blindness, till after a long course of warnings. This was certainly the case with Pharaoh and with the Jews.
The consequence of God blinding and hardening a person is that he does not "see " his danger with his eyes, or " under- stand " his position with his heart. The result is that he holds on his way unconverted, and dies without his soul's disease being healed. — "Seeing" and "understanding" are essential parts of conversion. No simpler reason can be given why myriads of church-goers continue careless, unaffected, un- moved, and unconverted: they neither "see" nor "under- stand." God alone can give them seeing eyes and understanding hearts, and ministers cannot. And one solemn reason why many live and die in this state is, that they have resisted God's warnings, and are justly punished already with a judicial blind- ness and hardness, by Him whom they have resisted.
The key to the whole difficulty, after all, lies in the answer we are prepared to give to the question, "Is God just in punishing the sinner?" — The true Christian and honest Bible reader will find no difficulty in answering that question in the affirmative. Once grant that God is just in punishing the un- godly, and there is an end of the problem. God may punish by giving over the obstinate sinner to a reprobate mind, as really as by sentencing him to everlasting fire at the last day.
One thing only must never be forgotten. God " willeth not the death of any sinner." He is willing to soften the hardest heart, and to open the blind eyes of the greatest sinner. In dealing with men about their souls we must never forget this. We may well remind them that by hardened impenitence they may pro- voke God to give them up. But we must also press on them that God's mercies in Christ are infinite, and that, if they are finally lost, they will have none but themselves to blame.
Burgon thinks that the nominative to "blinded" at the be- ginning of the verse is not God, but " the Jewish people ; " and that the meaning is, " This people hath blinded their own eyes." But I cannot see that this idea can be supported by ref- erence to Isaiah, and though it smooths over difficulties, I dare not receive it.
Calvin thinks that the passage applies to the hardness by which God punishes the wickedness of an ungrateful people. They are given over justly to an' unbelieving and judicially blinded state of mind.
Poole observes: "We have this text, than which there is none more terrible, no less than six times quoted in the New Testament. In all places it is quoted and given as a reason for the Jews' unbelief in Christ. (Matt. xiii. 14, 15; Mark iv. 12; Luke viii. 10; Acts xxviii. 26, 27 ; Rom. xi. 8.) It is not quoted alike in all places, but for substance it is the same. In the original, Isaiah is made the instrumental cause. Matthew and Luke, in Acts, mention the people themselves as the cause.