Answers from church history on today's questions
What Christian writers said, from about AD 386 to 1930.
31 passages · 15 writers · 6 centuries
The writers read the mourners as those grieving over loss, over their own sins, or over the sins and miseries of others. Maclaren and David Brown say the mourning Christ blesses grows from poverty of spirit. Calvin says mourning prepares mourners for eternal joy and drives them to seek comfort in God alone. Wesley, Watson, and Spurgeon say the Holy Spirit gives the comfort. Brown says present comfort is partial and is complete when God wipes away all tears, and Maclaren says the comfort comes in drops now and in a flood hereafter.
16 passages · 10 writers · 300s to 1900s
Augustine, Matthew Henry, Wesley, and Tauler say the mourners grieve over lost things, sin, or the miseries of others. Maclaren and David Brown say the mourning Christ blesses grows from poverty of spirit.
c. 390 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 15.4
Now having begun, as you see, where most need was, He proceeds to another commandment, one which seems to be opposed to the judgment of the whole world. For whereas all think that they who rejoice are enviable, those in dejection, poverty, and mourning, wretched, He calls these blessed rather than those; saying thus, “Blessed are they that mourn.” Yet surely all men call them miserable.
c. 390 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 15.4
These then He too Himself calls blessed, whose sorrow is of that kind; yet not simply them that sorrow did He designate, but them that sorrow intensely. Therefore He did not say, “they that sorrow,” but “they that mourn.” For this commandment again is fitted to teach us entire self-control. For if those who grieve for children, or wife, or any other relation gone from them, have no fondness for gain or pleasure during that period of their sorrow; if they aim not at glory, are not provoked by insults, nor led captive by envy, nor beset by any other passion, their grief alone wholly possessing them; much more will they who mourn for their own sins, as they ought to mourn, show forth a self-denial greater than this. Next, what is the reward for these? “For they shall be comforted,” saith He.
c. 390 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 40.5
When, for instance, was David to be admired; when he rejoiced, or when he was in anguish? When, the people of the Jews? groaning and calling upon God, or exulting in the wilderness, and worshipping the calf? Wherefore Solomon too, who best of all men knew what pleasure is, saith, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of laughter.” Wherefore Christ also blesses the one, saying, “Blessed are they that mourn,”but the other sort He bewails, saying, “Woe unto you that laugh, for ye shall weep.” And very fitly. For in delight the soul is more relaxed and effeminate, but in mourning it is braced up, and grows sober, and is delivered from the whole swarm of passions, and becomes higher and stronger.
391–430 · Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament (Sermones 51-147) 3.3
Attend to the third lesson, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” The work consisteth in mourning, the reward in consolation; for they who mourn in a carnal sort, what consolations have they? Miserable consolations, objects rather of fear. There the mourner is comforted by things which make him fear lest he have to mourn again. For instance, the death of a son causes the father sorrow, and the birth of a son joy. The one he has carried out to his burial, the other he has brought into the world; in the former is occasion of sadness, in the latter of fear: and so in neither is there consolation. That therefore will be the true consolation, wherein shall be given that which may not be lost, so that they may rejoice for their after consolation, who mourn that they are in exile now.
c. 392–422 · Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Psalms (Enarrationes in Psalmos) 86.23
O blessed they that mourn! Nothing is so akin to misery as mourning: nothing so remote and contrary to misery as blessedness: Thou speakest of those who mourn, and Thou callest them blessed! Understand, He saith, what I say: I call those who mourn blessed. Wherefore blessed? In hope. Wherefore mourning? In act. For they mourn in this death, in these tribulations, in their wandering: and because they own themselves to be in this misery, and mourn, they are blessed.
c. 393–395 · Augustine of Hippo, Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount (De sermone Domini in monte) 1.2.5
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” Mourning is sorrow arising from the loss of things held dear; but those who are converted to God lose those things which they were accustomed to embrace as dear in this world: for they do not rejoice in those things in which they formerly rejoiced; and until the love of eternal things be in them, they are wounded by some measure of grief. Therefore they will be comforted by the Holy Spirit, who on this account chiefly is called the Paraclete, i.e. the Comforter, in order that, while losing the temporal joy, they may enjoy to the full that which is eternal.
c. 398–404 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians (In epistulam ad Philippenses homiliae 1-15) 14
“Blessed are they that mourn,” and “woe unto them that laugh” (Matt. v. 4; Luke vi. 25.), saith Christ. How then saith Paul, “Rejoice in the Lord alway”? “Woe to them that laugh,” said Christ, the laughter of this world which ariseth from the things which are present. He blessed also those that mourn, not simply for the loss of relatives, but those who are pricked at heart, who mourn their own faults, and take count of their own sins, or even those of others. This joy is not contrary to that grief, but from that grief it too is born. For he who grieveth for his own faults, and confesseth them, rejoiceth.
1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Matthew 5.3-12
We are apt to think, Blessed are the merry; but Christ, who was himself a great mourner, says, Blessed are the mourners. There is a sinful mourning, which is an enemy to blessedness—the sorrow of the world; despairing melancholy upon a spiritual account, and disconsolate grief upon a temporal account. There is a natural mourning, which may prove a friend to blessedness, by the grace of God working with it, and sanctifying the afflictions to us, for which we mourn. But there is a gracious mourning, which qualifies for blessedness, an habitual seriousness, the mind mortified to mirth, and an actual sorrow. 1. A penitential mourning for our own sins; this is godly sorrow, a sorrow according to God; sorrow for sin, with an eye to Christ, Zech. xii. 10. Those are God's mourners, who live a life of repentance, who lament the corruption of their nature, and their many actual transgressions, and God's withdrawings from them; and who, out of regard to God's honour, mourn also for the sins of others, and sigh and cry for their abominations, Ezek. ix. 4. 2. A sympathizing mourning for the afflictions of others; the mourning of those who weep with them that weep, are sorrowful for the solemn assemblies, for the desolations of Zion (Zeph. iii. 18; Ps. cxxxvii. 1), especially who look with compassion on perishing souls, and weep over them, as Christ over Jerusalem.
1726 · William Law, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection 6
If it had been said, Blessed are the charitable, it must have meant, Blessed are they who live in a state and habit of charity. For the same reason, are we to understand the blessedness, which is due to mourning, to be only due to a state and life of mourning. Secondly, Blessed are they that mourn, shows us, that this mourning concerns all men as such, without any distinction of time or persons; so that its excellency and fitness must be founded upon something that is common and constant to all times and all persons. For if there was any time when we might change this state of mourning, or were there any persons that might be excused from it, it could not be said in general, Blessed are they that mourn. If therefore this mourning be a reasonable and excellent temper, that equally leads all orders of men to blessedness, its reasonableness must be founded in the common state and condition of man; that is, if mourning be good for all men, it must be because the state and condition of all men, as such, requires mourning. But if this mourning be founded in the present state of man, as suitable to his condition in this life, it must be always the same excellent and proper temper, till death changes his state, and puts him in a condition that requires another temper.
1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Matthew 5.4
Blessed are they that mourn - This is capable of two meanings: either, that those are blessed who are afflicted with the loss of friends or possessions, or that they who mourn over sin are blessed. As Christ came to preach repentance, to induce people to mourn over their sins and to forsake them, it is probable that he had the latter particularly in view. Compare 2Co 7:10. At the same time, it is true that the gospel only can give true comfort to those in affliction, Isa 61:1-3; Luk 4:18. Other sources of consolation do not reach the deep sorrows of the soul. They may blunt the sensibilities of the mind; they may produce a sullen and reluctant submission to what we cannot help: but they do not point to the true source of comfort. In the God of mercy only; in the Saviour; in the peace that flows from the hope of a better world, and there only, is there consolation, 2Co 3:17-18; 2Co 5:1. Those that mourn thus shall be comforted. So those that grieve over sin; that sorrow that they have committed it, and are afflicted and wounded that they have offended God, shall find comfort in the gospel. Through the merciful Saviour those sins may be forgiven. In him the weary and heavy-ladened soul shall find peace Mat 11:28-30; and the presence of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, shall sustain them here Joh 14:26-27, and in heaven all their tears shall be wiped away, Rev 21:4.
1871 · David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Matthew 5.4
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted—This "mourning" must not be taken loosely for that feeling which is wrung from men under pressure of the ills of life, nor yet strictly for sorrow on account of committed sins. Evidently it is that entire feeling which the sense of our spiritual poverty begets; and so the second beatitude is but the complement of the first. The one is the intellectual, the other the emotional aspect of the same thing.
1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 21
But although this mourning is at an end, is lost in holy joy, by the return of the Comforter, yet is there another, and a blessed mourning it is, which abides in the children of God. They still mourn for the sins and miseries of mankind: They “weep with them that weep.” They weep for them that weep not for themselves, for the sinners against their own souls.
1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 21
The mourners of whom our Lord here speaks, are those that mourn on quite another account: They that mourn after God; after Him in whom they did “rejoice with joy unspeakable,” when he gave them to “taste the good,” the pardoning, “word, and the powers of the world to come.” But he now “hides his face, and they are troubled:” They cannot see him through the dark cloud. But they see temptation and sin, which they fondly supposed were gone never to return, arising again, following after them amain, and holding them in on every side.
1901 · John Tauler, The Inner Way: Thirty-Six Sermons for Festivals 25
Thirdly, our Lord said: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” In one sense He means those who suffer; in another sense, those who mourn for their sins, always excepting the blessed Friends of God, who are the most blessed of all here; for they have done with weeping for their own sins, and may not mourn for them any more; and yet they have not ceased weeping, for they weep for the sins and infirmities of their neighbours.
1909 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Matthew (chapters 1 to 8) 5.4
Ah! that is not a universal bliss. All mourners are not blessed. It would be good news, indeed, to a world so full of miseries that men sometimes think it were better not to be, and holding so many wrecked and broken hearts, if every sorrow had its benediction. But just as we saw in the preceding discourse that the poverty which Christ pronounced blessed is not mere straitness of circumstances, or lack of material wealth, so here the sorrow, round the head of which He casts this halo of glory, is not that which springs from the mere alteration of external circumstances, or from any natural causes. The influence of the first saying runs through all the Beatitudes, and since it is ‘the poor in spirit’ who are there pronounced happy, so here we must go far deeper than mere outward condition, in order to find the ground of the benediction pronounced. Let us be sure, to begin with, of this, that no condition, be it of wealth or woe, is absolutely and necessarily good, but that the seat of all true blessedness lies within, in the disposition which rightly meets the conditions which God sends. So I would say, first, that the mourners whom Christ pronounces ‘blessed’ are those who are ‘poor in spirit.’ The mourning is the emotion which follows upon that poverty. The one is the recognition of the true estimate of our own characters and failings; the other is the feeling that follows upon that recognition.
1930–1933 · A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament: Matthew 5.4
They that mourn (οι πενθουντες). This is another paradox. This verb "is most frequent in the LXX for mourning for the dead, and for the sorrows and sins of others" (McNeile). "There can be no comfort where there is no grief" (Bruce). Sorrow should make us look for the heart and hand of God and so find the comfort latent in the grief.
15 passages · 10 writers · 300s to 1900s
Watson, Wesley, and Spurgeon say the Holy Spirit comforts mourners. Brown, Maclaren, and Watson say present comfort is partial and the full comfort comes in heaven.
c. 390 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 15.4
Both here and there. For since the thing enjoined was exceeding burthensome and galling, He promised to give that, which most of all made it light. Wherefore, if thou wilt be comforted, mourn: and think not this a dark saying. For when God doth comfort, though sorrows come upon thee by thousands like snow-flakes, thou wilt be above them all. Since in truth, as the returns which God gives are always far greater than our labors; so He hath wrought in this case, declaring them that mourn to be blessed, not after the value of what they do, but after His own love towards man. For they that mourn, mourn for misdoings, and to such it is enough to enjoy forgiveness, and obtain wherewith to answer for themselves. But forasmuch as He is full of love towards man, He doth not limit His recompense either to the removal of our punishments, or to the deliverance from our sins, but He makes them even blessed, and imparts to them abundant consolation.
1555 · John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, part 1 Matt.5.4
The ordinary belief is, that calamities render a man unhappy. This arises from the consideration, that they constantly bring along with them mourning and grief. Now, nothing is supposed to be more inconsistent with happiness than mourning. But Christ does not merely affirm that mourners are not unhappy. He shows, that their very mourning contributes to a happy life, by preparing them to receive eternal joy, and by furnishing them with excitements to seek true comfort in God alone. Accordingly, Paul says, “We glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation produces patience, and patience experience, and experience hope: and hope maketh not ashamed,” (Romans 5:3-5.)
1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 11
All things here are transient, but the comforts with which God feeds his mourners are immortal: ‘Who hath loved us and given us everlasting consolation’ (2 Thessalonians 2:16). Though a Christian does not always have a full beam of comfort, yet he has a dawning of it in his soul. He always has a ground of hope and a root of joy. There is that within him which bears up his heart, and which he would not on any terms part with.
1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 11
(i) Mediately, by helping us to apply the promises to ourselves and draw water out of those ‘wells of salvation’. We lie as dead children at the breast, till the Spirit helps us to suck the breast of a promise; and when the Spirit has taught faith this art, now comfort flows in. O how sweet is the breast-milk of a promise! (ii) The Spirit comforts immediately. The Spirit by a more direct act presents God to the soul as reconciled. It ’sheds his love abroad in the heart’, from whence flows infinite joy (Romans 5:5). The Spirit secretly whispers pardon for sin, and the sight of a pardon dilates the heart with joy.
1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 11
The saints shall at that day put off their mourning and exchange their sables for white robes. Then shall the winter be past, the rain of tears be over and gone (Canticles 2:11, 12). The flowers of joy shall appear, and after the weeping of the dove ‘the time of the singing of birds shall come’. This is the ‘great consolation’, the Jubilee of the blessed which shall never expire. In this life the people of God taste of joy, but in heaven the full vessels shall be broached. There is a river in the midst of the heavenly paradise which has a fountain to feed it (Psalm 36:8, 9). The times we are cast into, being for the present sad and cloudy, it will not be amiss for the reviving the hearts of God’s people, to speak a little of these comforts which God reserves in heaven for his mourners. ‘They shall be comforted’. The greatness of these celestial comforts is most fitly in Scripture expressed by the joy of a feast.
1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 11
The comforts of wicked men are spiced with bitterness. They are worm-wood wine. ‘These are the men who tremble, and grow pale at every lightning flash, and when it thunders are half-dead with terror at the very first rumbling of the heavens.’ But spiritual comforts are pure. They are not muddied with guilt, nor mixed with fear. They are the pure wine of the Spirit.
1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 11
Ninth, the comforts God’s mourners have are heart-quieting comforts. They cause a sweet acquiescence and rest in the soul. The heart of a Christian is in a kind of ataxy and discomposure, like the needle in the compass; it shakes and trembles till the Comforter comes.
1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Matthew 5.3-12
Now these gracious mourners, (1.) Are blessed. As in vain and sinful laughter the heart is sorrowful, so in gracious mourning the heart has a serious joy, a secret satisfaction, which a stranger does not intermeddle with. They are blessed, for they are like the Lord Jesus, who was a man of sorrows, and of whom we never read that he laughed, but often that he wept. They are armed against the many temptations that attend vain mirth, and are prepared for the comforts of a sealed pardon and a settled peace. (2.) They shall be comforted. Though perhaps they are not immediately comforted, yet plentiful provision is made for their comfort; light is sown for them; and in heaven, it is certain, they shall be comforted, as Lazarus, Luke xvi. 25. Note, The happiness of heaven consists in being perfectly and eternally comforted, and in the wiping away of all tears from their eyes. It is the joy of our Lord; a fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore; which will be doubly sweet to those who have been prepared for them by this godly sorrow. Heaven will be a heaven indeed to those who go mourning thither; it will be a harvest of joy, the return of a seed-time of tears (Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6); a mountain of joy, to which our way lies through a vale of tears.
1734–1742 · George Whitefield, Letters, 1-497 (Works, vol. 1) 201
Blessed are they that mourn most, for they shall be the most comforted: not that we are violently to keep ourselves in such a state; but when God’s hand lies heavy upon us, we are patiently to tarry the Lord’s leisure, till he reveals himself to our souls. I was a mourner a long while; but, glory be to God! I have for some years been almost continually comforted; at least kept from doubting of my interest in Jesus Christ.
1847 · Henry Edward Manning, Sermons, Volume 3 23
“Blessed are ye that weep” now, whether in contradiction, or bereavement, or sickness, or fear. Every visitation is a stage of advance in your walk of faith. Every chastisement is sent to open a new page in the great Book of Life—to shew you things within you which you knew not, and things which hereafter shall be your portion. He is cleansing the power of sight in you, that it may become intense and strong to bear His presence: and that power of sight is love; fervent and purifying love, consuming every sin, and purging out every stain. The more fervently you cleave to Him by love, the clearer shall be your vision of His beauty. Then welcome all He sends, if so be we may see Him at last, where there is no more sin, where truth has no shadow, where unity and sanctity have no dispute. Welcome sorrow, trial, fear, and the shadow of death, if only our sin be blotted out, and our lot secure in the lowest room, in the light of His face, before the throne of His beauty, in our home and in our rest for ever.
1871 · David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Matthew 5.4
The mourners shall be "comforted." Even now they get beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Sowing in tears, they reap even here in joy. Still, all present comfort, even the best, is partial, interrupted, short-lived. But the days of our mourning shall soon be ended, and then God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. Then, in the fullest sense, shall the mourners be "comforted."
1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 21
Blessed, therefore, are they that thus mourn, if they “tarry the Lord’s leisure,” and suffer not themselves to be turned out of the way, by the miserable comforters of the world; if they resolutely reject all the comforts of sin, of folly, and vanity; all the idle diversions and amusements of the world; all the pleasures which “perish in the using,” and which only tend to benumb and stupefy the soul, that it may neither be sensible of itself nor God. Blessed are they who “follow on to know the Lord,” and steadily refuse all other comfort. They shall be comforted by the consolations of his Spirit; by a fresh manifestation of his love; by such a witness of his accepting them in the Beloved, as shall never more be taken away from them. This “full assurance of faith” swallows up all doubt, as well as all tormenting fear; God now giving them a sure hope of an enduring substance, and “strong consolation through grace.”
1909 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Matthew (chapters 1 to 8) 5.1-16
The comfort it needs is the assurance of forgiveness and cleansing, and that assurance has never been sought from the King in vain. The comfort is filtered to us in drops here; it pours in a flood hereafter. Blessed the sorrow which leads to experience of the tender touch of the hand that wipes away tears from the face, and plucks evil from the heart! Blessed the mourning, which prepares for the festal garland and the oil of gladness and the robe of praise, instead of ashes on the head and sackcloth on the spirit!
1909 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Matthew (chapters 1 to 8) 5.4
The deeper down we go into the depths, the surer is the rebound and the higher the soaring to the zenith. It is they who have poverty of spirit, and mourning based upon it, and only they, who pass into the sweetest, sacredest, secretest recesses of Christ’s heart, and there find all-sufficient consolation. In like manner, that consolation will come in its noblest and most sufficing form to those who take their outward sorrows and link them with this sense of their own ill-desert. Oh, dear friends, if I am speaking to any one who to-day has a burdened heart, let such be sure of this, that the way to consolation lies through submission; and that the way to submission lies through recognition of our own sin. If we will only ‘lie still, let Him strike home, and bless the rod,’ the rod will blossom and bear fruit.
1912 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 58 (1912) 3325
Yes, You blessed Spirit, You are the Comforter and who can You comfort but mourners? It were useless to comfort those who never knew a sorrow! It were a superfluity to attempt to offer consolation to those who were never depressed! The Holy Spirit hovers like a dove over the assemblies of the Sabbath and whenever He finds a heart which is broken with a sense of sin, He alights there and brings light and peace and hope! Be of good courage, then, you mourners, for the three Divine Persons unite on your behalf!
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