8. But because He designed to honour His faithful ones at the end of the world, He hath
first honoured the cross in this world; in such wise that the princes of the earth who believe
in Him have prohibited any criminal from being crucified; and that cross which the Jewish
persecutors with great mockery prepared for the Lord, even kings His servants at this day
bear with great confidence on their foreheads. Only the shameful nature of the death which
our Lord vouchsafed to undergo for us is not now so apparent, Who, as the Apostle says,
“was made a curse for us.”2888 And when as He hung, the blindness of the Jews mocked
Him, surely He could have come down from the Cross, who if He had not so willed, had
not been on the Cross; but it was a greater thing to rise from the grave than to come down
from the Cross. Our Lord then in doing these Divine, and in suffering these human things,
instructs us by His Bodily miracles and Bodily patience, that we may believe, and be made
whole to behold those things invisible which the eye of the body hath no knowledge of. With
this intent then He cured these blind men of whom the account has just now been read in
the Gospel. And consider what instruction He has by their cure conveyed to the man who
is sick within.
9. Consider the issue of the thing, and the order of the circumstances. Those two blind
men sitting by the way side cried out as the Lord passed by, that He would have mercy upon
them. But they were restrained from crying out by the multitude which was with the Lord.
Now do not suppose that this circumstance is left without a mysterious meaning. But they
overcame the crowd who kept them back by the great perseverance of their cry, that their
voice might reach the Lord’s ears; as though He had not already anticipated their thoughts.
So then the two blind men cried out that they might be heard by the Lord, and could not
be restrained by the multitudes. The Lord “was passing by,” and they cried out. The Lord
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“stood still,” and they were healed. For “the Lord Jesus stood still, and called them, and said,
What will ye that I shall do unto you? They say unto Him, That our eyes may be opened.”2889
The Lord did according to their faith, He recovered their eyes. If we have now understood
by the sick, the deaf, the dead, the sick, and deaf, and dead, within; let us look out in this
place also for the blind within. The eyes of the heart are clossd; “Jesus passeth by” that we
may cry out. What is, “Jesus passeth by”? Jesus is doing things which last but for a time.
What is “Jesus passeth by”? Jesus doeth things which pass by. Mark and see how many things
of His have “passed by.” He was born of the Virgin Mary; is He being born always? As an
infant was He suckled; is He suckled always? He ran through the successive ages of life unto
man’s full estate; doth He grow in body always? Boyhood succeeded to infancy, to boyhood
youth, to youth man’s full stature in several passing successions. Even the very miracles
which He did are “passed by,” they are read and believed. For because these miracles are
2888 Gal. iii. 13.
2889 Matt. xx. 32, 33.
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On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xx. 30, about the two blind men sitting…