Joel 2:15

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:

Ver. 15. Blow the trumpet in Zion] That all may hear and convene, those of Jerusalem in the temple, and the rest in their several synagogues, Leviticus 23:31, for that yearly fast was a standard to the rest, kept upon extraordinary and emergent occasions, as here, for the preventing of the forethreatened judgment. Papists appoint set fasting days, as Lent, and Friday in every week, eves of holidays, &c., whether the times be clear or cloudy. A. Lapide, also, the Jesuit, keeps a coil against Luther and the Centurists, for decrying their Popish processions and public litanies, which he thinks to be here and elsewhere authorized. A discourse he giveth us here, too, about the use and origin of bells among Christians, answerable to trumpets among the Jews. A symmist of his, Cenalis, Bishop of Auranches, to prove their Pope-holy Church the true Church, maketh no mention at all either of preaching or sacraments, but produceth bells for a sufficient mark of the Catholic true Church. "We have bells," saith he, "whereby our assemblies are ordinarily called together, but the Lutherans have claps of harquebuses and pistolets for signs whereby they congregate," between which and bells he maketh a long anti-thesis, and from hence inferreth that the Church of Rome is the true Church. A proper argument, and yet the man pleaseth himself as much in it as the second Council of Nice did in their profound proofs for idolatry, which, as one well saith of them, were such as that the images themselves, if they were sensible, would blush to hear repeated.

Sanctify a fast] See Trapp on " Joe 1:14 " Proclaim a religious abstinence from all kind of sustenance, 2Sa 12:17 Jon 3:5 for a season, either from morning till evening, as Judges 20:26 2 Samuel 3:35, or from evening till evening, Leviticus 23:32, or longer, as Est 4:16 Acts 9:9, as the hand and wrath of God is more or less felt or feared; but the least time that may be is a whole day. There is an old canon that our fasts should continue usque dum stellae in coelo appareant, till the stars appear in the sky. The very Turks in their solemn fasts eat nothing all the day till night; yea, so precise they are, that upon their fasting days they will not so much as wash their mouths in water till the stars appear; which maketh their fasts (especially in the summer, when the days be long and hot) to be unto them very tedious. Christians hold and teach that nature is by fasting to be chastised, and not disabled for service; and that such as cannot fast so long but they shall either endanger health or be unfitted for the spiritual duties of the day, may eat; provided that they abuse not this liberty to the satisfying of the flesh, Col 2:23 1 Timothy 5:23 .

Call a solemn assembly] See Joel 1:14. See Trapp on " Joe 1:14 "