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10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

11 'I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am

e Matt. vii. 19.

f Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; John i. 26.

and made them his peculiar people. So Irenæus: " 'Jesus raised up children to Abraham from the stones, when he turned us from the religion of stones, (a lapidum religione, meaning the worship of gods of stone, &c.,) and from our own insensible and barren state of mind, and brought us to a faith like that of Abraham's." Jerom takes a similar view of the import of the passage.

Verse 10. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees.-Fruitless and fruitful trees have in all ages been used as metaphors to express good and bad men ; and as barren trees, after patient forbearance, are finally cut down and burned, so the certainty and terribleness of the punishment of the wicked are forcibly indicated by the metaphor. The same image is employed by Isaiah with great effect to express the judgments which should fall upon all the ranks of a guilty nation, by the Chaldean invasion: "Behold, the Lord of Hosts shall lop the bough with terror: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled. And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one," x. 33, 34. The Baptist does not, however, refer to the Jewish state, but to the dangerous condition of sinful individuals. (See note on verse 8.) The axe being laid "to the root," that is, at or near to, the root, intimates both the longsuffering of God which gave them space for repentance; and the certainty that, if the tree remained unfruitful, it would be "hewn down and cast into the fire." Mercy grants delay, but justice lays down the axe in preparation for the work of excision. The danger, too, was not distant, but imminent; non de kai, and even now the axe is laid at the root, &c

Verse 11. I indeed baptize you with water. That is, with water only; for the Spirit was to be administered by Christ alone. "Unto repentance, eis μetavolay," UPON repentance, as Grotius well suggests; that being the condition of his baptism. Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear The Jewish shoes were a kind of sandal, fastened to the foot with thongs, easily untied and slipped off, and were laid aside for washing the feet on entering a house, or before meals. The word here used is indeed not σανδαλιον, but υπόδημα; but the Septuagint renders by sometimes by one and sometimes by the other. The unloosing of the sandals, and carrying them away till wanted, was a menial office of the lowest kind, both among Greeks and Jews. Hence among the latter the disciples of the Rabbins were obliged to perform every kind of office for them, the unloosing and carrying of the sandals excepted. Thus Maimonides: "All services which a servant does for his master, a disciple does for his teacher, except unloosing his shoes." No words could therefore more forcibly express the sense that John had of the superiority of Christ. In his view, he was the Supreme Lord, and himself a servant so low in comparison of this" mightier" Being, that he was not even worthy to unloose and bear his sandals. The whole manner in which the Baptist speaks of Christ in comparison with himself, is utterly irreconcilable with his regarding him merely as an exalted human being. "He shall baptize

you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,' εν Πνεύματι αγιψ και πυρι. Unless this be rendered, "He shall baptize you In the Holy Ghost and fire,” it is a folly for the advocates of immersion to translate udaTi, "IN water." They have indeed ventured on both, in support of a favou

not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

rite opinion; but in what sense-whatever allowance may be made for figurative language-men can be said to be plunged or immersed "in the Holy Ghost and fire," it is impossible to conceive. Ev T Iopdan may indeed be translated "in Jordan," for the reason before given; but the preposition may be taken in the sense of WITH, understanding an ellipsis, " with the water of the Jordan." But there the place of baptism only is referred to, here the mode and kind of baptism; and as the manner in which the baptism of the Holy Ghost was actually administered by Christ is recorded, we have the sense of the preposition fixed by the fact. Thus when this baptism took place we read, “ And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it SAT UPON each of them; and they were all filled with the HOLY GHost. Thus the baptism of " the Holy Ghost and fire," was a descent UPON, and not an immersion INTO; and John must be understood to use the word baptism when he refers to water, in the sense of pouring or effusion.

It is a strange opinion entertained by some commentators, that the fiery baptism here spoken of signifies the calamities which afterwards befel the impenitent Jews. The fancies of some of the Fathers on this text were also numerous, but not worth recording. Those of them who referred it to the descent of the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost in his plenitude of gifts and graces, interpret correctly. The Holy Ghost, and fire, mean the same thing, the latter clause being exegetical; (Spiritus, qui est ignis, Elsner;) and the words added were designed to convey the lofty notion of an illuminating, purifying, and most energetic effusion of the Holy Spirit. And it is to be observed, that whenever our Lord speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit, in that fulness of influence which was to be administered to all that believed on him, he speaks of it as a future gift, "which they that believed on him should receive;" and the direction to the disciples was, that they should

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tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high." The declaration in the text was first fulfilled at the day of Pentecost; but not only then it is fulfilled whenever the Holy Spirit is vouchsafed to believers; for when St. Peter gives an account of the result of his mission to Cornelius, he says, And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning: then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost." Acts xi. 15, 16. With this inspired comment before them, how remarkable is it, that the professed interpreters of scripture should have had any difference of opinion as to the meaning of the words of the Baptist! The external emblem of fire accompanied the descent of the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost, probably, to mark more sensibly the accomplishment of this predictive promise; but at other times, even when followed by miraculous gifts, this circumstance was wanting, as in the instance of the house of Cornelius above referred to. We are thus taught, that when the gift of the Spirit is invisible and secret, it is yet the mighty and transforming BAPTISM OF FIRE; that is, his influences are fitly represented by that powerful and purging element. This is one of the particulars in which the superiority of Christ's baptism consisted John's baptism was founded upon a confession of sin; and that of Christ was the application of a divine energy to purge it away; as fire removes those stains and pollutions which water cannot. The words, "and fire," are wanting in some MSS.; but that they are genuine, is sufficiently proved from their being in the parallel passages in St. Luke, and in the older мss. and versions. The Socinian writers urge the absence of the article before Пvευμari ayiq against the words being understood of the Holy Spirit; and Bishop Middleton's distinction between the Holy Spirit taken personally, and his

12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

influence, in order to account for this absence of the article, is worth nothing. The reasons for the omissions and insertions of the Greek article in many instances, after all the investigation which the subject has of late years received, are far from being satisfactorily made out. The foundation which different theories assume is often too frail to bear the weight of an argument; and of this, the passage before us is a pregnant proof. We may urge against Wakefield's translation, “ with a holy spirit of fire," and "with a holy wind, and with a fire," their unintelligible absurdity; for no idea, surely, can be attached to baptism with a holy spirit of fire, or to baptism with wind, much less to a holy wind; and especially when this same critic will not allow that even "a personified operation of Deity" is to be understood without the article. To this may be added the remark of Campbell, whose views of the passage are otherwise obscure and defective, that no example can be produced of the adjective, holy, being joined to veυua, where the meaning of Vevμa is wind. But there is a more decisive answer in Acts xi. 15, 16; where it is plain that the absence or presence of the article before vevμa makes not the least difference in the sense of the term; and that it is both inserted and omitted in the same breath. Εν δε τω αρξασθαι με λαλειν, επέπεσε ΤΟ Πνευμα το αγιον επ' αυτούς, ωσπερ και εφ' ημας εν αρχη. Εμνήσθην δε του ρήματος Κυρίου ως ελεγεν, Ιωαννης μεν εβαπτισεν υδατι, υμείς δε βαπτισθήσεσθε εν Πνεύματι αγια "And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as at the beginning: then remembered," &c.

Here it is clear,

that the absence of the article in the words of John, which he quotes, occasioned St. Peter no difficulty; but that he applied Vevμa in its anarthrous form to the personal operations of the divine Spirit of God himself.

Verse 12. Whose fan is in his hand, &c. -The metaphors in this verse are taken

from the process of thrashing among the Jews. The sheaves of corn were trodden by oxen upon a “ thrashing-floor," or prepared plain area, formed upon some elevated place, so as to force out the grain; then the winnowing fan, which was often a portable instrument used by the hand, and here not inaptly rendered by some, "a winnowing shovel," was applied to throw up the grain to the wind, that the chaff might be separated from it; whilst the straw, being crushed beneath the feet of the oxen, and rendered worthless, was reserved with the separated chaff, to be burned with other fuel in heating their ovens. The word axupov equally includes the chaff, and the crushed and worthless straw. The phrase, πupɩ aσßeσty, with unquenchable fire, is awfully emphatic. The domestic fires in which the straw was burned as fuel were extinguishable, and often extinguished; but this is " unquenchable," a clear indication of the perpetuity of future punishment. Those who refer all this to the destruction of Jerusalem do not rightly apprehend the nature of John's ministry. His office was to warn men of their eternal danger as sinners, and to pluck them, if possible, out of the fire of divine wrath. There is not an expression in the whole of this discourse of his which leads to the supposition, that he intended merely or chiefly to warn his hearers against temporal judgments. Its awakening character was manifestly framed upon views of deeper and more formidable dangers than the Roman invasion, before which most of his hearers, he knew, would be in an eternal world. And as he had preached Christ in his offices of grace, and as baptizing those who should believe on him with the Holy Ghost, so here he proclaims him in his office of Judge, separating the chaff and straw from the grain, the wicked from the righteous, the office which he now exercises in the invisible world, upon all departed spirits, between

g

13 Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto

John, to be baptized of him.

14 But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?

15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.

g Mark i. 9; Luke iii. 21.

whom he will make a still more public separation, with visible majesty, at the judgment of the great day. The instrument by which corn was winnowed was employed by heathen writers with a similar metaphorical application; and in the Eleusinian mysteries, a mystic FAN is said to have been employed as a symbol, to denote the separation of the initiated, or holy, from the profane.

Verse 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John-Tore, then, does not always so accurately mark the time, as to lead to the conclusion, that our Lord in this instance came to John at that particular juncture when he was addressing the multitudes in the discourse contained in the preceding verses. The notion of those, therefore, who think that the august scene of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him was a public one has no solid foundation. The contrary, indeed, appears to be indicated by this circumstance, that the descent of the Spirit was promised to be a sign to John the Baptist himself, John i. 33, to point out that personage whose precursor he was commissioned to be. It is not probable that this solemn token was given in the midst of a multitude; and in the presence of the scoffing Pharisees and Sadducees. The whole had too sacred and too mystic a character for indiscriminate gaze; and as no reference occurs to this event in the Gospels, as a public one, we may conclude that none but the Baptist and Christ were present. The adverb of time with which the account is introduced means no more than at the period when John was baptizing on the Jordan; near to which river he appears for some time to have fixed his abode; but he undoubt

edly had some seasons of relaxation and of privacy.

Verse 14. But John forbad him, &c.— John declares that "he knew him not" till his baptism; the reason being, that, though the families were related, yet John had lived long in solitude, at a great distance from the residence of Christ; divine providence having ordered this circumstance that it might be manifest that there was no concert between them. Now, for the first time since the days of their infancy, John became acquainted with Christ; and his recognition of him was no doubt produced by supernatural impulse; and knowing then in whose presence he was, said, in acknowledgment of his dignity, "I have need to be baptized of thee." Then, in the baptism which took place immediately after, he received the confirmatory sign which demonstrated him to be the Messiah.

Verse 15. To fulfil all righteousness.— See note on verse 3. To the remarks there, may be added, that our Lord says, "It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," using the plural; by which form of speaking he urged John to his duty. Christ, who never sinned, was not under obligation to submit to John's baptism as a baptism upon repentance, nor was he received by John under that condition; for John's reluctance to baptize Christ was an explicit declaration that he "needed no repentance." But he was baptized by him, as stated in the note referred to, on the simple ground of "fulfilling all righteousness," which is to be understood of obedience to every appointment of his Father, the reasons of which, notwithstanding many have been given, as that it was to honour John's ministry,

16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

&c., are not clearly revealed; so that it becomes us to confess our ignorance. It was sufficient for our Lord that such was the divine will that he should be baptized of John, and that John, though overwhelmed with a just sense of his inferiority, should baptize him; and it was "the righteousness" of both to obey. Some light is, however, thrown upon this act by the phrase rendered, "it becometh us to fulfil," &c., πрeño eσt nv, intimating fitness and propriety, rather than that obligation under which all the Jews were placed to submit to the baptism of John. This "fitness" appears to have arisen out of the mutual testimony that John and Jesus were to give to each other's mission; and thus a connexion was established between the forerunner and him whose herald he was; so that the person to whom John gave testimony as Messiah could not be mistaken. The notion that Christ was baptized with reference to the entrance of the Levitical priests into their office by anointing and baptism, does not seem to be well founded, since their baptism was a mere ablution, which was constantly repeated during their ministry.

Verse 16. Went up straightway out of the water, &c-That it should be stated that he went up straightway out of, or rather FROM the water, has its reason, or otherwise it would be a trifling remark; for why should he remain in the water after he had been baptized? It is manifest that the descent of the Holy Spirit did not take place during the administration of the rite to him, which is a clear proof that it was a distinct act of God, wholly unconnected with the baptism of John; so that this baptism was not a means of communicating this grace; for John baptized not with the Holy Ghost; and it was no doubt to mark this circumstance, that his departing from the water, that is, ascending the bank of the Jordan, IMMEDIATELY after his baptism, is noticed. Campbell

renders it," Jesus, being baptized, no sooner arose out of the water, than heaven was opened," &c., which is a very forced translation of aveßn eveus añо TOU Udaтos. The common version is to be every way preferred; or, if any alteration were thought necessary, "and scarcely had he ascended from the water," as suggested by several critics, would be preferable. The adverb has been variously arranged in the sentence by others; but none of them appear to have caught the intention of the evangelist, which evidently was, to mark distinctly the difference of time between the ASCENT from the river and the DESCENT of the Spirit, so as to guard against the idea, that the baptism of John was an ordinance through which the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon Christ was dispensed.

The heavens were opened, &c.-When a meteor, or any extraordinary appearance, falling from the clouds or from the higher regions of the atmosphere, occurred, the Jews usually expressed it by the phrase, "the heavens were opened." Unto him, some think to Christ, in the sense of for his sake; but more probably the sense is, they were opened unto John; for his conviction the sign was made a visible and splendid one, because he was to be the witness of those things, and to give his public testimony to them.

Descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.-Tertullian and St. Augustine entertained the notion that a real dove was employed as the visible sign on this occa sion. It does not, however, clearly appear that the likeness of a dove was apparent.

St. Luke says, "And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him;" but the bodily shapе, σшμатi Edel, may mean no more than a defined, visible appearance; and the comparison may be between the motion of this appearance in its descent, and the motion of a dove when alighting. But,

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