Blessed they that mourn, for *they* shall be comforted.
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Darby's reference isn't directly on Matt 5:4. I have enough rich material. Now I'll compose the answer.
The second Beatitude stands as one of the most striking paradoxes the Lord ever uttered. How can sorrow be blessedness? And what is this mourning that draws down divine comfort? Those who have written most helpfully on Matthew 5:4 open its depths along several complementary lines.
The Nature of the Mourning
This is not the ordinary grief of nature, nor a gloomy disposition. Andrew Miller is careful to draw the distinction:
Andrew Miller"To be a 'mourner' in the sense of our text, is to be deeply and tenderly affected by the condition — especially the moral and spiritual condition — of others around us. For example: The worldliness of true Christians; the manifest delusion of mere professors; the godless ways of those who may be our near neighbours, accompanied with a deep sense of inability to witness for God in such a scene, fills the heart with holy sorrow."
And lest the reader mistake a melancholy temperament for this beatitude, he presses the warning home:
"At the same time, this holy sorrow, which is so good and wholesome, and which leads to much prayer and dependence on God, must not be mistaken for a low, complaining, unhappy, discontented, mournful spirit in ourselves, which we may think answers to this beatitude. Not so; such would be little likely to enter into the sorrows of others, or mourn over the dishonour done to God and His truth in this world. They are too much occupied with their own state of mind, and that which immediately concerns themselves."
So the true mourner is one whose heart has been awakened to feel what Christ feels in a world that will not have Him.
Its Place in the Order of the Beatitudes
William Kelly shows that this second blessing is not a repetition of the first but a real advance, moving from what is between the soul and God alone to what the soul tastes in the world around it:
William Kelly"'Blessed are they that mourn' is the second feature. There is more activity of life, more depth of feeling, more entrance into the condition of things around them. To be 'poor in spirit' would be true if there were not a single other soul in the world; he thus feels because of what he is in himself; it is a question between him and God that makes him to be poor in spirit. But 'blessed are they that mourn' is not merely what we find in our own condition, but the holy sorrow that a saint tastes in finding himself in such a world as this, and, oh, how little able to maintain the glory of God!"
The two belong together but are not identical. Poverty of spirit comes first — the sense that the dust is our right place before God. Mourning follows as the heart, now alive to God, feels what is due to Him and how little that honour is upheld. Kelly adds a most tender assurance:
"'Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted' (ver. 4). There is not a single sigh that goes up to God but He treasures and will answer it; 'Ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves.' Here, then, we have the sorrowing of the godly soul."
Mourning and the Rejected Christ
T. Oliver McBroom links this mourning directly to the absence of the Bridegroom and the dishonour done to God in a godless age:
T. Oliver McBroom"This is apt to be misunderstood, particularly at a time like the present when the hunt for pleasure and fashion is engaging the mass of men. There were those who sighed and cried in Ezekiel's time for the abominations done at Jerusalem, and we live in the midst of a godless and suicidal infatuation which calls for the judgment of God. Such a state of things calls for mourning on their part of those that know God. Every divinely taught heart knows that the time of the Bridegroom's absence is the mourning time (Matt. 9), but like Mary of old has divine comfort even now (John 20). To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion; to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning."
Kelly, in his Lectures on Matthew's Gospel, draws attention to the very atmosphere of the whole Sermon on the Mount, which has this sorrow as its undertone:
"The King has the sense of the true state of the people, who had no heart for Him. Hence there is a certain tinge of sorrow that runs through it. That must ever characterize real godliness in the world as it is."
Those who truly belong to the rejected King share in that "tinge of sorrow" which marked His own path as the Man of sorrows.
The Christian at Once Sorrowful and Rejoicing
Miller is quick to guard the beatitude from any notion that the mourner must walk with a clouded countenance before God. He writes beautifully of the double character of the saint's experience:
"We may, and ought — if we are poor in spirit and true mourners — to be bright and happy in the divine presence, where all is peace and joy, and yet have fellowship with the deep sympathies of Him who was 'a man of sorrows,' in our journey through this world. And the more we know of His Spirit, the deeper will be our sense of what is due to Him, and the keener will be our sorrow when we see so many who set themselves against His authority."
The saint walks, as he puts it, "in the midst of ruins":
"It can only be tasted when the heart has a true sense of the moral condition of the church and the world. Then we must 'mourn' over the fearful effects of sin and apostasy which meet us at every step. We walk in the midst of ruins. Wrecks of every kind lie strewed around us. Blighted hopes, unexpected calamities, with a multitude of little secret sorrows, characterise the land in which we are strangers and pilgrims, so that like captive Israel of old, 'by the waters of Babylon,' we may 'sit down and weep,' though we need not hang our harps on the willows; we are privileged to rejoice daily in the blessed hope of the Lord's coming, when we shall be fully and for ever comforted."
The Certainty of the Comfort
Miller closes with a word that has strengthened many a weary heart:
"The mourner must now retire into his secret chamber and breathe out his sorrow into the bosom of his Lord. He must stand aloof from all this sad mixture of the church and the world, well knowing that he will be judged as wanting in brotherly love, and uncharitably affected towards other Christians. He will not have his sorrows to seek; but the Lord knows it all, and he shall be comforted. The time is coming when he will enter into the joy of his Lord, and reap the fruit of his testimony for Him throughout eternity. 'Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.' Every tear that has been shed, every sigh that has gone up to God, every groan that has been uttered in sympathy with a rejected Christ, are all treasured by Him as the memorials of His own grace working in us, and will surely be held in everlasting remembrance."
Synthesis
Matthew 5:4 does not pronounce a general blessing upon human grief. The Lord is speaking of a specific, holy sorrow — the sorrow of a heart awakened to God in a world that has rejected Him. It is the second step in the spiritual order of the Beatitudes: first, poverty of spirit toward God; then, the outward-looking grief that feels what is due to Him and how little it is honoured. This mourning is the natural overflow of fellowship with the Man of sorrows Himself, and it coexists with real joy in the divine presence. The comfort promised is not merely a temporary consolation but the full and eternal answer of God — every sigh remembered, every tear treasured, and at last "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning" when the Bridegroom returns and fills the scene with gladness.