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A28278 A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret's Westminster, January 30th,1698/9 by Ofspring Blackall ... Blackall, Offspring, 1654-1716. 1699 (1699) Wing B3053; ESTC R13120 15,662 33

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A SERMON Preached before the HONOURABLE House of Commons AT St. Margaret's Westminster January 30 th 1698 9. By OFSPRING BLACKALL Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by J. Leake for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1699. Mr. BLACKALL's SERMON Preached before the HOUSE of COMMONS January 30 th 1698 9. Martis 31 die Januarij 1698. Ordered THat the Thanks of the House be given to Mr. Blackall for the Sermon by him Preached before them Yesterday at St. Margaret's Westminster and that he be Desired to Print the same And that Mr. Hare Mr. Hammond and Mr. Perry do Acquaint him therewith Paul Jodrell Cl ' Dom ' Com' St. JOHN ix 3. Jesus answered Neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents but that the Works of God should be made manifest in him THE Occasion of these Words may be seen in the foregoing-Verses As Jesus passed by he saw a Man which was blind from his Birth And his Disciples asked him saying Master who did sin this Man or his Parents that he was born blind Jesus answered Neither hath c. For the right Understanding of which Answer of our Saviour's we must first inquire into the Ground and Meaning of the Disciples Question Master who did sin this Man or his Parents that he was born blind And the Ground and Reason of their Question seems to be an Opinion which they had entertained That the good and evil Things of this Life were by the Divine Providence always proportioned to Men according to their different Deserts And particularly that whenever God sent upon any Man any sore and extraordinary Affliction some great Offence or extraordinary Provocation was always the Reason of it And this indeed is an Opinion that is too generally received in the World and is the Occasion of those rash and uncharitable Censures which People are too apt to pass upon others from the Consideration of the evil Things which they see do befall them in this Life They can hardly forbear thinking that Man a great Sinner whom they see very sorely afflicted altho' they themselves know nothing that he has done amiss nor perhaps ever heard any thing ill of him But the Judgment of God they presume is right and they take it for granted that he would not have inflicted such Punishment upon any Man if he had not well deserved it So the Inhabitants of the Island on which St. Paul was Shipwrack'd argued with respect to him when a Viper out of the Fire had fastned on him Acts 28.4 When the Barbarians saw the venomous Beast hang on his Hand they said among themselves no doubt this Man is a Murderer whom tho' he hath escaped the Sea yet Vengeance suffereth not to live And thus also the Disciples seem to have thought viz. That such a great Calamity as Blindness would not have been sent upon any Man but for some very great Fault tho' what the Fault was or where the Fault lay they could not guess Had the Man been suddenly struck with Blindness they would have made no doubt but that it was a Judgment of God upon him for some great Crime that he himself had committed altho' they had not been able to name the particular But his Case was extraordinary for he was born Blind so that the Calamity was sent upon him before he could have done any Thing to deserve it And so what Account to give of this they could not tell But they seem to have heard of the Opinion of the Pythagoreans which was embraced also by some among the Jews who held that there is a Transmigration of Souls from one Body to another Grat. in Loc. so that consequently every Man that is born into the World had a Pre-existence in some former State And if this Opinion were true they could not tell but that this Man's Blindness from his Birth might be a Punishment sent upon him by God for his Misbehaviour in that former State which he was in Or if not so yet they remembred that it was threatned in their own Law that God would sometimes visit the Sins of the Fathers upon their Children And so they could not tell but that this Blindness of the Child was designed as a Punishment to his wicked Parents and that the Sin of the Father or Mother was hereby visited on their Son One or t'other of these they took for granted was the Cause of this Man's Blindness viz. either that it was a Judgment of God upon him for the Wickedness of his Parents or else for some great Crime committed by himself in some State that his Soul had formerly been in before it was united to this Body And therefore they came to our Saviour to be resolved which of them it was Master say they Who did sin this Man or his Parents that he was born blind In Answer to which Question our Saviour wisely avoiding to satisfie their Curiosity in a Point that it was needless for them to know viz. Whether the Soul has any Existence or is capable of contracting any Guilt before it comes into the Body tells them that they had mis-stated the Case that the Question should not have been Whether this Man's Blindness was a Judgment or Punishment inflicted on him for his own or for his Parents Sin But whether it was at all designed for a Punishment of Sin Or whether it was inflicted for some other Cause for that the temporal Evils that befall Men are not always for Punishment but are sometimes designed for quite other Purposes And that this last was the Case of the Man they had asked about Jesus answered neither hath this Man sinned nor his Parents that is it is not any extraordinary Wickedness either in this Man or his Parents that was the Reason of his Blindness but it was that the Works of God should be made manifest in him The meaning of which last Clause as spoken with a particular respect to the Blind Man I take to be this That he was therefore born blind to give Occasion to our Saviour to exert and manifest his Power in the miraculous Cure of such a Defect or Imperfection in the Body of this Man as by any natural Means or Remedies that could be used was altogether incurable and thereby to give an undeniable Proof that he was indued with a divine Power and consequently that he was the Messiah He was therefore born blind that the Power of our Saviour should be manifested in him But as the Words may be generally understood and applied to any other Case of the like Nature the Meaning is this That when any temporal Evil or Affliction befalls any Man which is not designed for a Punishment of his Sin and to make him an Example of the divine Vengeance it is not however by any Oversight or Carelesness of Providence that he is so afflicted But that there is always some other good and wise End of Providence designed to be served by it