of good fruit. “Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” (Matt. iii. 10.) When speaking of himself and of his baptism, John was naturally led to speak of Him, to whom he came to bear witness: and he said that He also would baptize, and in a manner to which he (John) could make no pretension. “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire.” (Matt. iii. 11.) Various expositions have been given of these latter expressions. That they refer (among other meanings) to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, which was accompanied with “cloven tongues like as of fire,” sitting upon each of the Apostles, and by which they were enabled to speak in languages they had never learned,—and to the gift of divers kinds of tongues on other occasions, as in the case of Cornelius and his company,—is evident from what is said upon the subject in Acts i. 5. and xi. 15, 16. “For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” “And as I (Peter) 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.” But the expressions, “with the Holy Ghost and fire,” have probably a still more extensive signification. No element is more subtle and powerful than fire: changing whatever it comes in contact with into its own nature. Thus fire (like water and wind, both of which are also made emblems of the Holy Spirit,) will represent the efficacy of Divine grace; its enlightening, purifying, refining and inflaming power; and so it forms a striking and happy contrast to that destroying fire, spoken of in the former and the following verses. And hereby would be fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi:—“When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the Spirit of judgment _and by the Spirit of burning_.” (Is. iv. 4.) “And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple: He is _like a refiner’s fire_, and like fuller’s soap. And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” (Mal. iii. 1–3.) Or, the baptism of fire, if taken in connection with the context, would signify the desolating judgments of God upon the hardened Jews: or it might represent the afflictions which Christ’s true followers were to suffer. To these He referred, when He said to the two sons of Zebedee, “With the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized.” (Mark x. 39.)