sees is a very remarkable and elliptical one. It may be thus paraphrased : '{ Well would it be for you. if you were really blind and ignorant. If you were really ignorant, you would be far less blameworthy than you are now. If you were really blind, you would not be guilty of the sin of wilful unbelief as you are now. But, unhappily, you say that you know the truth, and see the light, and are not ignorant, even while you are rejecting Me. This self-satisfied state of mind is the very thing which is ruining you. It makes your sin abide heavily on you."
It is needless to say that our Lord did not mean that igno- rance makes a man entirely free from guilt. He only meant that a really ignorant man is much less guilty than one who has light and knowledge, but does not improve and use them. No man's case is so hopeless as that of the self-confident man, who says that he knows everything, and wants no light. Such a man's sin abides on him, and, unless repented of, will sink him into the pit.
Let us note what a heavy condemnation this text contains for those professing Christians who are constantly comforting themselves by saying, " We know," " We are not ignorant," "We see the truth," while yet they lazily sit still in irreiigion and make no attempt to obey. Such persons, however little they think it, are far more guilty before God than the poor heathen who never hear truth at all. The more light a man has, the more sin, if he does not believe.
To infer the salvation of all the unconverted heathen from this text would be unwarrantable, and going much too far. The worst heathen man has sufficient light to judge and con- demn him at last, and far more than he lives up to. But it is not too much to say that an ignorant heathen is in a far more hopeful condition than a proud, self-satisfied, self-righteous, unconverted Christian.
Brentius thinks that the expression, " if ye were blind," means " if ye would confess your blindness;" and that " to say we see," is equivalent to a "refusal to acknowledge ignorance and need."
Chemnitius observes, that the expression of this verse teaches that there are two sorts of sinneis in this world, — those who sin from ignorance and infirmity, and those who sin against light and knowledge, and that they must be regarded and dealt with accordingly.
Musculus remarks, that nothing seems to gall men so much as the imputation of ignorance and want of knowledge of the truth. The very men who are unmoved if charged with im- moral actions, such as simony, adultery, gluttony, or misuse of ecclesiastical property, are furious if told that they are dark and blind about doctrine.