" (Chap. xii. 37.) The evangelist does not mean to impute the
defect of their belief to any doubt about the miracles, but to their not
perceiving, what all now sufficiently perceive, and what they would have
perceived had not their understandings been governed by strong
prejudices, the infallible attestation which the works of Jesus bore to
the truth of his pretensions.
The ninth chapter of Saint John's Gospel contains a very circumstantial
account of the cure of a blind man; a miracle submitted to all the
scrutiny and examination which a sceptic could propose. If a modern
unbeliever had drawn up the interrogatories, they could hardly have been
more critical or searching. The account contains also a very curious
conference between the Jewish rulers and the patient, in which the point
for our present notice is, their resistance of the force of the miracle,
and of the conclusion to which it led, after they had failed in
discrediting its evidence. "We know that God spake unto Moses, but as
for this fellow, we know not whence he is." That was the answer which
set their minds at rest.
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