Spectacles Useless to the Blind

*’ When unrenewed 7iature putteth 07i the spectacles of art she is still blindy Nowadays men must needs be philosophers, and reason and argue; but their conclusions as to spiritual things, wherein they come into conflict with divine revelation, are not one whit more to be respected than the conclusions of utter ignorance. Blind men blunder enough in the dark; add light, and they see no better; add spectacles, and the case is not altered; what is needed is the seeing eye. Till God gives eyes it is in vain for opticians to lend their glasses. So unregenerate men, when they are ignorant, are full of error; set them in the light of the gospel, they are in truth no wiser, for they have no spiritual perception of it; then add learning and sharp reasoning, and the case is by no means altered; they see no more than before, for they are still stone-blind. We have in this day many famous learned men, whose talk about the things of God is as idle as that of illiterate blasphemers. Whatever they know as to other matters, they can know nothing of divine truths, for they have no faculty with which to perceive them. Let them put on their great goggles of science, they see no more of spirituals with them than without them.

Lord! let me not go about to fit spectacles to blind eyes; but whenever I meet with a birth-blind Bartimasus, help me to bring him to thee, for it is a mark of thy Mcssiahship that from thee the blind receive their sight.