time of Isaiah. They were then exceedingly
depraved; and the evangelist found that the words were applicable to
the Jews living in the time of Christ. Horne, writing on
"accommodation," observes, "It was a familiar idiom of the Jews when
quoting the writings of the Old Testament to say that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by such and such a prophet, not intending
it to be understood that such a particular passage in one of the
sacred books was ever designed to be a real prediction of what they
were then relating, but signifying only that the words of the Old
Testament might be properly adopted to express their meaning and
illustrate their ideas" (_Intro_., Vol. II.) "The apostles," he
adds, "who were Jews by birth, and spoke in the Jewish idiom,
frequently thus cite the Old Testament, intending no more by this
mode of speaking than that the words of such an ancient writer might
with equal propriety be adopted to characterise any similar
occurrence which happened in their times. The formula, 'That it
might be fulfilled,' does not therefore differ in signification from
the phrase, 'then was fulfilled,' applied in the following citation
in Matt. ii. 17, 18, from Jer. xxxi. 15, 17, to the massacre of the
infants in Bethlehem. They are a beautiful quotation, and not a
prediction, of what then happened, and are therefore applied to the
massacre of the infants, according not to their original and
historical meaning, but according to Jewish phraseology (_Vide_
Kitto, Art. Accom.) The principle of accommodation clears away all
difficulty. It is also in harmony with the context, as applied in
John. Christ exhorted those around Him to believe in the light, that
they might be the children of the light. But how could He exhort
them to believe in the light, if He knew that the Divine Father had
rendered their doing so an impossibility? Would you ask a man to
walk who had no legs? to look, if he had no eyes? Underlying the
exhortation to walk in the light lay the idea that they were able to
perform it. It has been said that although we have lost the power to
obey, God has not lost the power to command. Dr. Thomas Reid meets
this notion thus: "Suppose a man employed in the navy of his
country, and, longing for the ease of a public hospital as an
invalid, to cut off his fingers so as to disable him from doing the
duty of a sailor; he is guilty of a great crime, but after he has
been punished according to the demerit of his crime