a says: "It shall come to
pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens,
and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and
the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her
unto Me in the earth[9]." By Jezreel is meant the Christian Church;
and the Prophet declares in God's name, that the time was to come when
the Church would call upon the corn, wine, and oil, and they would call
on the earth, and the earth on the heavens, and the heavens on God; and
God should answer the heavens, and the heavens should answer the earth,
and the earth should answer the corn, wine, and oil, and they should
answer to the wants of the Church. Now, doubtless, this may be
fulfilled only in a general way; but considering Almighty God has
appointed corn or bread, and wine, to be the special instruments of His
ineffable grace,--He, who sees the end from the beginning, and who
views all things in all their relations at once,--He, when He spoke of
corn and wine, knew that the word would be fulfilled, not generally
only, but even literally in the Gospel.

Again: the prophet Joel says, "It shall come to pass in that day that
the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with
milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a
fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the
valley of Shittim[10]." How strikingly is this fulfilled, if we take
it to apply to what God has given us in the Gospel, in the feast of the
Holy Communion!

Again: the prophet Amos says: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes
him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all
the hills shall melt[11];" that is, with God's marvellous grace,
whereby He gives us gifts new and wonderful.

And the prophet Isaiah: "In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make
unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees; of
fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." And
again: "Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine
enemies, and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the
which thou hast laboured; but they that have gathered it shall eat it,
and praise the Lord, and they that have brought it together shall drink
it in the courts of My holiness." And again: "Behold My servants shall
eat, but ye shall be hungr