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The Gospels are full of complaints about man's stubbornness and wilfulness. "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light" (John 3:19). "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." (John 1:9-10). Jesus, who "exploded" the Jewish expectations of the Messiah, appealed to the testimony of scripture, the same scripture on which the scribes based their verdict of repudiation: "Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words." (John 5:45-7). (102:1) see Responsibility for the people's lack of faith is attributed by Jesus to the Jewish clergy, the "blind guides," who keep the people from true faith: "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in." (Matt 23:13). "They be blind leaders of the blind. And, if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." In the same chapter of Matthew's Gospel he calls them "blind fools," "hypocrites," "serpents," "offspring of vipers," "murderers of prophets:" "Ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets." (Matt 29-31).
(102:2)
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