as nothing but the will and pleasure of God can save lost mankind, nothing but faith, which submits to that will, can be saved. Man asks, how can an effect follow from that which is no cause of it? But faith answers, it will be a cause, if God shall please to make it so therefore I will take it as a cause, and trust to him for the effect. Thus doth faith reason, and it finds its own account in so doing; but thus the Philosopher never did reason, nor will he ever. And Naaman was one of them when he argued, that if water was to be the cure of his leprosy, why not any water; why not the better waters of Damascus, rather than the worse in Israel? But here he was mistaken-water was not to be used as a natural cause, but a spiritual cause; a cause according to the will of God; a pledge, without the use of which, the invisible divine cause of the cure would never have acted. The Syrian was angry, when he was directed to the use of such a cause; and Christianity, for the admitting and prescribing of such causes, is never forgiven by the wise reasoners of the world, but called superstition. But the poor man now before us, being blessed with common sense, and having none of that fine superior sense, which turns a man into a fool by making him act absurdly, did as he was bid; he went to the proper place, though he could give no reason for it but the command of Christ, and he returned with his eyesight. So much for the manner of this cure; the moral of it is still of more value.

When our Saviour was about to perform the miracle, he preached upon the case, and gave the sense of it. "As long," said he, "as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." He did not come into the world to cure the bodies,

but the souls of men;

and he never cured their bodies, but as a sign that he

came to cure their souls. If his office had been to cure their bodies, he might have said, I am come to give sight to this man that was born blind: but no; he gives light to a world; and to this poor man only as a sign of it. He is a figurative and spiritual sun, and if he restores to the blind the light of the day, it is nothing more than a proof that he restores to the understanding the light of truth. He shines, as the sun does, who is his image, not to an individual, not to a nation, not to an age, not to a world; but to all places, and to all times. He who comes to destroy the works of the Devil, must work upon the same great scale. The Devil is called the God of this world, who hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them. Therefore, he who came to destroy the works of the Devil must act as a light of the world; and restore the sight of their minds, that the light of the glorious Gospel may shine unto them: and this was the sense and spirit of the miracle, as Christ himself hath applied it. In the common way of reasoning, nothing more is considered, than that a miracle is an act of divine power; to shew that he by whom it is done must be a teacher come from God, and that God is with him: but there is much more than this to be learned; for while the power of the miracle, shews that he was sent of God, the sense of the miracle teaches for what purpose he was sent; and so where reason sees a proof, faith hears a sermon.

Christ is therefore the light of life, the light of the mind, without whom every man is in darkness, without whom every man is born in darkness: and before the Gospel can shine in upon the mind, the eyes of the understanding must be restored to sight, that the organ of faith may receive the things of God; without

t

which an unbeliever, let him be as wise and as learned as he will in all other things, is perfectly in the state of a man that is blind; he was born blind, and he continues so..

We come now to a most interesting part of the narrative the effect which this miracle had upon the Pharisees, who could not receive it. When the sun shines full upon a man's eyes, and he cannot turn away from it, he discovers symptoms of uneasiness, which make him appear to great disadvantage. And the case is the same with his mind: which, when the truth which it cannot receive is thrown strongly upon it, is in the same condition with the face; it is agitated and convulsed, and so much out of shape, that the mind of a wise man cannot be distinguished from that of an idiot: of which reflexion the truth will be fully confirmed by the case before us.

For in the Pharisees, who were assembled upon this occasion, we have a set of men, learned in the law, and subtile and captious disputants, who from some appearances, which did not well agree with their principles, had already agreed among themselves, that if any man did confess that Jesus was the Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue; that is, that he should be excommunicated. But here comes a man, who shews them by an undeniable fact, that he was, and must be the Christ: The question therefore was, what could be done under this dilemma? How they could maintain their own precipitate sentence, or how they could yield to the demonstration? Here they were in a great strait; for they could do neither the one nor the other: a cowardly retractation would have ruined their cause, and made their characters ridiculous: the expedient, therefore, which offered itself, was, to try whether they could deny the fact.

Some of the people had been questioning with the man before; but when it is said that he was brought to the Pharisees, it is to be apprehended that he was brought in form to the council or seat of Moses, in order to be examined. And first, they do not ask him directly about the fact, but about the manner of it, how he had received his sight; hoping to find therein some subterfuge; either that it might have been an accident, or might be owing to some natural cause: but that could not be; for clay and water, without the power of God added, will never cure a man that is blind. Here some of them thought it a good objection against the miracle, that it had been done on the Sabbath Day, and that therefore he who did it must be a bad man: but it occurred in answer to that, that if he had been a bad man, he could not have done it at all.-How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? Here then they were at a stand: so their next device is, to get rid of the fact by cross-examining the witness. They send now for his parents, knowing that they would be loth to speak out, for fear of the consequences: but their evidence was positive, as to the identity of the person, and as to his fomer blindness: as to the fact of his cure they left it to their sou to bear witness of that, and the manner of it: and he adhered to his own story with such firmness and simplicity of truth, that nothing could be made of him. So now we find them at another stage of their absurdity; they admit the fact, but deny the consequence; and attack the character of Christ, as if they knew him to be a sinful person; a man that could never be taken for the Messiah, because they could not know whence he was. Here common sense could no longer contain itself: the man is astonished to think, how it could possibly happen, that there should be a Prophet in the

place, opening the eyes of the blind, and that the great doctors of the time should know nothing of him! He therefore preserves no respect for them any longer, but follows up his arguments so closely, that there was nothing left but to have recourse to absolute authority, and do that by violence which they could not compass by all the arts of evasion. So they gave him to know, that all he had said signified nothing, because he was an inferior person, not fit to teach them, and had come into the world as a poor blind sinner: thus they answered him at last, and "cast him out" of the congregation; which act shews that he was before a Court of Judicature. And here, we may suppose, that the persons who would have put Lazarus to death, that his resurrection might not bear witness against themselves, would freely have put out the eyes of this man again, that his sight might not condemn their blindness. If we would see human perverseness in its utmost excess, and to what lengths of absurdity the hatred of truth will drive men; there is no greater example upon earth than this we have now before us. But we have done for the present with those who rejected the truth; and are now to consider the case of the man who received it.

He that finds Jesus Christ, and follows him, must bear his reproach: but his gains will be far greater than his losses. This man being likely to prove a troublesome witness against the Pharisees, they rid themselves of him as well as they can; and being themselves in possession of the law, there is neither law nor judge to call them to an account: but, nevertheless, judgment hangs over their heads. As to the man himself, their conduct, though apparently against him, was very much in his favour-for he could never more have any opinion of their judgment; and so