that should come; or do we look for another? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Go, and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see : The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them0." But it is in a spiritual sense, chiefly, that these blessed effects are to be wrought. In a general view these have been already described: but now we must notice them under a different image, and with a more minute attention to circumstances.
In all our faculties, and in all our powers, we are fallen —
[It is worthy of observation, that, for the elucidation of this point, St. Paul collects a number of unconnected passages from the Old Testament, and strings them, as it were, all together, in order that, by their accumulated weight, they may bear down all opposition to his argument; which is, to prove that "men are all gone out of the way, and that there is none that doeth good, no, not one." " Their mouth," says he, " is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have used deceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips : whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood d." Thus, in my text, it is intimated, that men's eyes are by nature shut against the light of divine truth ; that their ears are deaf to the voice of God in his word ; that their feet never move in the service of their God ; and that their tongues are never employed in his praise. A very little acquaintance with what is passing in the world around us, or in our own hearts, will suffice to confirm this melancholy description : so true is it, that all of us, even every child of man, are " gone back ; they are altogether be- come filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not onee."]
But in all these respects, through the Gospel of
Christ, we are renewed —
[By the preached Gospel, when accompanied with the Spirit of God, " the eyes of the blind are opened ;" so that, with different measures of clearness, they " see the things that are invisible" to mortal eyes, even the evil of sin, the beauty of holiness, and " the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." By it, too, " the ears of the deaf are unstopped ; so that they hear " the small still voice" of God to them, whispering peace to their souls, and " saying unto them, This is the way ; walk ye in it." By it, also, " the feet of the lame man are made to
c Matt. xi. 2—5. <* Rom. iii. 12—15. e Ps. liii. 3.