vices. was like the still more rigid revival of the ceremonial and hierarchical system, after the return from the Captivity, when the idolatrous tendency of the Jewish nation was finally uprooted. But as, in that latter instance, it ended in producing Their an artificial and fanatical spirit, against which Christianity itself in its first rise was a protest at once most awful and most merciful; so, in this earlier instance, these mechanical 1observances had a constant tendency to foster that divorce between Religion and morality, which in all times has been the bane of the religious world, especially in the East.2 The antidote was provided in the signal development of the Prophetical office, which marks the age of Uzziah. 4 But it was not only as the appointed antagonists to the exaggerations of the sacerdotal system that the Prophets arose with such power at this period. The nobles of Judah. first distinctly appear as an important body in the reign of Joash, and it would seem that their luxury and insolence, though less gross than that which we have seen in the corresponding class in Samaria, was yet in a high degree oppressive and scandalous. Bribery was practised in the seats of judgment, enormous landed property was accumulated, against the whole spirit of the Israelite commonwealth. With the determination, and, we may add, the avarice, of their race, they laid their deep schemes at night, and carried them out with their first waking; they did ' evil with both hands;' they skinned the poor to the very quick, they picked their bones, and ground them to powder. The great ladies of Zion were haughty, and paced along the streets, tossing their necks, and leering with their eyes, 6 It may be that an increase of immorality is intended in 2 Chr. xxvii. 3. But probably it is only the equivalent of the corresponding phrase in 2 Kings xv. 35. 2 For this Oriental tendency see a 5 striking passage in Mills's Samari- Isa. i. 1, x. 1; Micah vi. 3. Micah ii. 1, vii. 3. Ibid. iii. 2, 3; Isa. ii. 14, 15. The walking and mincing as they went; covered with tinkling ornaments, chains, bracelets, mantles, veils, of all fashions and sizes.1 2 In Judah, as in Ephraim, drunkenness was amongst the higher orders a national vice. They turned their gigantic energy into their debauches. The music and poetry which David had founded were the accompaniments of those long revels, which lasted from break of day till night. When the vineyards were laid waste by the locusts, the selfish tears and cries of the drunkard were amongst the 'first that struck the listener's ear. In the face of these moral and social evils, combined with Prophets. the physical calamities of the period, a more than ordinary consolation was required. That consolation was in some degree provided by the wise and upright Kings, especially Uzziah himself. But it was the peculiar characteristic of the Jewish people, that the hope derived from these earthly examples suggested a higher still. It was the glory of the reigns of David and Solomon to have rendered possible the first conception of a future ruler, an anointed king, of their descendants, more beneficent and more splendid than either. It was the glory of the reign of Uzziah that then (as far as we know) this idea was first brought forward again in still firmer and larger proportions, though in less warlike and imperial strains; and from this time onwards the belief in the coming of the Just, Peaceful, Merciful King gained a stronger and stronger hold. The earliest of the Prophets whose writings have come down to us, and who now, in the decline of the kingdom of Samaria, were gathering more closely round the throne of Judah, is Joel. He is the connecting link between the older Prophets who are known to us only through their actions and sayings, and the later who are known chiefly through their writings. His mode of address, in its abruptness and directness, is such as we can imagine in Elijah himself. On the occasion of the visitation of locusts before described, it was he who came forward to counsel, or at least to rouse, the assembly-to call the people to the outward expression of repentance. He is full too of the ancient spirit of war and vengeance. But the new and more spiritual element is already at work. Totally unlike as that scene is, in all its external features, to any modern worship, the Prophetic voice of Joel infuses into it a higher strain, that has lasted to our own time. The bare, halfclothed forms, with the clothes hanging round them in strips and tatters, are of the East and Eastern. But, Rend your heart and not your garments' is the true keynote of spiritual worship, fitly prefixed to the public prayers of the most Western churches, as the warning that even the most passionate expressions of external devotion are nothing unless the intention of the heart goes with them. With a glance that reached forwards to the most distant ages, yet had immediate reference to the enlargement of the narrow views of his own time, he foretold, as the chiefest of blessings, that the day was at hand when the Prophetic spirit should no longer be confined to this or that class, but should be poured out upon all humanity, on male and female, on old and young, even on the slaves and humblest inhabitants of Jerusalem.2 These words, receiving their fullest accomplishment centuries afterwards, were yet realised almost within that generation by the simultaneous rise of Prophets of all degrees of cultivation, and from every station of life. The few who are known to us are doubtless the representatives of many more, and are enough to indicate the force and variety of the 1 Joel ii. 13. 2 Ibid. ii. 28, 29; Acts ii. 17. Amos. Zechariah. revival which was at work. Some of them were wild enthusiasts, in whom it was difficult to distinguish between the fumes of intoxication and the fervour of inspiration; some played into the hands of the unprincipled Priesthood, whom they were meant to counteract, and affected the black Prophetic dress without any portion of the Prophetic spirit.2 Others there were who lifted up the 'burdens' of true Prophetic oracles against the vices of the time.3 Amongst these was one who, by his humble origin, almost literally fulfilled the words of Joel's description. Amos, the sheepmaster of Tekoa, the gatherer of figs, the Prophet of simple style and rustic imagery, appeared in the close of Uzziah's reign. He kept his sheep and goats on the wild hills of Judæa, as Nabal on a grander scale, and David on a humbler scale, had kept them before. His writings are filled with allusions to the deep clefts, the foaming winter torrents that descend to the Dead Sea, to the wild animals, especially to the lions, of this savage district. Although his ministrations were chiefly, as we have seen, in the kingdom of Israel, yet his strong denunciations of the sacrificial and ceremonial system, as compared with the mild rebuke of Joel, show the growing need and also the growing spirit of the Prophetic order in this its most important function. 6 4 Another Prophet, whose character and position is more difficult to unravel, was Zechariah, the favourite Prophet of King Uzziah in his prosperous days. 'He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the 'visions of the Lord.' It cannot be proved, but it is very probable, that this was the Prophet whose writings are now in part comprised under the name of the later Zechariah. Like Amos, he directed his teaching so much 'Micah ii. 11. 5 2 Isa. xxix. 9, 10; Micah iii. 5-7, 11; Jer. v. 31. 2 Chr. xxiv. 19, 27 (Heb.). 4 See Lecture XXVIII. 2 Chr. xxvi. 5. towards the northern kingdom that he can hardly be considered in this place. But he is clearly a seer, dwelling at Jerusalem, and in his mind first rises distinctly the image of the Pacific King, not seated on the war-horse, like Asa or Jehoshaphat, in their martial moods, but on the gentle ass, like Uzziah in his earlier and brighter days, just and lowly, speaking peace to the heathen.1 clothes, and went A third Prophet who, like Amos, but in a higher position, came from the rural district of Judah, is Micah the Moras- Micah. thite. He began to prophesy after the accession of Jotham. His name, even his opening address, was the same, word for word, and letter for letter, as of that older Micaiah, who could prophesy nothing but evil against the Kings of Israel, and who appealed round and round to every single citizen of the commonwealth. He was filled with the evils of his time inward and outward. Like the older prophets, like the anchorites of Russia, he stripped off his about naked, beating his breast, with wild shrieks and lamentations, like the long piteous cry of the jackal, like the fearful screech of the ostrich. His own immediate neighbourhood, in the maritime plain, is the first scene of his warnings. Village after village he dooms to destruction. Their familiar names appear to carry with them their deathwarrant. His eye and ear are haunted by the images of earthquakes and even of volcanoes. He is struck with horror at the drunkenness, the robbery, the folly, the oppression of his country. Not only from nobles and priests, but from his own Prophetic order, he turns away in disgust. One remarkable instance of such an explosion we shall meet in the reign 5 4 6 1 Zech. ix. 9. See Lecture XXXIV. 2 Mica-jahu, who is like Jehovah?' Compare Micah i. 1; 1 Kings xxii. 28 (Dr. Pusey's Preface to Micah). 3 1 Sam. xix. 24. See Lectures on Eastern Church, p. 393. Micah i. 8 (Dr. Pusey, Pref.). 5 Micah i. 10-15. • Ibid. 13-16 (see Dr. Pusey's Pref. p. 293). Ibid. ii. 1, 8, 11, iii. 1. 8 Ibid. iii. 5-8. See Lecture XXXVIII |