And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
By this question of the disciples, we cannot suppose that they meant in relation to original sin; as if they doubted the universal corruption of mankind in Adam. This could not be the sense of the disciples' words. They knew what the Lord had said by Moses; that the iniquity of the Father is visited upon the children. Exodus 20:5. But the Reader should be told, that many years before the coming of Christ, a system of Philosophy had been introduced, by one called Pythagorus, who taught, that all mankind had existed in some other body before their appearance in the present form of human nature: and that the sins which had been committed by any of them during that former state, was punished in this. The disciples availed themselves perhaps of this opportunity, to know Christ's sentiments upon it, and put the question, whether the present blindness of this man was according to this system, the result of his father's sins, or his own. I should not have noted the folly and wickedness of such a doctrine, but with a view to call upon the Reader to remark with me, the awful blindness and ignorance of the world before the coming of Christ; when among the wisest of men, such childish and ridiculous notions prevailed. My brother! calculate, if you be able, the auspicious and blessed consequences which the Son of God brought with him, when he graciously visited our world!