such things ; and consequently they were unexceptionable tes- timonies from God himself tliat he was the true Messiah.
With the disciples of John these miracles must have had peculiar weight ; for John, whom they regarded as their master, had wrought no miracle^; whereas the miracles which they had just seen were precisely such as the Messiah was to per- form : and the very same prophet who had spoken most plainly of John's office, as the forerunner of the Messiah, had specified these very works, as distinctive of the Messiah himself''.
These works are still a standing proof that Christ was the promised Messiah: and the spiritual effects which are still wrought by his word, and which precisely correspond with those miracles, are yet further evidences of the same truth : for wherever the true Gospel is preached, there " the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up" to a new and hea- venly life.]
2. The preaching of the Gospel to the poor —
[The philosophers of old addressed themselves only to the great and learned, whilst they wholly overlooked the lower classes of society ; and even the prophets were sent principally to the kings and nobles of Israel: but our Lord addressed himself chiefly to the poor : he sought to benefit the meanest and the vilest of mankind. This of itself was a strong pre- sumptive proof that he was the Messiah, because an impostor would rather have sought to gain over to his interests the great and powerful. But it was foretold that the Messiah should have peculiar respect to the poor in his ministrations ''j and that this regard for them should eminently distinguish his kingdom upon earth '^.
a John X. 41. ^ Tsai. xxxv. 4 — 6.
<= Compare Isai, Ixi. 1. with Luke iv. 18. What is called " the meek" in the one place, is called " the poor" in the other, d Ps. Ixxii. 2, 4, 12, 13.