Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

I.-JOEL. MICAH.

THE MORAL TEACHING OF THE PROPHETS.

HE Book of Joel is perhaps the oldest

THE

of the prophetical writings. Of the Prophet himself nothing is known with certainty. It is evident only from his Book that he was a prophet of Judah. Not only does he make no mention of Israel, as a separate kingdom, but he writes as if living in Jerusalem, in the midst of the public worship of God, in the presence of the "children of Zion," whom he addresses.

In reading his prophecy we are forcibly reminded, that the office of a prophet in old time was not only, or chiefly, as we are apt to imagine from our modern use of the word, to foretel future events, but to declare the will of God, past and present as well as

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future; to teach men what God would have them to do; to explain to them the mystery of God's ways in the world. If any signal calamity or blessing befel them, it was the prophet's business to draw the true lesson from it; if they fell into sin, or lost sight of the great moral duties of life in the prescribed routine of ceremonial worship, he was to blow the trumpet to repentance; if their hopes or their faith failed, he was to bear the message of pardon and consolation. Such a teacher, such a preacher, was the prophet Joel. Let us consider what is the special instruction which his prophecy is set to enforce.

1. At the time when Joel wrote, a heavy judgment of God was upon the land. He speaks of a "great army" as coming against Judah. It was an army of locusts, that peculiar plague of Eastern countries. This it is which is described in such vivid colours in the opening of the second chapter: the heavens darkened by the vast swarms in which they came; their approach announced by the rushing noise of their wings; their irresistible advance, in countless throngs, rank

after rank, and file after file; their sweeping devastation-every green thing, every fruit of the earth, devoured as they pass over it, so that the country, as he says, which was like "the garden of Eden before them," was like the "desolate wilderness behind them." It was, we may imagine, like some terrible blight, destroying all the trees and plants of the earth, not by slow degrees, but in the course of a single day or a single hour.

This army of locusts the Prophet looks upon as a direct chastisement from God. He hears "the Lord's voice" going before it. "It is," he says, "the great and terrible day of the Lord, and who can abide it ?" Observe the expression, "the day of the Lord." It is of most frequent occurrence in the prophetical Scriptures a; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, all speak of it,"the day of the Lord of Hosts," "the day of the Lord's anger," "the day of the Lord." And they mean by it, as is evident, not the great day of final judgment, but any critical time, when God appears

a

Isa. ii. 12; Lan. ii. 22; Ezek. xiii. 5; Amos v. 18.

more visibly present in judgment than in the ordinary dealings of His providence. Thus here, "the day of darkness and gloominess," "the day of the Lord," is the plague of locusts: elsewhere it is used of God's visitations of His own people, or of their heathen enemies, by war, or any other calamity. But in every case, this is doubtless to be noted. "The day of the Lord," whenever it occurred, was an image of the great Day which is yet to come. All God's past and present judgments are likenesses, shadows, forewarnings of "the Judgment;" all are God's visitations of sin; all declare His displeasure at it; all are punishments for the violation of His eternal laws of right. And in the prophecy of Joel, both these days are remarkably combined. The second chapter begins with speaking of "a day of the Lord," "a day of clouds and thick darkness," by which he intended to represent the devastation caused by the locusts; and it ends with prophesying of "the great and terrible day of the Lord "," yet to come, at the end of all things.

b Joel ii. 1.

c Ibid. 31.

2. Now what was the message which the Prophet founded upon this great calamity? what did he declare to be its meaning? He sees in it a loud call to repentance; he announces the plague of locusts to be a summons to the people to "turn to the Lord." "Therefore now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repent. eth Him of the evil "."

We naturally ask, who were the sinners? What were the particular sins which they were to turn from? When the solemn assembly which he demanded should be called together, when the fast should be proclaimed, what would the people have to confess? what evil ways would they have to abjure? Nowhere does the Prophet tell them. He

a Joel ii. 12, 13.

See Pusey's Introduction to Joel (Minor Prophets), and Maurice's Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, Serm. xi.