SERMON XVIII.

PREACHED APRIL 23, 1769.

JOHN, ix. 41.

Jesus saith to them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say we see, therefore your sin remaineth.

THESE words were spoken by our Lord on occasion of a great miracle performed by him, in restoring a man born blind to his sight. This wonderful display of power had its natural effect on the man himself, in converting him to the faith of Jesus; while the Pharisees, who had the fullest evidence laid before them of the fact, persisted obstinately in their infidelity. Yet the blind man, on whom this

miracle had been wrought, was one of those whom the Pharisees accounted blind in understanding, also; in other words, he was a plain unlettered man; whereas they themselves were guides to the blind, that is, they pretended to a more than ordinary knowledge of the law and the prophets, by which they were enabled to conduct and enlighten others.

Jesus, therefore, respecting at once his late restoration of the blind man's sight, and the different effects of that miracle on the minds of the two parties, applies, with singular elegance, to himself, the famous prediction of Isaiah For judgment, says he, am I come into this world, that they, which see not, might see; and that they who see, might be made blind. The Pharisees were, indeed, sharp-sighted enough to perceive the drift of this application, and therefore said to him, in the same figurative language, Are we blind also? To whom Jesus replied in the words of the text, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say we see, therefore your sin remaineth. As if he had said, “If ye were indeed ignorant of the law and the prophets, as ye account this poor man to be, ye might have some excuse for not believing in me, who appeal to that -law and those prophets for the proof of my

mission; but being so skilled in them, as ye are, and profess yourselves to be, ye are clearly convicted of a willful, and therefore criminal, infidelity."

It is implied, we see, in this severe reproof of the Pharisees, that knowledge and faith very well consist together, or rather that, where knowledge is, there faith must needs be, unless a very perverse use be made of that knowledge.

But to this decision of our Lord, the unbelieving world is ready to oppose its own maxims. "It sees so little connexion between faith and knowledge, that it rather concludes them to be incompatible: It allows the ignorant, indeed, who cannot walk by sight, to walk by faith; but, as for the knowing and intelligent, the men of science and understanding, it presumes, that faith cannot be required of these; and that, BECAUSE they see, it is too much to expect of them, to believe in Jesus."

It is true, the persons, who speak thus slightly of faith, are not the most distinguished in the world by their own parts, or knowledge. But a certain mediocrity of both, inflated by vanity, and countenanced by fashion, is forward to in

dulge in this free language; and the mischief done by it to Religion, is so great, that it may not be amiss to expose, in few words, the indecency and folly of it.

FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE, then, it is said, are at variance with each other. Why? The answer, I suppose, will be, Because faith is in itself unreasonable; in other words, it will be said, That the evidences of our religion are not convincing, and that the doctrines of it are not credible.

One word, then, on each of these bold insinuations.

I. The EVIDENCES of revealed religion are so many and various; they lye so deep, or extend so wide; and consequently the difficulty of collecting them into one view is so great, that few men have, perhaps, comprehended the full force and effect of them. At least, none but persons of very superior industry, as well as understanding, have a right to pronounce on the total amount of such evidence.

But the chief evidences of the Christian Religion are drawn from PROPHECIES, and

MIRACLES; and who are they who tell us, that these methods of proof are unreasonable or unsatisfactory?

1. That the argument from PROPHECIES should not convince those, who have not considered the occasion, and design of them, the purposes they were intended to serve, and therefore the degree of light and clearness, with which it was proper they should be given; who have not studied the language in which those prophecies are conveyed, the state of the times in which they were delivered, the manners, the customs, the opinions of those to whom they were addressed; above all, who have not taken the pains to acquire a very exact and extensive knowledge of history, and so are not qualified to judge how far they have been accomplished; that to such persons as these, I say, the argument from prophecy should not appear to have all that evidence which believers ascribe to it, is very likely; but then this effect is to be accounted for, not from their knowledge, but their ignorance, not from their seeing too clearly, but from their not seeing at all, or but imperfectly, into the merits of this argument. As for those, who have searched deepest, and inquired with most care into this kind of evidence, they depose unanimously in its