LECT. not His mouth." Wherefore, let them that XXXIX. suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." "For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." LECTURE XL. SIGHT GIVEN TO ONE BORN BLIND. JOHN ix. 1-7. XL. THE last chapter ended with a memorable LECT. instance of the malice of the Jews: the present opens with a signal display of the mercy of Jesus. He had just escaped the rage of those His enemies in the temple, and He immediately works a work of compassion and of power on the body of a man blind from his birth. One step in the sacred history tells us that "so He passed by," and the next tells us what He did "as He passed by"." In the temple He narrowly escapes being stoned to death, and yet He halts to heal an afflicted. person in the way therefrom. Who but He, newly escaped from deadly enemies, and hurrying to some place of shelter and security, would have been collected enough even so much as to notice this poor blind man? But we read, "As He passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth." His eye of tender compassion lighted on one who had no eyes to see teaching us that those whom God * Καὶ παρῆγεν οὕτως (ch. viii. 59.) καὶ παράγων εἶδεν κ.τ.λ. (ch. ix. 1.) The word Jesus, it will be observed, is not in the original. Some copies however, it must be admitted, omit those last words of the preceding chapter but if they are to be retained, we shall not fail to observe the close link which this word wapdywv supplies. b The word Jesus, we may observe again, is not in the original. XL. LECT. has blessed with any gift must use that superior endowment to pity and relieve those who need it. But, "as He passed by," He did not, like that priest in the parable, pass by on the other side. He did not content Himself, like that Levite, with merely coming and looking on him, with a look of curiosity or even of compassion. He, the good Samaritan, "saw him :" paused, pitied, and relieved. This poor man was probably lying in the neighbourhood of the temple, like other afflicted and impotent folk, to excite the charity of the passers by; and, it would seem, proclaiming the fact, (for how otherwise would the disciples have known it?) of his life-long malady. And as the Lord paused in His deep compassion to contemplate him, before beginning His work of mercy and of might, the disciples, who had probably been separated from Him during that tumult in the temple, and now seem to have come up and rejoined Him outside, ask Him the seemingly strange question, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 66 our ears. Both parts of their question seem strange to How can a man actually sin before he is born? Could a man be so punished for the sins of his parents? But when we call to mind that they were Jews who asked this question, and when "O Saviour, why should we not imitate Thee in this merciful improvement of our senses? Woe be to those eyes that care only to gaze upon their own beauty, bravery, wealth; not abiding to glance upon the sores of Lazarus, the sorrows of Joseph, the dungeon of Jeremy, the blind beggar at the gate of the temple." Bp. Hall. d Luke x. 25-37. and compare ch. viii. 48. e See Acts iii. 2. and compare v. 8. infra. "The disciples see the blind man too, but with different eyes: our Saviour for pity and cure, they for expostulation." Bp. Hall. XL. we know what strange views some of the Jews LECT. of that day held, we shall not marvel more. For among the nations of the East there was an almost universal opinion, which obtained even amongst certain of the Jews also, as to the transmigration of souls, that is, the existence of the soul in some former state or previous being, in which it may have been guilty of sin, of which in a subsequent birth it may be suffering the penal consequences: an idea which seems confirmed by a passage further on in this transaction", where the Pharisees seem to cast such a reproach in this man's teeth, when they say to him, "Thou wast The most esteemed commentators deny that this opinion was general among the Jews. It does not however appear to be proved that it was not unknown to them. It certainly seems unlikely that a doctrine current among all neighbouring nations should not have found its way into Judæa. The disciples, however simple-minded, may have heard of it; and in this incidental way may have sought their Master's opinion upon it. Observe the method of their address, the compellation 'Paßßl, v. 2. and compare ch. iii. 2. where the same mode of address is observed by another inquirer: as though this were a case in which disciples might well consult their Master: "nodus vindice dignus." To revert to the principal point, Wisd. viii. 19, 20. has been often cited. What if it were an outlandish and pagan fancy?-this is not the only place where we find allusions to customs and opinions prevailing in foreign parts. See Trench on the Parable of The Unmerciful Servant. Jeremy Taylor, in his Sermon "preached at the Funeral of that worthy Knight, Sir George Dalston," observes, "This fancy of theirs prevailed much among the common people and the uninstructed among the Jews; for when Christ appeared so glorious in miracle, Herod presently fancied Him to be the soul of John the Baptist in another body; and the common people said He was Elias, or Jeremias, or one of the old prophets." The Christian poet may only be reproducing the Jewish idea when he says, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, And cometh from afar." Wordsworth. At all events it is not too much to say, that the statement, that the Jews, in common with the other nations of the East, had some idea as to the preexistence of souls, has not been disproved. h v. 34. XL. LECT. altogether born in sins." At all events, a man born blind could not in any other way have incurred such sin and looking upon bodily suffering, as the Jews almost invariably did, as the penalty of particular sin, whether of the individual himself or of those who begat him, the disciples expect the Lord to pronounce in which of these two ways guilt was derivable upon this man, for which of these two causes he was suffering; whether the fault was with his parents, or with the man himself. It is noticeable that the Lord in His answer does not ignore or refute either of these opinions, which, for aught we know, may have their measure of truth; but He quietly points out that providential visitations are not always to be looked upon as the penalties of sin. He altogether declines to pronounce upon the points His disciples proposed to Him, and directed their attention rather to what was much more desirable for them to dwell upon, the high end for which suffering is sometimes permitted in the world', namely, for the benefit of the individual, "The conjunction that does not here indicate the cause but the effect,i. e. the man was not born blind in order that God might be glorified, but God's glory was an effect of his blindness. So it is in our Lord's words, (John ix. 39.) 'I came into the world that they who see might be made blind;' but we cannot suppose that Christ, who is the Light of the world, came in order to make men blind. So also we may explain the words of St. Paul, (Rom. i. 19.; v. 20.) The Law came in that sin might abound;' whereas in fact the Law was given as a check to sin. In all these and other cases the conjunction signifies a consequence and event, and not a reason or cause." Wordsworth. Having cited the divine, it may be desirable to cite the philosophical poet of the same name on another phase of this mysterious subject: "O Life, without thy chequered scene Of Right and Wrong, of Weal and Woe, |