that all experience proves that where there is the greatest quantity of the form of religion, there is often the greatest proportion of formality and unbelief. The places where men become most familiar with the outside and ceremonial of Christianity, are precisely the places where the heart seems to become most hard. Witness the state of Rome at this day. Witness too often the state of cathedral cities in our own land. We need not wonder that the city in which was the temple, the daily sacrifice, and the priesthood, was the most unbelieving place in Palestine.

38. [That...saying... Esaias...fulfilled...spake.] We must not suppose this means that the Jews did not believe, in order that the prophecy of Isaiah might be fulfilled. This would be teaching sheer fatalism, and would destroy man's responsibility. The true meaning is, "So that by this unbelief the saying of Isaiah was fulfilled." (See John v. 20; Rom. v. 20; 2 Cor. i. 17.)

Chrysostom observes, "It was not because Isaiah spake that they believed not, but because they were not about to believe, that he spake."

Augustine says, "The Lord, by the Prophet, did predict the unbelief of the Jews,-predict, however, not cause. It does not follow that the Lord compels any man to sin, because He knows men's future sins."

Theophylact and Euthymius say much the same.

[Lord, who...believed our report.] This question begins the well known fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which describes with such extraordinary accuracy our Lord's sufferings. It is certainly a most singular fact, that the very chapter which the Jews in every age have been most obstinately unwilling to believe, should begin with this question. It is a Hebraism tantamount to saying, "Nobody believes our report." The unbelief of the Jews was a thing as clearly foretold in Scripture as the sufferings of Christ. If they had not been unbelieving, the Scriptures would have been untrue.

[To whom...arm of... Lord revealed.] The expression, "Arm of the Lord," is thought by Augustine to mean Christ Himself. It may be so. If not, it must mean, "To whom is the Lord's power in raising up a Redeemer and an atoning sacrifice revealed?" That is, the Lord's power is revealed to and received by none. The question here again is a Hebraism, equivalent to an assertion.

Bullinger observes, that "some might perhaps wonder that the

To this John

Jews did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah. replies, that Isaiah long ago foretold that they would prove an unreasonable and unbelieving nation."

The quotation of Isaiah in this place is strong evidence that the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy applies to Christ, and none else. 39.-[Therefore they could not believe, because, etc.] This is undeniably a difficult verse. It cannot of course mean that the Jews were unable to believe, although really desirous to do so, and were prevented by the prophecy of Isaiah. What then can it mean? The following paraphrase is offered: "This was the cause why they could not believe, — they were in that state of judicial blindness and hardness which Isaiah had described. They were justly given over to this state because of their many sins, and for this cause they had no power to believe."

"Therefore,” is literally, "on account of this." It cannot, I think, look backward, but forward. (Compare 10, 17, and 12, 18.)

"They could not," is literally, "they were not able.” It precisely describes the moral inability of a thoroughly hardened and wicked man to believe. He is thoroughly under the mastery of a hardened and seared conscience, and has, as it were, lost the power of believing.-They had no will to believe, and so they had no power. They could have believed if they would, but they would not, and so they could not.-The expression is parallel to the well known words, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him." There the meaning is, "No man has any will to come unless he is drawn, and so no man can come."

Even in our own English language the expression, "could not," is sometimes used in the sense of "would not." Thus the brethren of Joseph "hated him, and could not speak peaceably of him." (Gen. xxxvii. 4.)

The word "because" is a needlessly strong rendering of the Greek. It would be just as correctly translated, "for."

Chrysostom observes, "In many places Christ is wont to term choice power. So, "The world cannot hate you, but Me it hateth." So in common conversation a man says, "I cannot love this or that person, calling the force of his will power."

Augustine says, "If I be asked why they could not believe, I answer in a word, Because they would not."-He also says, "It is said of the Omnipotent, He cannot deny Himself: and this is

the power of the Divine will. So they could not believe' is the fault of the human will."

Zwingle also says that "could not " means "would not."

Ecolampadius observes, "They would not, and therefore they could not believe. God is wont to punish those who commit some sin by giving them up to other sins." This, he remarks is the heaviest judgment to which we can be given up,-to have sins punished by sins, that is, by being let alone to commit them.

Bishop Hall says, "They could not believe because, as Isaiah says, in a just punishment for their maliciousness and contempt, God had stricken them with a reprobate sense, so that their eyes were blinded."

Quesnel says here, "Let us bewail this inability of will with which, by means of Adam's sin, we are all born, and which, by our own sins, we daily increase. Let us continually have recourse to Him who said, 'Without Me ye can do nothing,' and, 'No man can come to Me, unless the Father draw him."

40.-[He hath blinded their eyes, etc.] This quotation is a free paraphrase of the general view of a verse in Isaiah vi. 9, 10. I think it can only have one meaning. That meaning is, that "God had given over the Jews to judicial blindness, as a punishment for their long continued and obstinate rejection of His warnings." That God does in some cases give people over, as a punishment for obstinate unbelief, and that He may be justly termed the cause of such unbelief, is, I think, quite plain in Scripture. Pharaoh is a case in point. He obstinately refused God's warnings, and so at last He was given over, and God is said to have "hardened his heart." Compare Joshua xi. 20: "It was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might destroy them." (So Deut. ii. 30; 1 Sam. ii. 25; Rom. ix. 18.)

This is no doubt a very solemn and awful subject. It seems at first sight to make God the author of man's destruction. But surely a moment's reflection will show us that God is a Sovereign in punishing, and may punish in any way He pleases. Some He cuts off suddenly the moment they sin. Others He gives over to judicial blindness, and ceases to strive with their consciences. "The Judge of all the earth will certainly do right." Those whom He is said to "harden and blind" will always be found to be persons whom He had previously warned, exhorted, and constantly summoned to repent. And never is He said to harden and blind,

and give men up to judicial hardness and 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 "understand" 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, unmoved, and unconverted they neither "see" nor understand." 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 blindness and hardness, by Him whom they have resisted.

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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 ungodly, 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 provoke 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 beginning 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 reference 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.

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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. All the other texts speak of it as God's act. The thing is easily reconciled.”—He then says, "The Jews first shut their own eyes, and hardened their own hearts. Thus behaving themselves, God judicially gave them up to their own lusts, permitted their hearts to harden, and suffered them to close their own eyes, so that they could not repent, believe, or return. God did not infuse any malice into their hearts, but withdrew His grace from them.”

Rollock makes the wise and deep remark, that "Darkness does not blind men so much as light, unless God renews their minds by His Spirit."

It is of course noteworthy that this quotation is not given literally and exactly as it stands in the Old Testament. But it is particularly mentioned by Surenhuşine, in his book upon the quotations in the New Testament, that it was a common thing with the Hebrew doctors to abbreviate texts in quoting them, and to be content with giving the general sense. The abbreviation, therefore, in the text quoted before us, would not strike John's cotemporaries as at all extraordinary.

Let us not fail to remark how "seeing, understanding, being converted, and being healed," are linked together.

41.—[These things...Esaias...his glory...him.] To see the full force of this verse we should read the sixth chapter of Isaiah in its entirety. We should there see a magnificent description of the Lord's glory, before which even the seraphim veiled their faces. We should observe their cry, "Holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts!" We should mark how Isaiah says, "My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." And then let us remember that John says, "Esaias saw Christ's glory, and spake of Christ!”—How anyone, in the face of this evidence, can say that Jesus Christ is not very God, it seems hard to understand.

Lightfoot thinks that Isaiah in this chapter had a view of the glory which our Lord would have when He came to punish the Jewish nation. He thinks this is pointed out by "the posts of