John 9:3

Christ's answer must not be understood absolutely, as if he denied this man and his parents to be guilty of sin, for both he and they had sin enough, not only to deserve temporal blindness, but eternal darkness.

The meaning is, that in afflicting this man, the Lord did not so much respect his or his parents sin, as the manifestation of his own glory, in this miraculous cure. Christ doth not deny but that. man's own sin, and the sin of his parents, may be the procuring cause of blindness; but that neither the one nor the other was the cause in that man's case; but that the power and mercy of God might be seen in restoring this man to his sight, therefore was he born blind.

Whence note, 1. That though sin be always the deserving, yet it is not always the procuring cause of affliction.

3. That we seldom think of, or hit upon, any other cause of affliction, but only sin; though the design of God looks beyond the sin of man in afflictions; yet man seldom looks beyond that or thinks of any other design of God in afflicting, but only punishing for sin.