October 31

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.—Matthew 5:5.

"BLESSED are the meek:" that is the gentle and softer spirits, persons not turbulent or unquiet, not clamorous or impatient, not over-bold or impudent, not querulous or discontented, not brawlers or contentious, not nice or curious, but men who submit to God, and know no choice of fortune or employment or success, but what God chooses for them, having peace at home, because nothing from without does discompose their spirit. In some, meekness is an indifference to any exterior accident, a being reconciled to all conditions and instances of Providence, a reducing ourselves to such an evenness and interior satisfaction, that there is the same conformity of spirit and fortune by complying with my fortune, as if my fortune did comply with my spirit. And therefore, in the order of beatitudes, meekness is set between mourning and desire, that it might balance and attemper those actions by indifference, which by reason of their abode, are apt to the transportation of passion.

The reward expressed is, "an inheritance of the earth," that is, an inheritance of all which is excellent here below, to consign him to a future glory, as Canaan was a type of heaven. For meekness is the best cement and combining of friendships, it is a great endearment of us to our company. It is an ornament to have "a meek and quiet spirit," a prevention of quarrels, and a pacifier of wrath; it purchaseth peace, and is itself a quietness of spirit: it is the greatest affront to all injuries in the world; for it returns them upon the injurious, and makes them useless, ineffective, and innocent; and is an antidote against all the evil consequents of anger and adversity, and tramples upon the usurping passions of the irascible faculty.

But the greatest part of this landscape is sky: and as a man in all countries, can see more of heaven than of the earth he dwells on; so may he also in this promise. For although the Christian has the promise of "the inheritance of the earth," yet he must place his eye, and fix his heart, upon heaven, which, by looking downward also upon this promise, as in a vessel of limpid water, he may see by reflection, without looking upwards by a direct intuition. It is heaven that is designed by this promise, as well as by any of the rest; though this grace takes in also the refreshments of the earth by equivalence, and a suppletory design. But "here we have no abiding city," and therefore, no inheritance; this is not our country, and therefore here can not be our portion; unless we choose, as did the prodigal, to go into a strange country, and spend our portion with riotous living, and forfeit our Father's blessing. The devil, carrying our blessed Saviour to a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world; but, besides that they were offered upon ill conditions, they were not eligible upon him by any. And neither are they to be chosen by us for our inheritance and portion evangelical: for the gospel is founded upon "better promises," and therefore, the hopes of a Christian ought not to determine upon any thing less than heaven. Indeed, our blessed Saviour chose to describe this beatitude in the words of the psalmist, so inviting his disciples to an excellent precept, by the insinuation of those Scriptures which themselves admitted. But as the earth, which was promised to the meek man in David's psalm, was no other earth but the land of promise, the land of Canaan; if we shall remember that this land of promise was but a transition and an allegory to a greater and more noble, that it was but a type of heaven, we shall not see cause to wonder why the holy Jesus, intending heaven for the reward of this grace also, together with the rest, did call it "the inheritance of the earth." For now is revealed to us "a new heaven and a new earth, a habitation made without hands, eternal in the heavens." And he understands nothing of the excellency of the Christian religion, whose affections dwell below, and are satisfied with a portion of dirt and corruption. "If we be risen with Christ, let us seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God."

"Meeken my soul, thou heavenly Lamb, That I in the new earth may claim My hundred-fold reward,— My rich inheritance possess, Co-heir with the great Prince of Peace, Co-partner with my Lord."