and I in him^" It should seem that, for the further- ance of this end, Satan was permitted to exercise greater power over the bodies of men, than was ever exercised by him either before or since : that so the divine mission of Jesus might be the more signally marked by his conquests over Satan.
In discoursing on the miracle before us, I shall shew,
I. What proof the Lord Jesus here gave of his Mes- siahship —
There was a man whom Satan by his malignant influence had caused to be " both blind and dumb :" and him did our Lord in an instant restore to the perfect use of his faculties, so that " the blind and dumb both spake and saw." At this stupendous miracle " the people were all amazed :" and the con- clusion which they drew from it was, " Is not this the son of David ?" Under the name and character of " the Son of David" the Messiah was expected : and from the miracle which they had seen, the people inferred, that Jesus must be he : yea, so undeniable did this inference appear, that they asked with con- fidence, " Is not this the son of David ?"
[This miracle was precisely of the kind that the Messiah was expected to perform. It had been foretold by the prophet, " Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped : then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing: &c''." And to such miracles as these our Lord himself referred in proof of his Messiahship. When John the Baptist sent two of his dis- ciples to inquire of Jesus, " Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ?" our Lord replied, " Go and shew John again the things that ye do hear and see : the blind re- ceive tlieir 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 them : and blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me"." Indeed so wonderful was this miracle, and so evident, on Scripture principles, the truth de- duced from it, that the envious Pharisees, in order to obviate the conclusion drawn from it, ascribed the miracle to a con- federacy with the devil. But our Lord shewed them, that, on
a John X. 37, 38. ^ Isai. xxxv. 5, 6. <= Matt. xi. 2—6.