Matthew Poole and continuators on John 12:40

40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardned their heart, that they should not see with their eyes▪ nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them .

We have this text (than which there is not one more terrible in the whole Book of God) no less than six times quoted in the New Testament, and in all places quoted and given as a reason of the Iews unbelief in the Lord Jesus Christ, Matth. 13 14. Mar. 4.12. Luke 8.10. Acts 28.26. Rom. 11.[illegible: 1 letter] It is not quoted alike in all places, but for substance the same The original from whence these quotations are, is Isaiah 6.10. by comparing the Texts we shall find several Authors, Instruments, or Causes of these dreadful effects. In the original, the Prophet Isaiah is made the Instrumental Cause[illegible: 1 letter] Go (saith God) and make the heart of this people fat, &c. Matthew, and Luke, in Acts 28.27 mention themselves as the cause, Matthew saith; For this peoples heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. And in the Acts it is, For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed. All the other Texts speak of it as Gods Act. The thing is easily thus reconciled: God sent to the Iews his Prophets, and gave them the means of Salvation; it is true, without the inward efficacy of his Spirit, they could not savingly believe, but they did not do what was in their power to have done, nay, they did do what was in their power to have avoided; they slighted and contemned the Lords Prophets, and killed them, and stoned such as were sent unto them. Thus they first shut their own eyes, and hardned their own hearts; and as their Forefathers had done in their Generation, so the Iews in our Saviour Christs time did also in their Generation; shutting their eyes against the Revelation of the Gospel by Christ himself. They thus behaving themselves, God judicially gave them up to their own lusts, permitting their hearts to harden, and suffering them to close their own eyes, so as they could not repent, believe, or return, and be saved; not that God infused any malice into their hearts, but withdrew his Grace from them after such provocations on their parts, To that as the Prophets in their Age, laboured with them in vain; and all the event of their Ministry, was but the generality of that peoples growing worse, and more obdurate. So all the event of Christs Ministry and Miracles which he personally wrought amongst them in his Age, did accidentally but increase their sin, and their Judgment, and ripen them for their ruine, through their wilful abuse of those sacred means of Life and Salvation. The judgment it self was but one, viz. a judicial hardning of them; but it is set out by a great variety of expressions, both by the Prophets, and the Writers of the New Testament. In Isaiah, by making their hearts fat, their ears heavy, shutting their eyes: In Matthew, making their hearts gross, their ears dull of hearing, shutting their eyes In this Text, by blinding their eyes, and hardning their hearts In the Acts, by the same phrases as in Matthew; in Rom. 11.8. is added, God hath given them the Spirit of slumber. All the phrases are expressive of the same dreadful Judgment of God; yet it may be expressed in this variety of phrase, to signifie the distinct, particular plagues (comprehended in this one plague) which falls upon the several powers and faculties of those Souls, upon whom this dreadful Judgment falls. Blindness in the mind, stubbornness in the will, &c. Vileness in the Affections, rep[illegible: 2 letters]bacy in the mind, &c.

Marginal references: Isa. 6.9. Matth. 13.14.