Verse 8. Bring forth therefore fruits, etc. That is, the proper fruits of reformation, the proper evidence that you are sincere. Do not bring your cunning and dissimulation to this work; carry not your hypocrisy into your professed repentance; but evince your sincerity by forsaking sins, and thus give evidence that this crowding to Jordan Is not some act of dissimulation. No discourse could have been more appropriate or more cutting.

Fruits. Conduct. See Mt 7:16-19.

Meet for repentance, Fit for repentance; appropriate to it -- the proper expression of repentance.