But look at the great majority of those to whom the Gospel has been ministered, and say whether any measure of these effects be visible upon them ? Alas ! it is as true of us as of the Jews, that " God has not given us an heart to perceive, or eyes to see, or ears to hear, unto this day."]
Let me then address myself,
1. To those who are altogether blind —
[Perhaps you will be disposed to say, " If God has not given me this discernment, the fault is not mine." But this is a fatal error: for the fault is altogether yours. Had you sought of God the illuminating influences of his Spirit, he would have opened your blind eyes, and unstopped your deaf ears, and renewed you in the spirit of your mind : no earthly parent would so readily bestow bread on his famished child, as God would have given to you his Holy Spirit in answer to your prayers. If, then, you " perish for lack of knowledge,"
it must be ascribed to your own obstinate neglect of those means which God has appointed for the attainment of spi- ritual instruction.]
2. To those who think they see —
[Multitudes, like the Pharisees of old, are ready to ask with confidence, "Are we blind also?" To these we reply, Let your lives declare : let the fruit determine the cpaality of the tree. Yes, brethren, " if you were indeed blind, you would comparatively have no sin : but now ye say, We see ; therefore your sin remainethe." Your conceit and self-suffi- ciency render your blindness tenfold more odious, more in- curable, and more fatal ]
3. To those whose eyes God has opened —
[Verily, the mercy vouchsafed to you is beyond measure or conception great. You doubtless feel what a blessing the gift of reason is, which so elevates you above the beasts : but far richer is the gift of spiritual discernment, which enables you to see " the things of the Spirit," and elevates you above your fellow-men, even above the wisest and greatest of the human race. Compare the Apostles with the philosophers of Greece and Rome ; mark, not merely their intellectual powers, but their moral habits and their spiritual attainments ; then will you have some conception of the mercies vouch- safed to you, and will appreciate, in some poor measure, the obligations conferred upon you.]
e John ix. 40, 41.