'blameless' militates against no doctrine of universal sinfulness.
It is not to be taken as dogma at all, but as the expression of
God's merciful estimate of His servants' characters. These two
simple saints lived, as all married believers should do, yoked
together in the sweet exercise of godliness, and helping each other
to all high and noble things. Hideous corruption of wedlock reigned
round them. Such profanations of it as were shown later by Herod and
Herodias, Agrippa and Bernice, were but too common; but in that
quiet nook these two dwelt 'as heirs together of the grace of life,'
and their prayers were not hindered.

The most of the priests who appear in the Gospels are heartless
formalists, if not worse; yet not only Annas and Caiaphas and their
spiritual kindred ministered at the altar, but there were some in
whose hearts the ancient fire burned. In times of religious
declension, the few who still are true are mostly in obscure
corners, and live quiet lives, like springs of fresh water rising in
the midst of a salt ocean. John thus sprang from parents in whom the
old system had done all that it could do. In his origin, as in
himself, he represented the consummate flower of Judaism, and
discharged its highest office in pointing to the coming One.

This 'blameless' pair had a crook in their lot. Childlessness was
then an especial sorrow, and many a prayer had gone up from both
that their solitary home might be gladdened by children's patter and
prattle. But their disappointed hope had not made them sour, nor
turned their hearts from God. If they prayed about it, they would
not murmur at it, and they were not thereby hindered from 'walking
in all God's commandments and ordinances blameless.' Let us learn
that unfulfilled wishes are not to clog our devotion, nor to silence