The first of thirteen discourses on the Sermon on the Mount. Wesley opens with the Beatitudes — the poor in spirit, the mourners — and shows that these are not optional perfections but the basic shape of the Christian soul.
Sermon 21 of 44 · 1748 · Matthew 5:1-4
Upon Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, I
A passage from the sermon
Blessed are the poor in spirit. The poor in spirit, then, are they who are unfeignedly penitent; they who are truly convinced of sin; who see and feel the state they are in by nature, being deeply sensible of their sinfulness, guiltiness, helplessness.
Blessed are they that mourn. Not without God in the world; not unwilling to own their sin, and to mourn for it before him; but they that mourn, in the gospel sense, mourn after God — after the manifestation of his pardoning love, and the assurance of his eternal salvation. The kingdom of God begins with this poverty and this mourning; and it cannot begin any other way.
The full sermon is in the public domain and freely available from CCEL and other archives.