(5) And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. (6) And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
By this third horse, which was black, and the scanty measure of corn, which John, heard proclaimed, as the standard price for a penny, meaning a man's daily allowance; (Matthew 20:2) is very plainly taught to us, that it implied famine: when all faces gather blackness, as the Prophet said, and when the land was desolate. Joel 2:3-6. And God long before declared, that such should be the case, when punishments followed, one upon the heels of another. When I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one open, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight, and ye shall eat and not be satisfied. Leviticus 26:26. Now let the Reader pause, and observe how suitably the Lord's judgments follow the rejection of Christ and his Gospel. Jesus is the bread of life. He comes on a white horse; to intimate peace, and plenty. Men, reject him. Then comes One on a red horse, with a sword for war. Whether we are to consider Christ himself on this red horse, I will not determine, or whether his messenger. For the Prophet Zechariah, in his vision, saw Christ on a red horse, and behind him there were red horses speckled, that is, bay and white, Zechariah 1:8. To this judgment succeeds another, namely, famine, And how awful doth the Prophet describe the little effect which followed all judgments, where grace is not in the heart? I have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places, yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord, Amos 4:6. But, Reader! what a yet more awful judgment is that when, for the wickedness of a land, the Lord withdraws his Gospel, gives the land up to a perpetual barrenness of God's truths. Such a state the same Prophet describes, if the Reader would see it: Amos 8:9 to the end. But let God's people rejoice under all scantiness of the bread that perisheth in using, as long as they have the bread of life broken to them by the Lord himself, from day to day. In times of persecution in this land, the old saints of God used to say, that bread and water, with Christ and his Gospel, was delicious fare. And this proved that sweet scripture, and marked the Lord's distinguishing grace over his people, when the Lord God said: Behold, my servant shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; behold my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed? I beg the Reader to turn to the scripture itself, for it is a sweet one, and let him read the whole, Isaiah 65:13 to the end.