation is that this sorrow arises from the contemplation of the
same facts concerning self as lead to poverty of spirit, and is, in
fact, the emotio