your solemn assemblies.

days, and I will not smell in 25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

23 Take thouaway from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. 24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.

LECTURE 1411.

Terrors and mercies are both motives to repentance. Though the Lord had spoken in the previous chapter as if it were too late for Israel to repent, this appears to have been only as a means of moving the people to repentance. For the burden of the present chapter is this, "Seek ye me, and ye shall live." First we have a lamentation for Israel's fall, then follows this express exhortation to seek God, with a promise of life ensuing if they did so. But they must not seek to idols at the same time. Neither must they pervert judgment. They must honestly seek the great Creator of the heavens and earth, the wonders of whose creation are here briefly described, as well as the righteous dealings of his providence. He knows, He tells them, all their transgressions, and all their gross sins, such as perverting justice and oppressing the poor. But yet, enormous as their wickedness must have been in his sight, He still again exhorts them to seek good and not evil, that they might live; promising that so should the Lord of hosts be with them; He still charges them, as though it were not yet too late, to "abhor that which is evil," and "cleave to that which is good." Rom. 12. 9. But then suddenly the Lord speaks of wailing and mourning as though sure to overtake them, warns them that the day of the Lord, in which they might else have looked for joy, would prove a day of darkness to sinners, assures them by a strong figure of speech that escape is impossible, renounces their sacrifices as abominable unto Him, when He looked in vain for judgment and righteousness, and especially refers to their idolatrous practices as the object of his loathing, and the cause of the captivity which He denounces against them. Was it then too late for them to repent, or not? Were these threats of judgment incompatible with these promises of mercy? Assuredly they were not. Rather they were designed to excite to repentance. The terrors of the Lord are one means of persuasion. But if neither his terrors nor his mercies will persuade, then his judgments will not fail to take effect.

The luxury of the rich in Israel is denounced.

1 Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

2 Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

3 Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

4 That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

5 That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments ofmusick, like David; 6 That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

7 Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.

8 The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excel

lency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein. 9 And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

10 And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD.

11 For, behold, the LORD commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.

12 Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock: 13 Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

14 But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the LORD the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness.

LECTURE 1412.

The vanity of trusting in our own strength.

This is a chapter of awful import to those who live a life of heedless luxury. And the doctrine which it teaches is strongly enforced by a corresponding passage in the Epistle of St. James, beginning thus: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you." Jas. 5. 1. In the Old Testament we may be the more surprised to find these words of warning to the wealthy; seeing that abundance of this world's good things is the promise of the Law to the devout.

But the

wealth which is denounced, both by the prophet and by the apostle, is that which is amassed to the detriment of others, that which is spent in wasteful self indulgence. And so also it is of thos who trust in riches that our Saviour speaks, when He says that they shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. But then how few have riches, without being tempted to trust in them! How few very great estates or fortunes are amassed, without wrong done to some, or to many, directly, or indirectly! how few are possessed, without the owners being apt to become self indulgent, arbitrary, vain, wasteful in their expenses, sumptuous in their fare, frivolous in their pursuits, and all too indifferent to the wants, temporal and spiritual, of their poorer brethren! Surely there must be now many among the rich who might find their own case not ill described in this account of the wealthy in Israel, "That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph."

Most pointedly is a want of consideration for the afflicted here reproved in the prosperous. Most solemnly does the Lord straightway afterwards declare, that He abhors all such grandeur in his people, and that He will deliver up to destruction the city so abhorred, "with all that is therein." Most striking is the contrast of death and desolation then brought before the view, the house of feasting turned into the house of mourning, the gay throng all gone, and the dead man carried out in solitary silence, for his bones to be burnt by the nearest of kin left; the straitened condition of the besieged city not admitting of access to a sepulchre, and the horror stricken consciences of the guilty people not allowing them to "make mention of the name of the Lord!" And to escape from this judgment, God signifies, is hopeless, no more practicable than to run with horses on a rock, or to plow there with oxen; not practicable by any skill or strength of man, the only means these rich but wicked men seem ever to have thought of resorting to. They might indeed have escaped by repentance. This is always to be understood. They could not escape by taking to themselves horns, that is to say, exulting in their own strength. This is that which is always meant when God pronounces his judgments inevitable. What folly then for man to "rejoice in a thing of nought," to cling to the vain hope of saving himself by his own ability! What madness not to cast ourselves wholly on the mercy and grace of God, freely confessing our sinfulness, admitting our helplessness, and looking only unto God for salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Judgments threatened to Israel and to Amaziah.

1 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.

2 And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. 3 The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD. 4 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.

5 Then said I, O Lord Gop, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. 6 The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GOD.

7 Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

8 And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:

10 Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

11 For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

12 Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

13 But prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's

court.

14 Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit:

15 And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

16 Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

17 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land. LECTURE 1413.

9 And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the

sword.

That God rules all with unerring justice.

Two desolating judgments are here made to pass in review before the mind of the prophet, under inspiration of the Lord.

And on his deprecating these visitations in behalf of helpless Israel, it is stated, in each instance, that "The Lord repented for this: It shall not be, saith the Lord." It is good for us then sometimes to consider what God could do, and might do justly, by way of punishing man's iniquity. It is good for us to intercede in behalf of a wicked world, lest He send a blight on our produce, or a consuming fire on our earth, and bring us to nothing in his wrath. But though the blight of devouring insects, and the consuming fire, were stayed by the prophet's prayer, it was not so with the plumbline which next he saw applied as an emblem of God's dealings with his people. This probably signifies, that whereas the blight and the fire would destroy all alike, there should be a more exact administration of justice in the judgment actually inflicted; the most guilty being most severely punished, and the faithful, if any such were left, and doubtless there were some, having a way made for their escape, in the general desolation of their country. This certainly is the principle of God's dealings with mankind, not to destroy the righteous with the wicked. And if in some instances his judgments seem to us general and indiscriminate, this is for want of our knowing who are righteous and who wicked, or for want of our duly considering how much it may hereafter redound to the gain of the best amongst mankind, to have fared here for a short time as ill or worse than the worst.

We have in this very chapter an instance in point, to shew us how little we are able to form a judgment beforehand. Amaziah the priest of Bethel, the idolatrous priest of the golden calves, brings a plausible accusation against Amos, and recommends him to flee from the wrath of the king, and to suppress the voice of prophetic truth in the precincts of the king's court. Amos owns he was no prophet by birth or training, until called from an humble avocation to prophesy to the Lord's people. Here we have on one side power and authority used for an unjust purpose, with every apparent probability that it will prosper and prevail. On the other hand the prophet appears to have no recognized office to plead, and no resource but to take refuge as advised in the land of Judah. But as we read on, the veil is lifted up. Prophecy discloses events that no one could surmise. The Lord is applying the plumbline of justice to the persecuting priest of Bethel. And the result is thus expressed by the mouth of the persecuted prophet: "Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land." Let us then judge nothing before the time; except so far as to hold this for certain, that God deals with all his people, and rules over all the world, by a line of impartial justice, by a rule of unerring truth.