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    " The Jews , " says Knapg , " were accustomed to prefix prophecies even to statements of facts , and to connect and accommodate to their prophecies unexpected occurrences , and they were very fond of speaking in words and phrases derived from the Old Testament , especially when some kind of resemblance existed between the passage of the Old Testament and the subject of discourse . Hence the expressions , to be fulfilled , to be accomplished , occur in various senses in the Rabbinical books and in the New Testament :

    and the oracles and declarations of the prophets are said to be fulfilled or accomplished , not only when that very thing which was predicted has occurred , but also when any thing similar has happened which brings those words to our recollection , and in any manner confirms and illustrates them . ' * Knapp apud Kuinoel . . There is , in fact , a great similarity between our own common practice of expressing our thoughts on any subject of discourse in the appropriate words of a favourite poet ; and the Jewish applications of their prophecies , and the

    formula , " that it might be fulfilled , " &c , frequently meant nothing more than " to use the words of the prophet . " It is not , therefore , without much caution , that we must press applications of passages from the Ancient Scriptures , as expressing the real and original sense of the authors , and we should not improve , as interpreters of the Old Testament , by adopting indiscriminately the explanations of its words which are to be found in the New .

    - Matt . iii . 11 , "He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire . " On the much-disputed question , whether the fire be explanatory of the Holy Spirit , or contrasted with it ; whether it refer to the tongues of flame on the day of Pentecost , or to the punishment of the unbelieving Jews in the destruction of Jerusalem , our author has thrown little light , nor is it easy to discover his own opinion . At first he seems to express approbation of the

    former interpretation ; yet we should suppose him to incline to the latter , when , without any censure or caution , he says , This purgation ( by fire ) Wetstein explains of all those calamities which the Jews soon after experienced in the burning of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem , and of the state . " We think the question will be set at rest , if , attending to the ambiguity of the word irvevuan , spirit or wind , we consider that the

    following verse is a mere explanation of the words now before us , the image of the threshing-floor having been already in the Baptist's mind when he mentioned the two means of purification , wind and fire ; by the former of which , the Holy Spirit , the good should be distinguished from the bad , as the wheat is from the broken straw and chaff , by the blast from the winnowing fan ; by the latter the bad should be consumed , as the straw and chaff are in the fire

    which is prepared near the floor . u Whose fan is in his hand , and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor , and gather his wheat into the garner , but will burn up the chaff with fire unquenchable . " The gifts of the Holy Spirit were bestowed as a distinctive sign on the true believers . Fire is the appropriate representative of dreadful calamities of whatsoever kind , and was surely never more justly applied than to those which befel the unhappy Jews who obstinately rejected the proffered salvation .

    The word da-fito-ros , unquenchable , is explained by dKOLrairava-ro ^ to be restrained or appeased , and manifestly refers to the rapid burning of the broken straw and chaff , so that when once li g hted it could not be extinguished ; so when once God ' s judgments should overtake the opposers of-the Messiah's kingdom , no means of escape would be afforded them , the destruction would be neither to be restrained nor resisted . Since then this word here refers only to temporal judgments , and our author himself so explains

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    206 Review . S - —Bloomfieldh > Recerisio ^ ynoptica Annotation ™ Sacrte .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1827, page 206, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1794/page/46/