Daily Inspiration Quote by Matthew Henry

Stubbornness is framed here as a moral disability, not an intellectual one. Matthew Henry, the famously plainspoken Nonconformist commentator, isn’t diagnosing bad ears or weak eyesight; he’s indicting the will. “Will not” is the engine of the line: a small phrase that drags responsibility back onto the listener. You can’t hide behind ignorance when your ignorance is chosen.

That’s why the couplet lands with such crisp symmetry. Deaf/blind are involuntary conditions; Henry weaponizes them as metaphors for voluntary resistance. The repetition of “None so…” reads like a preacher’s gavel, delivering a verdict twice to make it stick. It’s also a shrewd piece of pastoral psychology. People rarely admit “I don’t want to be convinced.” They say the evidence is unclear, the messenger untrustworthy, the timing wrong. Henry cuts through those alibis and names the real obstacle: refusal.

The context matters. Henry preached and wrote in a Protestant culture saturated with the language of “hearing” the Word and “seeing” spiritual truth. To “not hear” and “not see” is more than being closed-minded; it’s resisting grace, correction, accountability. The line doubles as a warning to congregants and a comfort to ministers: if your counsel is ignored, the failure may not be in the message but in the listener’s posture.

Its afterlife is political and personal because the mechanism is timeless: denial isn’t a lack of information; it’s a strategy for keeping your life unchanged.