great a difficulty in the way of every common Jew as the authority of the rulers, was removed. He could never think of their persons afterwards, without hating and despising their opinions and in consequence would never after be deceived by them. He was in every respect a fit object for our Saviour's mercy-he was born in blindness: a sort of beginning that would not dispose his mind to reject the light*: he was in so much poverty, that the history tells us he sat and begged the world had affronted him, and had condemned him against all sense and reason, when they could not answer him; so he was in little danger from fashion and opinion, those pests of learning and religion. He had a personal experience of the power of Jesus as a prophet sent from God: and being thus prepared in mind, body, and estate, he would have no objection against his unpopular character, or against the novelty of his doctrine. When Jesus heard that they had cast him out, he found him; whence we may presume he went after him, as it was natural for him to do, the man being now one of those whom he came into the world to seek and to save, a lost sheep; a sheep turned out of the fold, and in want. of a Shepherd to take him up and receive him. To this man our Saviour put the question, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" The man was already convinced, that he was a prophet, and had affirmed it to the Pharisees; the question then must mean more than that and what can it mean, but the belief of his divinity? which it certainly did, because in consequence of this belief, we are told, that he worshipped him. It has been already observed, how this man was

Heu dementiam ab his initiis existimantium, ad superbiam se genitos. PLIN,

prepared for a believer; but his readiness is wonderful; as soon as he heard the name of the Son of God, he asked, who is he, that I might believe on him? Blessed and happy, however contemptible in the world's esteem, is this poor man, so ready to believe! How much do we now hear of those, who are not ready to believe! who looking upon every act of faith as an act of weakness and enthusiasm, are ready for any thing rather than that; and are never easy till the world knows it. The Gospel of Christ. has not many recommendations for the great and the wise: the blind can see it, the lame can go after it, the poor can purchase it and all the greatness of man must put itself into their state, and stoop to poverty of spirit, before it is possible to believe. In the two characters of the Pharisees, and the person they thus cast out, we have a pattern of the believer and the infidel, which will hold true to the end of the world; where the temper of the Pharisee is, there will Christ be unknown or rejected; where the other temper is, of the man that was born blind, there will Christ be accepted and valued, and no where else. It is the wise and righteous judg ment of God, never to be thought upon but with the most profound reverence and submission, that the low should be exalted, and that the lofty should be made low; that the hungry should be filled, and the rich sent empty away; the ignorant enlightened, and the wise confounded. For this purpose did our Lord, as he informs us, come into the world, that this judgment might take place; and this is the last part of the subject we are to consider: for the history is concluded with this application of the whole.-For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind. The language of the Gospel has many seeming contradic

tions (called paradoxes), which when examined are strictly true and proper; this is one of them. How can he be said to see that seeth not, or he to be made blind that has the use of his eye-sight? The meaning is, that the Gospel should make the poor and ignorant, who are reckoned to see nothing, wise and knowing in the things of God, but that it should make those, who are wise in their own conceit, and think they see every thing, know less than they did before. In the reason and propriety of all this, God will be justified, when the case shall be explained to us: but the fact has been notorious in every age. We have the first instance of it in Paradise: "Ye shall see," said Satan, and he was believed in consequence of which, man fell from light into darkness, and is now born in it; every son of Adam is born blind. The Heathens again. had originally the knowledge of God; it is expressly said that they knew God; but when they reasoned, and would see for themselves, they lost what they had before; they lost the object and the sense, God and their understanding, both at once; and we are told that their foolish heart was darkened. Dark and

foolish it must have been, if we recollect what doctrines they taught, and what things they committed: how they sacrificed one another, and celebrated impurity with adoration: how they lost the way of peace, and fell into eternal discord in pursuit of liberty, a phantom never to be found on earth.

When Christ, as the light of the world, came to his own people, they would not see him or know him; and in consequence of it, we have seen in the history before us, how they acted against reason and common sense; with the weakness of children, and the fury of madmen: the more they knew, in the way of their own conceit, the less they could see of the truth; and

thus they proceeded till they crucified their Saviour, fell into misery and confusion amongst themselves, and were at last extirpated or dispersed. When we see a Jew, we see one of these poor objects, who having rejected, and rejecting the light, is made blind, and goes wandering darkly about the world: the light of the Gospel shining around him, and himself groping like the blind at noon-day.

View the Christian world at this time; you will see that we are living, to our danger and sorrow, within sight of a country once enlightened, but now lying in darkness and the shadow of death. Take the character which these men give of themselves, and they are illuminated; they can see every thing, while poor superstitious Christians see nothing but their works are the works of infernal darkness and diabolical infatuation; such as rebellions, rapine, murder! barbarity, more than heathenish; idolatry, more than savage. What further proof do we require, that these new seers are of the number of those whom the God of this world hath blinded? But enough of these examples ; the tendency of them all is to teach us, that there is no wisdom against God; that truth alone (religious truth) can preserve the mind in a sound state; in short, that if we keep the Gospel, we may keep our wits. What shall we do then, but pray God, as our Church wisely directs, to lighten our darkness; knowing and confessing, that like the poor man in the Gospel, we are born blind: that the light of all true knowledge is wanting, till the God that made the Sun sends it down upon us from Heaven; and that even when light is come, the organ of sight is distempered and must be cured. This world too is so much before the eyes of men, that it will not permit them to view better things: let us arise then at the command of Jesus, and wash away that clay.

From what we have seen in the Pharisees, let us beware the judgment of men, who would bear us down with their own false opinions, the fashionable errors of the time; and never have recourse to such judges to know what the Gospel is, and how far Jesus is to be received by us. When we see into what excesses of absurdity and envy they were carried through a conceit of false learning, let us put up the following petition, which in few words comprehends the whole moral of the subject.-Give us, O Lord, the sight of that man who had been blind from birth, and deliver us from the blindness of his judges, who had been learning all their lives and knew nothing; and if the world should cast us out, let us be found of Thee whom the world crucified; and having followed the Light of thy Truth in this world, we may, through thine own merits and mediation, have with Thee the Light of Life in the everlasting glory of the world to come. Amen.