THE ruuruET joNxVii 
 
 HIS CHARACTER AND MISSION 
 TO NINEVEH. 
 
 HuriirSrAiniN. \i\)., 
 
 Ai'THOK OK "TiiK Ato.vemknt," '* Thk Shai>ow of Calvaky," ''Christ's 
 Preskxk in Gosi'kl History, " &t'. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 EDINbUKLiH: 
 JAMES CKMMKLL. 1 1' r;EOR(;E IV. IlUIlXJE. 
 
 1880. 
 
JAMES GEMMELL, PRINTER, EDINBURGH. 
 
I'KEFATOIIY NOTK TO THE FIIJST KDITIOX. 
 
 Mv explicit acknowledgiiicnts of help in the coui- 
 position of this volume, are due to Calvin ; whose 
 (\)ininentiirios on the Minor Projthets, as well as his 
 otlur works, it would be })resuniptioii in me to praise. 
 1 have no doubt, also, that traces will appear of my 
 haviniT read Principal Fairbairn's book on Jonah. I 
 have a distinct recollection of derivintr much pleasure 
 and profit from the perusal of it at the time of its publi- 
 cation. But as that is now about seventeen years ago, 
 I am unable to specify my obligations. 
 
 Some of my readers may think that I have — to use 
 the language of an intelligent friend — "taken Jonah's 
 l>art too much." I can scarcely think that I have. It 
 is a tacit tribute of honour that we pay to |)rophets and 
 Apostles, as still living powers in the Church, when we 
 deny them the benefit of the maxim, Dr mortuis nil nisi 
 Jxmun). But for that reas<»n we ouirht to be all the 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 more careful to do them no injustice. And when I 
 think of his wonderful prayer in the depths, — of his 
 perfect candour with the mariners, — of his magnanimity 
 in prescribing his own death as the means of their de- 
 liverance, — and of his perfect candour with God also, in 
 laying open to Him to the last even all that was wrong 
 in his startling and most sinful state of mind, I cannot 
 help thinking that the memory of Jonah deserves more 
 of esteem and affectionate reo^ard than has fallen to his 
 lot. To the last we find his gracious Lord " not silent 
 to him ; " so that we see the prophet not left to " become 
 like them that go down into the pit." And though 
 Jonah has closed the book of his prophecy without telling 
 us what effect the Lord's gracious remonstrance had in 
 respect of bringing him to a better frame of mind, — thus, 
 in manifest humility, I think, consenting to disappear 
 from our view as under a cloud, — Divine charity, " be- 
 lieving all things," will have little difficulty in believing 
 that Jonah's silence, like that of Job, would have its 
 meaning expressed by the protestation : — " Once have I 
 spoken ; but I will not answer : yea, twice ; but I will 
 proceed no further." 
 
 I wish my book had been greatly better than it is. 
 For one thing, it would have allowed me to say some- 
 thing on what I hold to be the yet unexhausted resources, 
 in respect of variety, and versatility, and literary con- 
 struction, — of the kind of expository exercise of which 
 
J 're face. V 
 
 this tbrms, in so far, a .s])uciiiun. Hut I forlxui-. Smli 
 as it it is, I ilcsire to leavi' tlie voluinc with iiiiii wlio, 
 by His ministry witliiii tlir veil, can lender it of sweet 
 smellinij;- savour unto (Jod, and l>y I lis ministry of the 
 Spirit in the heart, can render it a savour of life unt<» life 
 to tlif r-ader. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 EDLVBCRf.H, Ut Jnne 1S66. 
 
 There beincj a constant demand for Dr. Huofh Martin's 
 Works and this one having become scarce, the Publisher 
 has reprinted it, and will shortly reissue Dr. Martin's 
 work entitled •' The Shadow of Calvary." 
 
 July 11 $9. 
 
C O N TENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Sense, ...... 
 
 XV. — Jonah i. 17 ; ii. 10. — New Testament Commentaries : No 
 I.— The Type, .... 
 
 I'AOK 
 
 I. — Jonah i. 1. — Jonah's Mission ; its Place in Historical 
 
 Development, ...... 1 
 
 II. — Jonah i. 1. — Relations between Jew and Gentile, . . 13 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 THE COMMISSION ISSUED— AND REFUSED. 
 
 in. — Jonah i. 2. — Jonah's Commission ; its Sovereignty and 
 
 Righteousness, . . . . . .21 
 
 IV. — Jonah i. 3. — Jonah's Flight ; its Meaning and Motive, . 28 
 
 V. — Jonah i. 3. — Jonah's Flight ; its Lessons, ... 44 
 
 VI.— Jonah i 4.— The Storm, ..... 58 
 
 \'II. — Jonah i. 5. — The Prayer of Terror, and the Sleep of Sor- 
 row, in the Storm, ..... 70 
 
 Vlll.— Jonah i. G.— The World Rebuking the Church, . . 82 
 
 IX. — Jonah i. G. — Natural Religion ; its Strength and Weakness, 93 
 
 X.— Jonah i. 7. — Casting the Lot, .... lOG 
 
 XI. — Jonah i. 8, 9. — Jonah in the Ship : Achan in tlie Cump, . 120 
 
 XII. — Jonah i. 9, 10. — Aggravations of the Guilt of Backsliding, 135 
 
 XIII. — Jon.vh i, 11-17. — The Casting of Jonah into the Sea, 
 
 XIV. — Jonah ii. 1-9. — Jonah's Prayer : The Conflict of Faith am 
 
 147 
 IGO 
 174 
 
viii Contents. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 THE COMMISSION RE-ISSUED— AND FULFILLED. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVI. — Jonah iii. 1. — Jonah Restored to Office, . . . 192 
 
 XVII. — Jonah iii. 1-4. — The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted, 200 
 
 XVIII. — Jonah iii. 5, 9. — Nineveh's Repentance : — its Origin and 
 
 Nature, ....... 222 
 
 XIX. — Jonah iii. 6-8, 10. — Nineveh's Repentance : — its Nation- 
 ality ; its Expressions ; its Efficacy, . . . 230 
 
 XX. — Jonah iii. 10. — New Testament Commentaries: No. II. — 
 
 The Parallel, ...... 251 
 
 XXI. — Jonah i. 17 ; iii. 10. — New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 No. III.— The Sign, 264 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 XXII. — Jonah iv. 1-11. — Jonah's Anger — and the Gourd, . . 294 
 
THE PROPHET JONAH. 
 
 I. 
 
 JONAHS MISSION: ITS PLACE IN HISTORICAL 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 " Now the word of the Lord caino unto Jonali the son of Amittai, saying. 
 Arise, go to Ninoveh." — Jonah i. 1, 
 
 " A lUfht io lU)htt)i "••• !!• I'I'I- <. «,\.1 (he (jlorxj of His people Israel." 
 
 — Luke ii. 32. 
 
 Sl'EAIvING fjenerally, tlic prophet Jonah lived about midway 
 IilLwcl-u the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam and 
 their fatal and final captivity by Assyria. The commencement 
 of his ministry — whether that ministry was more stated or more 
 occasional we do not know — seems to have been contemporaneous 
 with the close of Elisha's. And, like Elisha, Jonah prophesied 
 in Israel — in the kin^'dom of Samaria. 
 
 The only predicti(^n of his recorded is that mentioned in the 
 14th chapter of 2nd Kin«^s, which, indeed, is the only pjissajjc of 
 Scripture in which our prophet is mentioned, except in the book 
 which j^ues under his own name, and the allusions made to him 
 by our Lord in the days of His flesh. In that chapter, at the 23rd 
 verse, we read that, about 150 years after the disruption of the 
 tribes, and about .S25 years before Christ, Jeroboam IL, "the son 
 of Joash, kinj^ of Israel, befjan to reign in Samaria, and reiffned 
 forty and one years. And he did that which was evil in the 
 sight of the Lord : he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam 
 the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He restored the coast 
 of Israel, from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, 
 according to the word of the Lord Ood of Israel, which He >j)ake 
 
yonaJis Mission : its Place 
 
 by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, 
 which was of Gath-hepher. For the Lord saw the affliction of 
 Israel, that it was very bitter : for there was not any shut up, 
 nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the Lord said not 
 that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven ; 
 but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash." 
 
 It thus appears that, while Israel were in a very wretched and 
 oppressed condition, the Lord had employed His servant Jonah 
 to predict an unmerited and most ^racious interposition of His 
 power on their behalf, to restore to them the territory of which 
 their enemies had deprived them. It is very remarkable that 
 living, as the prophet did, in a time of abounding provocations 
 when we might have expected his sole office in Israel would have 
 been to denounce judgment on the apostate tribes and their 
 ungodly rulers, the only one of his predictions on record is that 
 of a most gracious and generous interposition on the part of 
 Jehovah in defence of His afflicted people ; when " seeing their 
 affliction that it was very bitter," He, as it were, forgot all their 
 offensive neglect of His v/orship, and disobedience to His com- 
 mands ; and, unwilling to see their name blotted out — the name 
 of Israel, the seed of Abraham, his friend, blotted out — from 
 under heaven, He gave military strength and skill even to a 
 wicked king, and " saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son 
 of Joash." Abundant evidence thus, in his ministry among a 
 rebellious people, has Jonah of the Lord's singular long-suffering ; 
 so abundant, indeed, that, unable to vindicate, any more than to 
 search, its greatness, he seems to have been at fault and at a loss 
 concerning it ; to have been difficulted in considering the char- 
 acter of God, and cast into great confusion of mind by his very 
 knowledge of God's extraordinary patience. In fact, it is in this 
 very difficulty that the explanation of Jonah's most singular con- 
 duct, both in first fleeing from the duty assigned him, and in 
 afterwards being displeased with the salvation of Nineveh, must 
 be sought. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was 
 very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, 
 O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country ? 
 Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish : for I knew that thou art 
 a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, 
 and repentest Thee of the evil " (Jonah iv. 1, 2). However this 
 
/// Historical Development. 
 
 may account for his ftmnzinpj and almost unparalleled procedure, 
 clt'ur it is that it is this that dues acccnint for it. JdiiuIi lia<I 
 unwontodly larjjo and strong views of the Divine forbearance ; 
 antl, from some cause or other, losing his way or his reckcjning in 
 estimating the hearing of the Divine forhearunce on the other 
 attrihutes of the Divine character, and on the discharge of his 
 own tluty, his mind fell into a confusion of thoughts and prin- 
 ciples, which issued in the marvellous adventures, experiences, 
 jin<l displays of character which this short Init singular lx)ok of 
 Holy Scripture narrates. It is at least interesting to see thus 
 early, in the one oidy brief allusion made to the history of his 
 ministry in Israel, the rise of what alone can explain the astound 
 ing story of his mission and his manners in Nineveh. 
 
 Living, then, among the ten revolted tribes, and testifying 
 alike against their iniijuities, and for the riches of Jehovah's 
 patience and the rectituile of Jehovah's ways, the prophet doubt- 
 less reckoned on spending the remainder of his days in his own 
 land. The very last thought, prohably, that would have ever 
 spontaneou:ily entered his mind, would have been the idea of 
 having to go forth from its sacred precincts, and exercise his 
 holy office among the heathen. For ages and for generations 
 Jehovah had conlined all His manifestations of Himself to the 
 children of Jacob. The ceremonial law, which at Sinai He had 
 appointed to them, served, in its burdensome ritual and iiuiumer- 
 able observances, as a middle wall of partition, excluding the 
 Gentiles from their religious privileges. Pro.selytes, indeed, were 
 welcome. And in the law of Moses itself, directions ha<l be»n laid 
 down for their a»lmission into the commonwealth of Israel. But 
 this had a bearing merely on individuals. The Gentiles, as a 
 whole, as nations, were obviously' given over in the meantime to 
 the reign of spiritual death, cast out beyond the jiale of that visible 
 Church, within which alone .salvation is ordinarily revealed. It 
 is from this wretched and forlorn con<lition that Paul calls on 
 the Ephesians to remember that they had l)een delivered : — 
 " Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the 
 flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the 
 Circumcision in the Hesh made by hands ; that at that time yo 
 were without the Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth 
 of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no 
 
JonaJis Mission : its Place 
 
 hope, and without God in the world " (Eph. ii. 11, 12). No doubt 
 the peculiar people were separated from the Gentiles only for a 
 time, and only for a purpose. They were separated from them 
 for a time, for the very purpose of being the safe custodiers of 
 that grace of which the Gentiles should in due time be fellow- 
 heirs. They ought never to have forgotten that the covenant 
 with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob embraced the Gentile world 
 very specially in its gracious primeval provisions : — " In thy seed, 
 shall all the nations of the earth be blessed " (Gen. xxvi. 4). 
 And they ought therefore to have known that, when the Messiah 
 should come, He would be " a minister of the Circumcision for 
 the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers : 
 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy ; as it is 
 written. For this cause I will confess to Thee among the Gentiles, 
 and sing unto Thy name. And again he saith. Rejoice, ye Gentiles, 
 with His people. And again, praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles ; 
 and laud Him, all ye people. And again, Isaiah saith. There 
 shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the 
 Gentiles: in Him shall the Gentiles trust" (Rom. xv. 8-12). 
 
 In the times of truest spiritual life, this was not forgotten 
 in Israel. The holy men who " obtained a good report by faith " 
 had large and world-wide views, and large and world-wide hopes, 
 as to the grace of God and the reign of their Messiah. They 
 expected Him to rule over a kingdom co-extensive with the 
 whole world. They expected Him to dispense blessings sufficient 
 for every land. The more they appreciated their own sinfulness 
 and the freeness and sovereignty of the grace of God, the more 
 did they clearly comprehend how the Gentiles also might freely 
 partake of the same free mercy with themselves ; and the more 
 they felt the vanity of all earthly good and the helplessness of 
 their wdiole earthly estate, and appreciated the promised king- 
 dom and sovereign 'reign of their Christ as unworldly, spiritual, 
 heavenly, divine, and eternal, so much the more did they clearly 
 see how all nations, as they needed, so they might be embraced 
 by, this new, heavenly kingdom of the Lord and His Anointed. 
 Hence, in the days of David, when true spiritual life flourished, 
 and un-Pharisaic knowledge of the grace of God was compara- 
 tively widely diflused, the Gentiles were looked on with no evil 
 eye ; their salvation was felt to be clearly within the compass of 
 
In Historical Development. 
 
 Abraham ; and their subjugation to the coming Messiah was 
 regarded as one of the glorious events which should mark and 
 grace His advent and manifestation. Hence such passages in the 
 Psalms as these, — the first addressed by the Father to His 
 Anointed, and the second by the Church to her covenant God ; — 
 " Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for Thine inheri- 
 tance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession ; " 
 " Have respect unto Thy covenant, for the dark places of the 
 earth are full of the habitations of cruelty " (Ps. ii. 6 ; Ixxiv. 20). 
 And if any farther proof be needed that the Church, in the days 
 of her true life and fidelity, looked for being enlarged with the 
 believing brotherhood of the converted nations, we have it in 
 that noble hymn of missionary prayer and hope, opening as it 
 does with the well-remembered words, " God be merciful unto us, 
 and bless us : and cause His face to shine upon us ; that Thy way 
 may be known upon earth. Thy saving health among all nations," 
 and closing with the confession of free, unhampered, appropriat- 
 ing faith, "God shall bless us," and with the enlarged and 
 unbounded expectation, "And all the ends of the earth shall 
 fear him" (Ps. Ixvii. 1-7). But in the days of Israel's degeneracy, 
 when faith gave place to formalism, and contrite gratitude to 
 cold and supercilious ceremony ; when self-righteous pride, 
 singularly enough keeping pace with increasing iniquity and 
 worthlessness, arrogantly claimed right to the privileges of the 
 covenant in very proportion as all the spirit of the covenant was 
 violated ; when the close and narrow spirit of legalism, resting 
 its claims on carnal distinctions, and saying, " We have Abraham 
 to our Father," superseded the true spirit of Israel, " I am not 
 worthy of the least of all the goodness and the truth thou hast 
 shown unto Thy servant ; " the idea of pure and sovereign grace 
 being lost sight of — that grace whereby Jew and Gentile alike 
 may be freely saved, — and the kingdom of the Messiah being 
 conceived of as earthly and limited — set up, indeed, as a badge of 
 distinction, to magnify the seed of Abraham according to the 
 flesh; then the Gentile nations began to be looked upon as 
 natural and irreconcilable enemies. The Jewish Church, in fact, 
 in such a spirit, enacts exactly the part of the Pharisee of the 
 parable, while the publican may represent the waste of heathen- 
 dom ; and the vain-glorious Church, claiming Heaven's favour on 
 
yonah's Mission : its Place 
 
 the ground of her carnal distinctions and pitiable tithings, thanks 
 God that she is not as this poor publican ! 
 
 For in every point of view, and on whatever scale, self-right- 
 eoiisness is exclusive and malignant, remorselessly consigning over 
 others to a destruction which, on its own proud merit and pre- 
 eminence, it counts itself entitled to escape. Perhaps, more 
 properly indeed, it came to this, that the heathen nations, as to 
 their moral and spiritual interests, were, among Israel, objects of 
 simple contempt and neglect, and were dealt with as if Jehovah, 
 the God of Israel, utterly neglected them also — as if, in short, 
 they were beyond the pale of His government ; or, in other words, 
 as if Jehovah's government were not universal, but limited to 
 their own nation alone. It is evident how, with such a view of 
 their own God, their own adoring regards for Him must have 
 been destroyed. Jehovah is the God of the spirits of all flesh, and 
 ruleth over all the nations. Any other or more limited idea of 
 His government reduces Him, if not to the level, at least to the 
 company, of the local, territorial, geographical gods of heathendom. 
 And thus, by taking a wrong view of the relation of heathendom 
 to the living and true God, the God of Israel, Israel virtually 
 imbibed the very views of heathendom itself. 
 
 Indeed, nothing but true faith, contrition, adoring confidence, 
 and loyalty to Jehovah, could prevent this painful perversion of 
 the truth. It was, as Paul acknowledges, a great " mystery " — 
 the introduction of the Gentiles into the Church of God. In 
 writing to the Ephesians, he speaks of it as a mystery made 
 known unto himself by special revelation. " By revelation He 
 made known unto me the mystery; as I wrote afore in few 
 words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge 
 in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made 
 known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy 
 apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; that the Gentiles should be 
 fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise 
 in Christ by the gospel " (Eph. iii. 3-6). It is in connection with 
 the blessed disclosure of this "mj'stery" that Paul utters the 
 well-known thanksgiving for that grace of God which had 
 assigned him a ministry, bearing so immediately on the extension 
 of the Church of God beyond the narrow pale of Judaism. For 
 it was not merely as a preacher, but specially as a preacher to 
 
In Histo7'ical Development. 
 
 the Gentiles, that Paul magnitied his office. " Unto me," the 
 rejoicing and happy-spirited burst of holy glorying runs — " Unto 
 me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, 
 that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches 
 of Christ ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the 
 mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid 
 in God " (Eph. iii. 8, 9). In addressing the saints at Colosse, the 
 Apostle uses similar terms. He speaks of "the mystery which 
 hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made 
 manifest to His saints ; to whom God would make known what 
 is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles " 
 (Col. i. 26, 27). Very singular and striking language ! " The 
 riches of the glory of this mystery " ! 
 
 Israel of old had not this " mystery " revealed, explained, ex- 
 pounded, or opened up to them, as it is to us. They were in 
 continual contact with a glorious, but veiled mystery. In such a 
 case, there could be no intellectual and spiritual safety, except in 
 a humble, contrite, adoring loyalty towards Israel's wonder-work- 
 ing, all-wise, and mighty King. That will keep a man safe, when 
 fronting unrevealed mysteries. Nothing else will. Penitence — 
 a sense of righteous exposure to the wrath of God, combined with 
 a refuge from that wrath and the dread of it, in free and gratu- 
 itous forgiveness, — that would have kept the Israelites safe. A 
 sympathy with the 32nd Psalm, " Blessed is the man whose trans- 
 gression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord 
 iraputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile ; " a 
 firm hold on justification by faith alone, in a free and gratuitous 
 forgiveness, in a free, and gratuitous, and borrowed, and imputed 
 righteousness, — that would have kept them right as to the relation 
 in which both their God and they themselves stood to the heathen 
 world. Penetrated with that deep despair of their own righteous- 
 ness, which leads a man to welcome with joy unspeakable a 
 perfect righteousness freely offered, they would have humbly 
 and clearly understood their own position in the sight of God ; 
 and, being deeply assured that on the very same terms also might 
 the Gentiles, at God's mere pleasure, be adopted into their own 
 gracious and firm standing in Heaven's free and undeserved 
 favour, they might have borne the mystery without perverting 
 the truth. And in this light it is very beautiful to notice here. 
 
yonaJis Mission : its Place 
 
 that this is precisely one of Paul's most interesting inferences or 
 conclusions from the doctrine of free justification by faith alone ; 
 for having established the doctrine of justification solely in the 
 righteousness or " redemption that is in Christ," and having shown 
 that this excludes boasting, he adds that it opens the door of hope 
 also to the Gentiles quite as widely as to the Jews : " We conclude, 
 therefore, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of 
 the law. Is He the God of the Jews only ? Is He not also of 
 the Gentiles ? Yes ; of the Gentiles also, seeing it is one God 
 which shall justify the Circumcision by faith and the Uncircum- 
 cision through faith " (Rom. iii. 28). 
 
 But, claimino; the favour of Abraham's God, not at all on the 
 free, gracious, and blessed terms — most comforting, but most 
 humbling also — humbling, yet sweetly humbling — on which 
 Abraham was content to rest his claim ; resting theirs, not like 
 their father Abraham, on the pure and simple grace of God, but 
 on their own formal position, and fancied pre-eminence, they 
 inevitably fell into views of the state and destiny of the Gentile 
 world utterly at variance with the character of God as the Moral 
 Governor of mankind, and fitted exceedingly to nurse into in- 
 creasing vigour their own proud, cold, stern, and malignant spirit 
 of ecclesiastical self-righteousness and bigotry, and national 
 intolerance and pride. 
 
 It is necessary to take these things into consideration, if we 
 would appreciate the position which this most singular book of 
 Jonah holds in the Sacred Scriptures ; or, more exactly, if we 
 would appreciate the mission on which Jonah was sent, and its 
 place in historical development. He was sent to a Gentile city. 
 He was sent to the most renowned city of heathendom then on 
 the face of the earth. He alone of all God's prophets, had such 
 a commission assigned him. His was a most extraordinary call. 
 It was altogether an exceptional, a literally singular, case. It is 
 impossible to understand or enter feelingly into the prophet's 
 position on receiving this call — impossible to understand the 
 circumstances acting upon him, and producing, though of course 
 they do not justify, yet producing and explaining his most singular 
 and anomalous conduct ; and it is impossible to appreciate God's 
 purpose and wisdom in introducing this very marvellous episode 
 
In Historical Development. 
 
 into Scriptural history, and into the original development, indeed, 
 of God's plans, and of His revelation of Himself which Scripture 
 records: all these things are impossible to us, and the book of 
 Jonah degenerates into a mere perplexing puzzle, unless we give 
 diligent heed at the very outset to the relation at this time sub- 
 sisting between the seed of Abraham and the Gentile world, and 
 to the bearing of God's special government over Israel on His 
 keeping in store a glorious " salvation for all the ends of the earth 
 — a light to lighten the Gentiles as well as a glory to His people 
 Israel." It is when viewed on this high scale, and as bearing on 
 the development of Jehovah's purpose to establish the throne of 
 His Anointed One over all nations — a purpose yet only com- 
 paratively in the mere beginnings of its accomplishment — it i? 
 when viewed in this light that the book of Jonah rises in our 
 estimation from the place due merely to a strange marvel or 
 miracle of adventure which they wonder why the glorious God 
 of providence should have consented to work, or the Holy Ghost 
 consented to afford His inspiration to record — to the lofty level 
 of a splendid and worthy interposition of Divine power, and a 
 glorious record of Divine wisdom, introducing a golden and indis- 
 pensible link in the onward movement of that great redemption, 
 the preliminary preparations for which were transacted among 
 peculiar people, but the issues of it designed to encompass all 
 lands, and bind in one believing brotherhood of sonship to God, 
 and of royal adoring priesthood, all nations of men, from the 
 rising of the sun to where he hath his going down. It was right, 
 for the most part — so it seemed to Him who knoweth the end 
 from the beginning — it was right that, for the most part, the 
 Spirit of prophecy and the ordinances of worship should be con- 
 fined to the sacred family and the special territory in which that 
 family dwelt, till Messiah Himself should come. But it was not 
 right that Jehovah's moral government over all kingdoms should 
 be misunderstood or forgotten. And above all, it was not right 
 that Jehovah's gracious purpose towards all nations should be 
 buried in oblivion. A very burst of light, therefore, — almost of 
 lightning, — flashes out from Jehovah's throne on the dark Gentile 
 world, and His connection with it. Suddenly, when it seems as 
 if He neither cared at present, nor would ever again show His 
 care, for the aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, He has a 
 
I o JonaJis Mission : its Place 
 
 sharp, an unmistakable, a terrifying message for the very chiefest 
 of all their cities, the very citadel of heathen glory, monarchy, 
 and worldly pride and power. He has a message for them, and 
 He must find a messenger. A herald must cross the sacred pre- 
 cincts where the Spirit and word of prophecy hitherto had dwelt, 
 and go out into the thick darkness, carrying with him the sound 
 of Jehovah's voice, the torch of Jehovah's word. Marvellous 
 beyond all parallel, yet with reasons replete with infinite wisdom, 
 was that unheard-of proposal, that strait and imperative com- 
 mand, when " The word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of 
 Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh." 
 
 These remarks may tend to exalt our conceptions of the mission 
 of Jonah to the capital of the heathen world. That mission was 
 a solitary, unparelleled, an isolated and unique transaction. In 
 all the history of the prophetic Spirit and word in the Church, 
 there had been nothing like unto it before, and there was nothing- 
 like unto it afterwards. The Lord did a new thing by His 
 prophet Jonah, — a startling, marvellous, and new thing upon the 
 earth. He caused the light of prophecy to overflow the channels 
 in which for ages it had been confined. He violated all the 
 current notions and all the settled expectations of the sacred 
 commonwealth, by manifesting His care and claims in regard to 
 the heathen. Suddenly, when the pall of thick darkness and the 
 shadow of death hangs over all nations, save the little central 
 spot of Immanuel's land ; when Jehovah would appear to have 
 resigned all government of the world, save as in that one corner 
 where His worship was established by special covenant, and yet 
 was almost altogether overthrown ; when the Most High is well 
 nigh come to be regarded as a local and limited Deity, having no 
 control and taking no oversight of other lands ; when Israel, per- 
 verting His grace, has come self-righteously to think they can 
 reckon by right on His favour, and may tamper with impunity 
 with His law ; when, looking on Him as a local God, Israel has 
 learned to trifle with Him, as a local and limited God may, of 
 course, without much danger, be trifled with ; suddenly, without 
 note or warning, without preface, without explanation, assuming 
 sovereign state as God Most High over all the earth, Jehovah, 
 re-manifesting, if not re-assuming His universal supremacy, 
 conducts, on the scale of most amazing miracle, a movement of 
 
In Historical Development. 1 1 
 
 His ceaseless government as it extends over all nations ; and, that 
 it may not fail to compel the attention of all succeeding ages, He 
 adorns that movement with the most marvellous and romantic 
 incident, with one of the most striking, if not perplexing, develop- 
 ments of human character, especially as occurring in a man of 
 God, and with the symbolic death and resurrection of the agent 
 under whose hand that movement is conducted ; a death and 
 resurrection on the very type of Messiah's : " For Jonah was three 
 days and three nights in the whale's belly, even as the Son of man 
 was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth " 
 (Matt. xii. 40). 
 
 By the aid of considerations like these, followed out perhaps 
 somewhat more in detail, we may be able to gain a truer insight 
 into the import and value of this portion of inspired history, than 
 otherwise it would be possible to do. And above all, we will be 
 prepared, by the Divine blessing, for taking a more accurate and 
 a more edifying view of Jonah's character, as that of a man of 
 God, placed in very singular circumstances and under very 
 peculiar and spiritual temptation. 
 
 Meantime, it may be profitable to carry away with us this first 
 lesson, viz., that Jehovah, the God of Israel, is the God of all the 
 earth. A very plain and easy lesson, some may be ready to think, 
 and scarcely worthy to be specified. But it is the most worldly- 
 minded who will think so ; those not acquainted with the shallow, 
 empty, narrow, and ever earthly impressions of the carnal mind. 
 The man who walks with God in truth, who labours to realise the 
 Divine presence, and to be continually saying, " Thou God seest 
 me," being reconciled to God and claiming Him as his God, yet 
 feels the painful difficulty of retaining exalted conceptions of his 
 Maker, and Redeemer, and Father in heaven, and will not think 
 it any other than a blessed aid to his piety and spiritual joy, 
 when called to remember that Ids God is in the heavens ; that 
 throughout all nations of the earth He doeth whatsoever pleaseth 
 Him ; that the wars and rumours of wars in any land are all 
 parts of the development of Jehovah's unsearchable but infinitely 
 wise plan ; that every event, however untoward it may appear, is 
 but bearing onward the chariot of the King to that goal where 
 His glory shall be seen advanced in every age and in every move- 
 ment of history ; that the rise, and overthrow, and replacing of 
 
1 2 yonaJis Mission. 
 
 nations are events that transpire under the eyes of Him under 
 whose feet the ages move along in His own appointed order to 
 the day of the consummation of all things ; bringing forward the 
 time when — the gospel having been preached for a testimony in 
 all the earth, and the believing meek ones gathered under His 
 hand, the groans of creation being ended and the tabernacle of 
 the Lord with men upon the earth — the song shall rise from all 
 the holy ones ; — " Great and marvellous are Thy works. Lord God 
 Almighty ; just and true are Thy ways. Thou King of saints. 
 Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name ? for 
 Thou only art holy : for all nations shall come and worship be- 
 fore Thee ; for Thy judgments are made manifest" (Rev. xv. 3, 4). 
 
II. 
 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN JEW AND GENTILE. 
 
 ' ' Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 
 Arise, go to Nineveh." — Jonah i. 1. 
 
 '^ They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have 
 pi'ovoked me to anger loith their vanities : and I ivill move fhem to jealousy v:ith 
 those which are not a people ; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." 
 
 — Deut. xxxii. 21. 
 
 THE whole subject of the relation between Jew and Gentile,, 
 in reference to God's historical development of the scheme 
 of redemption — a subject to which the main purport of the book 
 of Jonah inevitably draws attention — is a very singular one, 
 affording striking and unmistakable illustration of the principles 
 on which the God of grace deals with His disobedient subjects, 
 the children of men. And what is of great value, it illustrates 
 the action of these principles upon a large scale. Reference may 
 be made at present to one of these principles. I allude to the 
 manner in which — when dealing with the Jews to convince them 
 of their ingratitude, to bring them to reason, to recall them ta 
 loyalty and duty, and to put them if possible once more upon 
 their honour — the Lord condescends, in the failure of His many 
 methods through their continued perverseness, to have recourse, 
 as a last alternative, to the plan of casting up to them His 
 corresponding or contrasted relations with the heathen, and thus 
 reaching their sensibilities and awakening something like keen 
 feeling at last, if they were not indeed utterly heartless and 
 finally hardened. The Lord at a very early period intimated 
 that He would freely betake Himself to this method of rebuking 
 and rousing them, and that He would wield it unsparingly. It 
 is of course a dangerous weapon in controversy of man with 
 man. We look, however, for seeing it wielded by God in infinite 
 honour, generousness, and wisdom. 
 
 When Moses had brought the Children of Israel, after their 
 long wanderings, to the borders of the promised land, and was 
 about to go up to Mount Nebo and die there, he uttered a pro- 
 
14 Relations between Jezv and Gentile. 
 
 phetic song in the ears of all the elders and the congregation of 
 Israel, sketching the principles of Jehovah's righteous and gracious 
 treatment of them, and their perverse and provoking dealings 
 with Him. In that song, Moses, speaking in the name of God, 
 or let us say, God speaking by the mouth of Moses, announces his 
 determination — as one perplexed with a rebellious people, wearied 
 with their iniquities, at a loss as it were to find any effectual 
 method of touching their hearts or breaking in upon their torpor 
 — His determination to fall back, as a last resort, on the law or 
 plan of a holy retaliation ; to piqne their vain pride by remind- 
 ino" them how much less He had done for the heathen than for 
 them, and showing them how much more the heathen would 
 have done in the way of grateful return than they. The lan- 
 guage in which He made this intimation is very emphatic : " They 
 have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God ; they 
 have provoked Me to anger with their vanities : and I will move 
 them to jealousy with those which are not a people ; I will 
 provoke them to anger with a foolish nation " (Deut. xxxii. 21). 
 They had insulted the true God, by preferring idols to Him. The 
 terms of His covenant with them were : " I will be a God to you ; 
 ye shall be to Me a people." The Gentiles were not a people. 
 The idols were not God. They have moved Me to jealousy by 
 that which is not God ; I will move them to jealousy with those 
 which were not a people. The idols, which were not God, they 
 have preferred to Me. The Gentiles, which were not a people, I 
 in like manner will prefer to them. With their vanities, their 
 idols, which are sheer emptinesses, — for " we know," says Paul, 
 " that an idol is nothing in the world " — with their vanities have 
 they provoked Me to anger, saith the Lord. I will paint their 
 black ingratitude in contrast with the ready obedience of a people 
 little befriended by Me compared with them. I will awaken, 
 pique, rebuke, and confound them, by exhibiting infinitely more 
 fruit, and cherished with infinitely more gratitude, by a people 
 whom I had long and righteously cast off, and whom they had 
 long unrighteously and self-righteously contemned. 
 
 It is to this principle or method of — what we desire reverently 
 to call — playing off the Gentiles against the Jews, that Paul 
 alludes in the 10th chapter to the Romans, when, quoting the 
 first intimation of it from the song of Moses, and the commentary 
 
Relations between Jezv and Gentile. 1 5 
 
 and confirmation of it by a later prophet, lie says, " But I say, 
 Did not Israel know ? " Had they not received most distinct 
 information that God would send His word to the Gentiles ? 
 Though it had been nothing else, were they not assured of it in 
 connection with their own disobedience, as an act of the holy 
 reprisals that God would take upon them ? 
 
 Let us mark the drift of the Apostle's argument. At the 12th 
 verse we have the general statement of the suitableness and 
 applicability of the free and glorious gospel to Jews and Gentiles 
 equally and alike : " For there is no difference between the Jew 
 and Greek : for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call 
 upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord 
 shall be saved." From this he infers the propriety and necessity 
 of the message of Heaven's glad news and great salvation being 
 sent forth over all the earth : " How then shall they call on Him 
 in whom they have not believed ? and how shall they believe in 
 Him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear 
 without a preacher ? And how shall they preach, except they be 
 sent ? As it is written. How beautiful are the feet of them that 
 preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things ! " 
 Then, referring to the rejection of the gospel by the unbelieving 
 Jews, he says, " But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For 
 Isaiah saith. Lord, who hath believed our report ? " — a proof that 
 faith Cometh by hearing a " report," and that report resting on 
 the credit of God's "word" — "So then faith cometh by hearing, 
 and hearing by the word of God." Referring now, on the other 
 hand, to the reception of the gospel by the Gentiles, he says : 
 " But I say. Have they not heard ? " Is not the " word " by 
 which " faith cometh gone out through the Gentile world ? " Have 
 they not heard ? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, 
 and their words unto the ends of the ivorld!' And why should 
 Israel take offence at this ? Specially, why should they profess 
 to take offence at this as an unexpected, unprepared-for, un- 
 announced novelty ? Why w^ere they not prepared for it ? How 
 could they have kept themselves in ignorance of it ? Did they 
 not get most distinct warning to expect and look out precisely 
 for such a movement or evolution in God's dealings ? They can 
 plead no ignorance — save the ignorance of blinded, blameworthy 
 prejudice, that positively refuses to see. For "I say, Did not 
 
] 6 Relations betiueen Jeiv and Gentile. 
 
 Israel know ? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy 
 by them that are no people ; and by a foolish nation I will anger 
 you. But Isaiah is very bold, and saith, I was found of them 
 that sought Me not : I was made manifest unto them that asked 
 not after Me. But to Israel He saith, All day long I have stretched 
 forth my hands to a disobedient and a gainsaying people." 
 
 I say, Did not Israel know ? Did they not know, were they 
 not told, yea, told from the beginning, that God would give His 
 vineyard to others ? " First Moses saith it." At the very begin- 
 ning of their history, by the mouth of their earliest legislator 
 and prophet, it was a principle definitely announced. There was 
 the first of it. First, Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy 
 by them that are no people. That was the first of it ; but that 
 was not the last of it, nor the least bold statement of it. It was 
 not lost sight of — not suffered to be buried and lost sight of — 
 with Moses. "Isaiah" took it up and handled it. He had no 
 scruples in doing so. He took it up and handled it in a very 
 unmistakable manner, in clear tones and steady voice ; with a 
 "bold" confidence in the righteousness of this plan to which the 
 God of Israel had recourse — its righteousness, its necessity, its 
 very necessity as bearing on Israel's own good, if anything what- 
 ever might yet be the means of recalling them to reason and 
 repentance. Isaiah had no doubt, no scruple, no bated breath in 
 showing how holily and righteously the Lord, to awaken, if 
 possible, Israel to jealousy, to sorrow, to shame, to duty, played 
 ofi" against them the wretched Gentile nations, and His mercy 
 towards them. "Isaiah is very bold, and saith, I was found of 
 them that sought Me not ; I was made manifest unto them that 
 asked not after Me" (Rom. x. 12-21). 
 
 Painful, exquisitely trying and painful, as this would be felt 
 to be on the part of any honourably sensitive Jewish mind, wdien 
 recalled and re-awakened to do justice to his God, the Holy One 
 of Israel ; yet just in proportion to that painfulness would be the 
 true and holy and tender and sensitive feelings of contrition, and 
 of returning loyalty, and gratitude, and lowliness, which the right 
 exercise of heart under it was fitted to produce. And sweet and 
 profound and joyful would be the emotions with -which, in .such 
 a case, a reconciliation to his holy and glorious King would be 
 brought round and sealed. We are indeed assured by the Spirit 
 
Relations betioeen yeiv and Gentile. 1 7 
 
 of prophecy, casting forward its light upon that most blessed 
 event that still awaits the Church — namely, the return and 
 restoration to her bosom of her first-born children, the house of 
 Israel — that this very principle will be at work, nay, it shall be 
 this very principle, pre-eminently, that shall be in operation, in 
 bringing Israel to that better mind. It shall be this principle 
 that shall secure their home-coming and salvation. Bitter and 
 humbling, though in its very nature it may seem, it is neverthe- 
 less a principle of perfect rectitude in Jehovah's hand ; wielded, 
 also, for the most gracious purposes and intents : and the bringing 
 of it into pla)'- is to prove ultimately the very salvation of Israel 
 from extinction, their salvation from final apostacy and sure 
 perdition. Were it not, in fact, for the sure operation of this 
 principle, when " the time to favour Zion shall come " (Ps. cii. 13) 
 it would seem as if there remained none other of sufficient piercing- 
 power and delicacy to reach the dormant heart of Israel. And 
 but for it, they would seem to have stumbled to their utter de- 
 struction. " I say then. Have they stumbled that they should 
 fall ? God forbid : but rather through their fall salvation is come 
 unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy " (Rom, si. 11). 
 Then, stung at last into spiritual sensitiveness, with fresh, keen, 
 quick feelings, capable of hearing and responding to sentiments 
 of holy generosity, there will tell, with overwhelming force upon 
 them, this argument : " The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment 
 against you, and condemn you " if ye repent not : " because tliey 
 repented at the preaching of Jonas ; and behold, a greater than 
 Jonas is here " (Mat. xii. 41), 
 
 Yes, the day is coming when the love of God to the Gentiles 
 will tell with exquisite keenness on the Jewish heart, and kindle 
 there a contrite longing for restoration to that favour which they 
 had compelled Him to transfer to others. When " the fulness of 
 the Gentiles " shall come in, " the blindness " that "hath happened 
 to Israel," we are told, shall terminate. Simultaneously, the 
 fulness of the Gentiles arrives, and the veil that is on the heart 
 of Israel is removed. A Gentile church, complete in Christ, the 
 very fulness of Him that filleth all in all, rivets the gaze of keen- 
 eyed, sensitive Israel. And instantly Israel is jealous. What I 
 the ofi-cast heathen ! iliese the children of her that was called 
 desolate ? tliese a people that were not a people ? Have they 
 
 B 
 
Relations betzveen Jezv and Gentile. 
 
 entered into our inheritance ? And are they thus blessed and 
 thus complete — complete in the Christ, in our Messiah ? And is 
 this the " riches " of grace and favour with the Father we have 
 so long forsaken ? And has it been thus given to aliens and 
 outcasts, while we, the children of the prophets and of the 
 covenant, have had the alien's and the w^anderer's wasting doom ? 
 Alas for our provocations ! Alas for our idols that were no gods, 
 our vanities that could not profit ! Thou art righteous, O Holy- 
 One of Israel. We provoked Thee by what was not God ; Thou 
 hast provoked us by those that were not a people. But was it, 
 O God, Thy gracious design to open our eyes to see our sin and 
 loss? Was this Thy scope and purpose in "provoking" us? 
 Was it with this gracious end in view ? Was Thy jealousy holy 
 and gracious both ? Was it that Thou wouldst not give Thy 
 glory to another ; and also that Thou wouldst have us to be par- 
 takers of Thy grace ? And shall not this be the very spirit of 
 our jealousy now ; even that we will not resign our glory to 
 others, our covenant with Thee, our claim upon Thy love for 
 our fathers and for us in them? "Doubtless, Thou art our 
 Father." " Behold, we come unto Thee, for Thou art the Lord 
 our God." We cannot any more endure to see our place in Thy 
 love occupied by others, while we wander in cold and dark 
 estrangement. O God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob ! 
 the children of Thy friend come unto Thee. Be not a Father to 
 strangers while they go fatherless and all unfriended. 
 
 But will Israel, therefore, be hard to reconcile to the continu- 
 ance of the Gentiles in the love of God ? Kather, will they not, 
 in the very spirit in which they come themselves to God in Christ, 
 be swift to learn that " they who be of faith are blessed with 
 faithful Abraham," that " they that are Christ's are Abraham's 
 seed," and that the " light " as it " lightens the Gentiles " is for 
 that reason all the greater " glory to His people Israel ? " 
 
 And will the Gentiles fare the worse for the return of Israel ? 
 It would darken the whole procedure of God as between Jew and 
 Gentile if they did. God indeed had employed these Gentiles as 
 a means of awakening the Jews to jealousy — a delicate proce- 
 dure ; the like of which in man's hand is almost certain to break 
 down in unhandsomeness, craftiness, deceit. But with God it is 
 used in infinite holiness and honour and love. He does not make 
 
Relations between Jezo and Gentile. 19 
 
 a tool of the Gentile Church, when He brmgs her blessed fulness 
 to bear on Israel to make the earlier people jealous. He does 
 not feign a deeper love to the Gentiles than He feels. He does 
 not tamper with their affections, and play them off in heartless 
 game upon their predecessors in His covenant and love. How 
 needless, it may seem, to vindicate thus the honour of Jehovah, 
 Israel's God ! But we may perhaps see here some reason for the 
 beautiful truth that the return of the Jews shall be a time of 
 great enlargement to the Gentiles. The Lord will deal with the 
 Gentiles in such richer and larger favour as shall prove that He 
 had not sought their love for a purpose, and having gained it, is 
 done with them or indifferent to them now. He owns it, as one 
 subsidiary end of His enriching them with blessing, that He 
 thereby sought to pique the Jews to jealousy. But, even as it is 
 said, " He is not ashamed to be called our God, because He hath 
 prepared for us a city " — implying that He would be ashamed to 
 stand in that relation to us without following out faithfully all 
 that it could be held to import — so would He be ashamed to take 
 the Gentiles into covenant and become their God, merely or 
 chiefly to compass some secondary end. Nay, His love to the 
 Gentiles and His blessing on them shall overflow the more abun- 
 dantly because it has been successful in bringing Israel again to 
 His covenant and His love. So that " if the fall of Israel be the 
 riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the 
 Gentiles, how much more their fulness ? If the casting away of 
 them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of 
 them be but life from the dead ? " The Gentiles shall fare the 
 better, and flourish into larger prosperity when Israel is provoked 
 to jealousy. The handsomeness and honour of Jehovah's proced- 
 ure are implicated in His seeing that shall be so. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length on these considerations, because 
 we recognise in the book of Jonah an instance of this relation 
 
 o 
 
 between God's dealings with Israel and His dealings with the 
 Gentile world. Besides His direct purpose of righteousness and 
 mercy towards Nineveh, God had undoubtedly a design to rebuke 
 Israel and provoke them to jealousy by sending His prophet to 
 the capital of heathendom. He was giving them a preliminary 
 warning of what their continued ingratitude would render inevi- 
 table — the removal of the vineyard from them, and the giving of 
 
20 Relations betzvecn yeiu and Gentile. 
 
 it to a people who would bring forth the fruit thereof. He was 
 giving a specimen of His threatening, -'Ye have provoked me 
 with that which is not God, and I will provoke you with them 
 that are not a people;" a threatening, uttered in the youth of 
 their sacred nation, fulfilled in the calling of the Gentiles at 
 Pentecost, illustrated when Paul and Barnabas said to Jews at 
 Antioch, " Seeing ye put the word of God from you, and count 
 yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles," 
 and to be illustrated on the grandest scale, as overruled and trans- 
 formed also in its action and issue into a gracious 'proraise and a 
 means of Israel's conversion, when, successfully provoked to a 
 holy jealousy, they return as a nation and are received and recon- 
 ciled ; and " What shall the receiving of them be to the Gentiles, 
 but life from the dead ? " 
 
 We can easily conceive that Rationalism, denying the historic 
 truth of Scripture narrative, and explaining all by its devices of 
 'myth, allegory, ideology, and so forth, should imagine it had 
 found an admirable target for its profane wit in lighting on the 
 book of Jonah. A man three days in a whale, and disgorged 
 again ! So utterly unhistorical, besides ! And such waste of 
 miracle, too, on what, even though true, has no bearing on real 
 history at all ! Thus the poor hit takes ; and the well-trimmed 
 shaft is shot oflf with a laugh. But does it really hit ? Nay, the 
 arrow shivers ere it reaches the mark ; and Rationalism is never 
 so weak as when it fancies itself strong. Viewed in the light in 
 which other scriptures enable us to view it, Jonah's mission to 
 Nineveh assumes an importance which, regarded as an isolated 
 and merely romantic incident in sacred history, would by no 
 means belong to it. It becomes one of the grandest events in the 
 history of redemption, from the exodus of Israel to the advent of 
 Messiah and the calling of the Gentiles ; while we see in it, more- 
 over, exactly midway in the history of the ten tribes as a separate 
 kingdom, the bringing into play of a principle in God's adminis- 
 tration, announced in the earliest days of Israel's national ex- 
 istence, commented on afterwards by her greatest Prophets, 
 illustrated in the earliest labours of Apostles, and yet again to be 
 drawn upon and wielded, on a scale the most splendid and with 
 issues the most glorious, in those " last days " when " the mountain 
 of the Lord's house shall be exalted in the top of the mountains, 
 and ALL NATIONS shall flow unto it " (Isaiah ii. 2). • 
 
III. 
 
 JONAH'S COMMISSION : ITS SOVEREIGNTY AND 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their 
 wickedness has come up before Me." — Jonah i. 2. 
 
 "And He said unto me, TJepart : for I tvill send thee far hence unto the 
 Gentiles.'" — Acts xxii. 21. 
 
 IT was partly, then, with the view of constructing-, so to speak, 
 a handle against His professed and peculiar people, and of 
 " provoking them to jealousy," that Jehovah, the God of Israel, 
 the God of all the earth, planned and executed this memor- 
 able dispensation of His righteousness and forbearance towards 
 Nineveh. And for the prosecution of this purpose, and in selection 
 of an instrument, an agent suitable, a vessel meet, or to be made 
 meet, for the Master's use, the lot fell on Jonah. " The word of 
 the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go 
 to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it : for their wicked- 
 ness is come up before Me." 
 
 We may notice concerning this command as delivered to the 
 prophet — (1) the sovereignt}'-, and (2) the righteousness character- 
 ising it. 
 
 I. It is a Sovereign command. It is THE KiNG who speaks — 
 "the King of kings," speaking in that character; a sovereign 
 Lord, not o-ivinii account of His matters. His command is brief, 
 imperative, laconic. There are no explanations accompanying it ; 
 no details given ; no prediction of the issue ; no information 
 offered, nor the hope of any. It is also a very sudden, abrupt 
 summons to duty ; no preparation going before — no vision paving 
 the way, or throwing light on the purpose. 
 
 Usually, a prophet, ere thrown into a new and difficult position, 
 might look for a new and special preparation. Thus, ere Isaiah 
 was led to say, " Here am I : send me " — though it was on the 
 very sad and sorrowful commission, "Go, and tell this people, 
 
2 2 yonaJi s Mission : its Sovereignty. 
 
 Hear ye, indeed, but understand not : and see ye, indeed, but 
 perceive not : make the heart of this people fat, and make their 
 ears heavy ; and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, 
 and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and 
 be converted and healed," — his dutifulness and implicit loyalty 
 to his Heavenly King- were toned into fresh purity and power by 
 his ever noble vision: — "I saw also the Lord, sitting upon a 
 throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." And 
 when his "eyes had seen the King," and his soul was abased 
 unspeakably' ; and when his peace was made unspeakable through 
 the fresh removal of his sin, the purging of his iniquity, sealed 
 anew as it was by the sacramental pledge of the " live coal from 
 off the altar ; " in the joy of free and full forgiveness, in the 
 charmed life of the acknowledged friend of God, in the re- 
 animated adoration of one who had been admitted to the High 
 Court-room, the audience and presence-chamber of the King, 
 Isaiah is prepared for any message or mission, to any people, any- 
 where. His only care and question will be, Is this the message 
 of my King and my God? Then, "Here am I! send me" 
 (Isa. vi. 1-10). Thus did the Lord deal with Isaiah. But to 
 Jonah there is given no vision — no special, predisposing, pre- 
 paratory vision at all, such as might have disciplined his soul 
 for stern and sorel}' trying duty — duty altogether different from 
 any he had ever had in hand before. 
 
 Jeremiah, also, besides his visions of " the rod of an almond 
 tree," and " the seething-pot, with the face of it towards the 
 north" (Jer. i. 11, 13), had another most blessed advantage. He 
 was admitted to full and familiar conversation with the Lord 
 concerning the commission assigned to him. Indeed, the Lord 
 graciously so shaped His communication as, reverently speaking, 
 to draw out the young prophet to a free statement of his feelings. 
 Evidently, the word of the Lord, when it came to Jeremiah, 
 seemed to court the prophet's full unburthening of all his mind. 
 " Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I 
 formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou earnest 
 forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a 
 prophet unto the nations." Manifestly this was designed to be 
 the introduction to a free and unembarrassed conference. So 
 Jeremiah accepted it. " Then saith I, Ah, Lord God ! behold, I 
 
y onaJi s Mission : its Sovereignty. 23 
 
 cannot speak ; for I am a child." And to this the gracious Lord 
 replied, — entering, shall we not say ? most feelingly and most 
 fully into His servant's fears and anxieties, accepting his con- 
 fidence and honourable confessions concerning his intirmities, 
 and graciously encouraging while arming him against them — 
 " But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child : for thou 
 shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command 
 thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces : for I am 
 with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put 
 forth His hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto 
 me. Behold, I have put My words into thy mouth " (Jer. i. 4-9). 
 Most confirming to the inexperienced prophet-elect must this 
 most condescending interview with the Lord have been ; the 
 Lord acting to him the part rather of his Father than of his King. 
 
 Isaiah had a glorious view of the King ; Jeremiah had a con- 
 fidential conference with his Father. To Jonah there is given 
 no vision. To Jonah there is given no conference. Simply and 
 suddenly, the naked and imperative command comes forth, " Arise, 
 go to Nineveh, and cry against it." There is no illustrative, 
 symbolical commentary as by vision ; there is no explanation 
 proffered by word of mouth. In high and sovereign state, as 
 with the prompt and studied brevity of military peremptoriness 
 and precision — as when the general on the field condescends on 
 no explanations to his officers, but simply gives the word — so, 
 when the Angel of the covenant, the Head of the Church, Im- 
 manuel, the Captain of the Lord's host, the same that appeared 
 to Joshua with a drawn sword over against Jericho, has a great 
 evolution of his generalship to execute, and one of his staff to 
 send to Nineveh, the word is with all brevity and haste, " Arise, 
 go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it." 
 
 Was this no trial to His poor servant? Assuredly it was. 
 Yet herein nothing happened to Jonah but what is common to 
 the faithful. There is much of the military discipline in the 
 discipline of the Christian life. The Lord, as your Father, will 
 uniformly admit you to all familiarity of emotion and expression 
 in your dealings with Him ; but, in His dealings with you. He 
 will sometimes expect the implicit, immediate submission, without 
 inquiry, without explanation, and without delay, which an 
 absolute sovereign may demand. Nay, He may even painfully 
 
24 Jonalis Mission : its Sovereignty. 
 
 point forth to you the difficulties of your duty — the greatness 
 and soreness of your trial. He may admit that the city against 
 which He sends you is great and wicked — " that great city, whose 
 wickedness is come up before Me." The one only thing which 
 He may not conceal may be the danger of your position. He 
 may even touch the very core of your most sensitive feelings — 
 whei'e the trenching on them in the slightest measure must needs 
 be very painful. "Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, 
 whom tJtoii lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and 
 offer him there for a burnt offering, upon one of the mountains 
 which I shall tell thee of " (Gen. xxii. 2). And what is your refuge, 
 what is your strength, in such an hour ? Is it not the character 
 of Jehovah, which is " known in Judah — His name, which is 
 oreat in Israel?" When the overstrained heart-strino-s are like 
 to crack under some peremptory, inexplicable appointment from 
 God, what shall restore their tone but a flight by faith and 
 adoration to the rectitude of Jehovah : " Shall not the Judge of 
 all the earth do right ? " (Gen. xviii. 25) : to the sure goodness of 
 Jehovah; "Truly, God is good to Israel" (Ps. Ixxiii. 1): to the 
 unsearchable wisdom of Jehovah ; " He telleth the number of the 
 stars ; He calleth them all by their names ; great is our Lord, 
 and of great power ; His understanding is infinite " (Psa. cxlvii. 
 4, 5) ? This God is your refuge. All these His attributes, in 
 their searchless glory, are committed to you in a covenant of 
 promise — risking to you, therefore, ere you can be injured, the 
 injury and ruin of Jehovah's faithfulness, and righteousness, and 
 goodness, and wisdom : " Be not dismayed, for I am thy God." 
 
 To this refuge Abraham fled in the trial of his faith ; and he 
 was rewarded by receiving his son again from the dead in a 
 figure, and being made to see — in the substituted ram for a 
 sacrifice, and the symbolic resurrection of Isaac, when to his 
 father he was already, by this mysterious command, " as good as 
 dead" — a figure of the substitution, and death, and resurrection 
 of the Lamb of God, and of the salvation thereby of the children 
 of the promise ; by " seeing," in short, in all this, " the day of 
 Christ afar off, and he was o-lad." To the same refuije — in con- 
 fidence of his Lord's righteousness, goodness, and wisdom — Jonah 
 did not flee, till, having himself undergone, as the type of the 
 same seed of Abraham, a symbolic death and resurrection of his 
 
JonaJis Mission : its Sovereignty, 25 
 
 own — even as " the Son of man was three days and three nights 
 in the heart of the earth " — he returned to his allegiance, chastened 
 and subdued, ready to render implicit obedience to a Sovereign 
 who giveth not account of any of His matters — who doeth what- 
 soever pleaseth Him in heaven and in earth, in the seas, and all 
 deep places (Psa. cxxxv. G). 
 
 II. But this command to Jonah was also Rifrhteous. It was 
 sovereign, but not in arbitrar}^ sovereignty. It had its foundation 
 in perfect rectitude. And that feature of His command the King 
 condescends clearly to state and establish : " Cry against that 
 great city, for their wickedness is come up before me." 
 
 Thus also in conferring with Abraham anent His intended 
 vengeance on Sodom, Jehovah seeks in great condescension to 
 justify His purpose to His friend ; and, speaking after the manner 
 of men, " The Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah 
 is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down 
 now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the 
 cry of it, which is come up to Me " (Gen. xviii. 21). Thus, — 
 though knowing all things and needing not to make investiga- 
 tion, — in order to express His rigid justice more emphatically, 
 God clothes Himself, as it were, with the person of an earthly 
 magistrate, who will pronounce no sentence on hearsay evidence, 
 but will personally investigate the case and satisfy himself ; and 
 so He speaks of having " come down to see whether they have 
 done altogether according to the cry that is come up unto Me." 
 It is formally judicial. 
 
 And so here. It is a case of judicial procedure. The judge is 
 satisfied of the guilt. He is weary of keeping silence. He is at 
 last " come, and will not keep silence, and the heavens shall 
 declare His righteousness, for God is judge himself " (Ps. 1. 2, 6). 
 Nineveh has had a long day of grace, a long period of forbearance, 
 an unmerited respite and reprieve, slighted also and utterly 
 abused. The Lord sits down at last on His tribunal. The case 
 is to be called and judged. And Jonah is sent forth as God's 
 pursuivant to summon the culprit to the bar, to be the King's 
 counsel also to plead against him. 
 
 In this light the trial of Jonah's faith and duty was not so 
 intense as in the former. Unquestionably the trial is alleviated 
 by this representation of the righteousness of what the Lord is 
 
26 yonaJis Mission : its Sovereignty. 
 
 about to do. And why may not Jonali, in the King's name, on 
 the King's message, taice the King's highway to his new sphere 
 of duty, bidding cahii defiance to all manner of evil, assured that 
 in loyally prosecuting the quarrel, and maintaining the govern- 
 ment and honour of his Lord, no evil can befall him ? For " if 
 God be for us, who can be against us ?" What then though the 
 city be " great," and the mission mysterious ? The city is in- 
 tolerably "wicked." The mission is in perfect righteousness. 
 And Jehovah Himself is Judge. 
 
 Jonah may not, indeed, be strong enough yet for thus prose- 
 cuting fearlessly the work given him to do. He may not yet set 
 himself so simply, so fully, in the word and wisdom of the Lord 
 as to silence and crucify the wisdom of his own carnal reason, — 
 the light of the Lord not yet being allowed calmly and alone to 
 shine upon his heart and indicate his path. He may need to be 
 brought through a terrible experience of his own, before his faith 
 be pure enough, before his shield and sword for such a warfare be 
 welded into sufficient tone and temper for securing him the 
 victory. "Judgment may begin" first on himself, in the appal- 
 ling affliction that his waywardness brings upon him. But shall 
 the Lord's quarrel with Nineveh therefore not be pleaded ? Nay ; 
 it shall be pleaded more emphatically by far on account of any 
 such delay. Jonah shall come to them at last with all the un- 
 shrinking strenuousness and firm nerve of a man who, fresh from 
 terrific trial, visible and invisible, feareth not the face of clay. 
 The very presence of the man among them shall say. If judgment 
 begin upon the prophet of the Lord, what shall the end be of 
 them that obey not His word ? If the righteous scarcely be 
 saved, where shall the wicked and the ungodly appear ? (1 Pet. 
 iv. 17, 18). And when then he shall deliver Jehovah's word of 
 judgment, — as if his own soul were standing in the gates of that 
 eternal world from which he has been miraculously redeemed, 
 and his eye filled with its tremendous revelations, — there shall be 
 a tone of unflinching certainty and majestic terror in his voice, 
 w-orthy of the redeemed herald of the King of kings, in fixing 
 amazement and conviction into the hearts of His foes. 
 
 And thinkest thou, O man, who hast learnt the melancholy 
 work of persuading thy conscience to refuse the office of crying 
 
JonaJis Mission : its Sovereignty. 27 
 
 against thee, of haling thee to judgment, ot" bringing thee before 
 Jehovah till the controversy be pleaded out and closed — oh 1 
 thinkest thou that that messenger, though he flee from his work, 
 never will return and resume it ? Though that Jonah, that 
 prosecutor, that disobeying prophetic conscience of thine, descend 
 into the deep sea for secrecy, and tarry there for days or even 
 years, the Lord shall command his re-appearance ; and in re-in- 
 vigorated, unearthly power at last, shall he preach to thee the 
 preaching that the Lord hath bidden him. "Hast thou found 
 me, mine enemy ? " is the question which you are doomed to 
 have on some future day to ask : " Hast thou found me, mine 
 enemy ? " For, until " the conscience be purged in the blood of 
 Christ from dead works to serve the living God," and so exercised 
 as to be kept " void of offence towards God and towards man," 
 you lie open at any time to a visitation of relentless and remorse- 
 less arrest, from which you shall find no open path of escape, no 
 opportunity either for retreat or appeal. Therefore, ere " thou 
 goest with this adversary," still an adversary, " to the magistrate, 
 as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be de- 
 livered from him ; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge 
 deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. 
 I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the 
 very last mite " (Luke xii. 58, 59). 
 
IV. 
 JONAH'S FLIGHT: ITS MEANING AND MOTIVE. 
 
 "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, 
 and went down to Joppa ; and he found a ship going to Tarshish : so he paid 
 the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from 
 the presence of the Lord. " — Jonah i. 3. 
 
 " Tr^ist in the Lord with all thine heart ; and lean not unto thine own under- 
 standing. In all thy tvays acknoivledc/e Him, and He shall direct thy paths." 
 
 — Prov. iii. 5, 6. 
 
 WHEN it is said that " Jonah rose np to flee imto Tarshish 
 from the presence of the Lord," it cannot be supposed that 
 he meant or expected to withdraw himself from beyond the sight 
 and absolute omnipotence of Jehovah. It is altogether inconsis- 
 tent with that " fear of the Lord " with which the prophet was 
 manifestly embued (Jonah i. 9), to suppose Him capable of 
 entertaining any such idea. The wicked, indeed, habitually act 
 as if God were not omnipresent. They feel it a relief, a positive 
 relief, to escape from the eye of some fellow-creature whom they 
 TDelieve to be penetrated with a profound hatred of their wicked 
 purposes. And when they can contrive to hide them from all 
 such, to keep them from the knowledge of all save those who 
 happen to be as tolerant of sin as themselves, or more so, they 
 are at their ease. A most conclusive demonstration that they 
 either altogether disbelieve the plain and fundamental Scriptural 
 truth that " God seeth all things," or that, if they believe it, they 
 have made up their minds to defy Him to His face ! There are 
 few more conclusive and continually operating proofs of the 
 depravity and ungodliness of the carnal mind, than its strange, 
 cool, unaccountable, and settled forgetfulness of the very exis- 
 tence and nature of God as an infinite and omnipresent Spirit. 
 Well may it be said to the sinner, if there is anything to which 
 you can give yourself, on Sabbath or on week-day, which you 
 could not bear to have some holy man acquainted with, or in 
 which you could not bear to have some holy man your spectator 
 and companion, what are you better than an atheist ? Are you 
 
JonaJts Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 29 
 
 not practically denying a God altogether ? for a Being not every- 
 where present, beholding the evil and the good, is no God, but 
 an idol. How can you profess to have in you even the very 
 beginnings of religion, if you habitually and coolly set aside the 
 foundation of all personal piety ? You are not even begun ta 
 feel that Jehovah is the God with whom you have to do, unless 
 you practically accept and labour to follow out that view of His 
 glorious, all-inspecting omnipresence which David celebrates in 
 the 139th Psalm, giving the very key-note of a pious man's 
 integrity : " O Lord Thou hast searched me, and known me. 
 Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising, Thou under- 
 standest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and 
 my lying down. Thou art acquaint with all my ways. For there 
 is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it 
 altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine 
 hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ; it is 
 high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy 
 Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend 
 up into heaven. Thou art there. If I take the wings of the 
 morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even there 
 shall Thy hand lead me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover 
 me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness 
 hideth not from Thee, but the night shineth as the day ; the dark- 
 ness and the light are both alike to Thee " (Ps. cxxxix. 1-12). 
 
 Yes ! though Jonah should take the wings of the morning 
 and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there should the 
 Lord's hand lead him, and His right hand hold him. And that 
 the prophet knoweth right well. 
 
 Why, then, is it said that he rose up to flee from the presence 
 of the Lord ? A comparison of one or two passages of Scripture 
 may indicate the meaning. We reiad that, after the marvellous 
 conversation that God held with the first murderer, immediately 
 after he had killed his brother, " Cain went out from the presence 
 of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, in the East of Eden " 
 (Gen. iv. 16). That saying evidently implies that for the primi- 
 tive worship which immediately succeeded the fall, some special 
 locality was consecrated as the place where Jehovah's name 
 was placed ; where His worshippers assembled : to which they 
 brought their ofi'erings, that they might call upon His name 
 
]o JonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 
 
 throuo-h sacrifice, and receive tokens of their acceptance, and 
 fresh intimations, it may be, of the Lord's will. Most probably, 
 in the days of the first family of our race, the gate of the garden 
 of Eden, where God placed the cherubims and the flaming sword, 
 constituted the seat of sacred worship ; occupying the place and 
 serving the purpose which, in after generations, were occupied 
 and served by the tabernacle in the wilderness and in Shiloh, and 
 ultimately by the temple on Mount Moriah. Thither, to that 
 gate from which they had been driven forth — even a God recon- 
 ciled to them through the promised seed of the woman, taking 
 vengeance on their inventions though forgiving their iniquity 
 (Ps. xcix. 8), — thither would the humbled yet hopeful, the con- 
 trite and comforted worshippers draw near ; and as they beheld 
 " the flaming sword which turned every way to keep the tree of 
 life," would they feel the terrible exclusion which avenged their 
 iniquity; while, feeling likewise the impossibility of making 
 their own way to eternal life, they would be constrained to con- 
 sider by faith the memorials of redemption which the cherubims 
 presented, and to pray to a sovereignly gracious God, infinitely, 
 terrifically holy, yet reconciled, "dwelling between the cheru- 
 bims." Here, therefore, was the face of the Lord — the presence of 
 the Lord. Here substantiallj?- were all the elements of the temple 
 worshii?, and of that worship which now by faith we conduct, 
 entering into the temple on high — entering by hope within the 
 veil by a new and living way, by the blood of Jesus. Here was 
 the " sword," fit emblem of the blood of death, of sacrifice : — 
 " Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man 
 that is my fellow." Here also was the throne of love guarded 
 by the sword — equivalent to the mercy-seat sprinkled by the 
 Ibiood, — the Lord dwelling between the cherubims, giving His 
 o-racious presence to all who came in faith of Him, " the woman's 
 seed," who should " bruise the serpent's head," 
 
 Here, then, was Jehovah's presence, his presence-chamber, the 
 place of His gracious manifestations of Himself, of the new reve- 
 lations of His will, the announcements of His grace and truth. 
 Here Cain refused that reconciliation which God offered to him, 
 maintaininof his wrath acjainst his brother and his sullen dislike 
 to his God, even in the face of the expostulations which the Lord 
 condescended to press upon him, " Why art thou wroth ? and why 
 
yonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 3 1 
 
 is thy countenance fallen ? if thou doest well, shalt thou not be 
 accepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And 
 unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule ov^er him " (Gen. 
 (iv. 6, 7). Here, again, Cain presented himself after he had 
 stained his hands with his brother's blood, and received that ter- 
 rible sentence which rendered him a fusritive and vaofabond for 
 ever, though it authoritatively guaranteed his life, setting aside 
 by Sovereign dispensation that law of nature which instinctively 
 teaches that " whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
 blood be shed." From the place, then, where Jehovah thus made 
 all His communications of His mind and will — from the place of 
 the Lord's special worship — the wretched fugitive went forth, 
 when, as the history records, " Cain went forth from the prese^zce 
 of the Lord." 
 
 Or, to take an instance that will bring the matter closer to 
 the point in hand. In 2nd Kings xiii. 22, we read thus : " But 
 Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. 
 And the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on 
 them, and had respect unto them, because of His covenant with 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither 
 cast He them froin His 'presence as yet." Evidently by casting 
 them from His presence, — a thing which He would ultimately be 
 provoked to do, though not " as yet," — the Lord alludes to their 
 being carried captive by Assyria. It is in fact equivalent to 
 saying He would not " as yet " cast them from the Holy Land. 
 There, His name and glory were placed. There, especially. His 
 presence was revealed. Hiding Himself as yet from the heathen, 
 and confining His name and worship within the sacred territory. 
 He speaks of that territory as the locality of His presence; and 
 casting them forth from the land is therefore called casting them 
 out of His presence. The same language is employed to predict 
 the banishment and captivity of the house of Judah, when they 
 also, as well as the kingdom of Samaria, were in their turn, after 
 more than a century, carried captive to Babylon. The threatening 
 was delivered from the Lord to them by Jeremiah : " Behold I, 
 even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the 
 city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my 
 presence" (Jer. xxiii. 89). Thus, then, the holy place of God's 
 acceptable worship and the Holy Land itself, are clearly desig- 
 
32 JonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 
 
 nated in Scripture as " the presence," or place of the " presence of 
 the Lord." To be banished from the holy place, or from the holy 
 territory, is equivalent to, is described as, being banished from the 
 presence of the Lord. It was in this sense, accordingly, that 
 Jonah sought to flee from the presence of the Lord. Especially 
 if there be any truth in a tradition that the Jews believed the 
 spirit of prophecy to be confined to the sacred territory, we see 
 the reason why, on the supposition of Jonah being resolved to 
 resist the heavenly command, he should desire to escape from the 
 land of Israel. Open continually, while there, to a return of the 
 Spirit and Word of the Lord, he could not face the conflict with 
 them of which his intended disobedience would give him the 
 painful prospect. To escape that conflict, he was content to 
 betake himself to exile. If passing over the sea, to the lands of 
 the uncircumcised and the unclean, might only carry him where 
 the terrible " voice of words " might not any more be heard, — 
 for the disobedient, at the repetition of the disregarded command, 
 must " exceedingly fear and quake," — Jonah is prepared to forego 
 all the comforts of home, to endure all the hardships of exile, of 
 exile even among those with whom he, a Hebrew, a fearer and a 
 prophet of the God of Israel, could have no sympathy, nothing- 
 whatsoever in common. So terrible is a man's case when he is 
 involved in a conflict with God ; " Shall the thing formed strive 
 with its Maker ? " That he may no more hear the broken, 
 violated injunction, — that he may escape the urgency of the 
 prophetic Spirit — " Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the 
 presence of the Lord." 
 
 But why was this commanded duty so painful, so unacceptable 
 to Jonah ? so unacceptable that, rather than render obedience, he 
 consented to forego the land of his nativity, and the place of the 
 gracious presence of the God of his salvation ? 
 
 J I. Shall we say that Jonah was alarmed at its difficulties ? 
 It would not have been wonderful if he had been. It was indeed 
 a mission environed with difficulties. And the difficulties are 
 summed up in the two, which the Lord Himself depicted to Jonah 
 in giving him the commission. 
 
 1. The city was great : " that great city." God Himself being 
 the judge, who in all things judgeth accurately, this was true ; 
 
JonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. -^2) 
 
 for it is the statement of God's own opinion that we have to 
 go upon. It was He who said, " Go to Nineveh, that great city." 
 The third chapter of this book confirms this fact, and states it 
 still more emphatically and minutely : " Now Nineveh was an 
 exceeding great city of three days' journey" (Jonah iii. 3). In the 
 last verse of the prophecy also, a hundred and twenty thousand is 
 stated as the proportion of infants in the population ! " That 
 great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons, that 
 cannot discern between their right hand and their left ; " a pro- 
 portion such as to give an entire population of about two millions. 
 Profane history reports it as a well fortified city ; " its walls were 
 a hundred feet high, and so broad on the top that three chariots 
 could run abreast, adorned with fifteen hundred towers, each two 
 hundred feet high." In building this city it is said that no less 
 than one hundred and forty myriads of men were employed for 
 eight years. A myriad being ten thousand, the number must 
 have been one million four hundred thousand. " Such a city 
 none has ever built since," was the declaration of the historian, 
 referring even to those early times w^hen the tremendous despot- 
 isms of the East could command the labour of millions of slaves. 
 " There is not probably on record an account of such a city. 
 That it had large gardens and even fields within its walls there 
 can be no doubt." * Indeed, this last statement of history is 
 confirmed by the last clause of the prophet's book, or rather by 
 the Lord's own words there recorded — " that great city, wherein 
 there is also much cattle " (Jonah iv. 11). 
 
 Now for a man to proceed, as the herald of one who to them 
 was an unknown God, the God. of another nation, and unsup- 
 ported, single-handed and alone, to proclaim amidst the teeming 
 multitudes that a day of destruction is at hand : — is it not as if 
 absurdity could not be carried further ? Is it not as if the man 
 were mad ? What response could he expect but ridicule at 
 least — if not alsolute violence ? What ! Nineveh destroyed in 
 forty days ? Where are the armies that shall break down its 
 walls, storm its lofty towers, or waste with famine its rich and 
 well-stored garrison ? What likelihood of this pitiful and way- 
 worn dreamer's dreams being fulfilled ? " Come ye, let us eat, 
 
 * See note by translator of Calvin on Jonah : Calvin Translation Society ; 
 Minor Prophets, vol iii. p. 22. 
 
 
 
34 JonaJis Flight : its MeantJig and Motive. 
 
 drink, and be merry — to-morrow shall be as this day and much 
 more abundant." And as for this crazed enthusiast and fool, let 
 him have out his say ; and ere he tells his story, as he says he 
 must, throughout and around our city, he will find, mayhap, that 
 he has had enough of it ! 
 
 Certainly Jonah could not but foresee that some such recep- 
 tion in " that great city " was about the most friendly he could 
 anticipate. To be despised and simply laughed at, as a fanatic 
 and fool, must have appeared to him inevitable, if indeed his fate 
 should not be worse. 
 
 2. Besides, secondly, the city was "wicked : " pre-eminently, em- 
 phatically, intolerably wicked. The Prophet Nahum, — who about 
 one hundred and fifty years afterwards denounced among the 
 Jews that final destruction of Nineveh which their repentance in 
 the days of Jonah postponed, but only postponed, — closes, actually 
 closes up his prophecy, allows its animated and indignant strains 
 to die away, with this terrible challenge and condemnation : " On 
 whom hath not thy wickedness come continually?" (Nahum iii. 19). 
 And the whole of that prophecy indicates the horrible extent to 
 which the pride of greatness, military pomp, luxury, licentiousness, 
 and violence prevailed. " Woe to the bloody city ! it is all full of 
 lies and robbery ; the prey departeth not ; the noise of a whip, and 
 the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, 
 and the chariot bounding ! The horseman urging onward, and the 
 flame of the sword, and the lightning of the spear ; and the num- 
 ber of the slain, and the the mass of the carcases. And there is no 
 end to her dead bodies ; they stumble on their carcases. Behold, 
 I am against thee, saith the Lord. And I will cast abominable 
 filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and set thee as a gazing-stock. 
 I will make thy grave ; for thou art vile " (Nahum iii. 1-6) 
 
 Full truly did the Lord execute His vengeance on Nineveh 
 for her "wickedness;" and precisely in the form of judgment 
 threatened : He " made her grave," and it has been reserved to 
 the days of this present generation, after more than two millen- 
 niums, to see that grave discovered and opened, and Nineveh's 
 graven images cut ofi" out of the house of her gods, as Nahum 
 prophesied — cut off, hoisted up in chains, exhibited as " gazing- 
 stocks " to the whole civilized world.* 
 
 * See Layard's Nineveh. 
 
JonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 35 
 
 In such a place of military hardness and haughtiness, of 
 luxurious contemptuousness and pride, of unbridled licentiousness 
 and violence, what could a poor preacher of Jehovah's holiness 
 and anger do ? It was bad enough in Israel. Little comfort, 
 little encouragement, could any faithful man find there. But a 
 history, a covenant, a record also of God's marvellous deeds might 
 be appealed to there ; and something like a national conscience 
 survived. When ready to faint in his own land, and to say con- 
 cerning his call and his commission perhaps substantially, what 
 Jeremiah said so pathetically: "Ah, Lord God! I cannot speak" 
 (Jer. i. 6), or to say as Moses in the deep anguish of his spirit was 
 tempted to say : " O my Lord, send, I pray Thee, by the hand of 
 him whom Thou wilt send " (Exod. iv. 13), — the prophet had still 
 this to call to remembrance as His comfort, that they were God's 
 peculiar people ; that the memory of His mighty deeds had not 
 been completely obliterated among them ; that all their provoca- 
 tions had not made void the covenant by which Jehovah chose 
 them to be His people ; and that, even if the tree seemed stript 
 of all its foliage, yea, all its leaves and branches, yea, swept 
 utterly away from the face of the land, still its roots were safe 
 though hidden, and "through the scent of water they would 
 bud again " (Job xiv. 9). But when he looked towards Nineveh, 
 the great and wicked city, well might his heart faint and die 
 utterly away within him. Well might despondency and despair 
 utterly unman him, and tempt him to act neither the man, nor the 
 fearer, nor the prophet of the Lord. 
 
 Had these been the feelings that were gaining dominion over 
 him, what would have been his proper course ? What would 
 have been the remedy ? Intercourse with God concerning them ; 
 a full statement in secret to his Father who is in secret, and who 
 would in that case have rewarded him openly with a triumphant 
 victory over the very evils of his own unbelieving heart. He had 
 only to appear as the feet of his Master ; to spread out there the 
 fears, anxieties, and perplexities which were unmanning him ; to 
 appear there, let us say, not as a man, if he were unmanned, nor 
 delay repairing thither till he had regained his nerve, his man- 
 hood, and his courage ; but as a little helpless child, as a poor 
 orphan in the world, weak as a fainting woman, if such were his 
 great prostration; and waiting there on Him who hath said, 
 
36 JonaJis FligJit : its Meaning and Motive. 
 
 " Call upon Me in the time of trouble, I will deliver thee, and 
 thou shalt glorify me," to give up every wayward feeling and 
 every traitorous and unbelieving fear, and, obtaining instead the 
 fresh and re-assuring favour of the Lord, and the fresh and re-in- 
 vigorating strength of the ' Lord, to re-address himself to his 
 difficulties, and in God's sight go quietly forw^ard to them and 
 quietly through them. That was the course that lay open to him, 
 and that still lies open continually to every child of Abraham. 
 "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the 
 Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord ; be of good 
 courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart : wait, I say, on the 
 Lord " (Ps. xxvii. 13, 14). And though the believer have to wait, 
 and wait long, ere his deliverance come, certain it is at least that 
 he has not any time to wait for the promise. The promise 
 waiteth already for him: "My grace is sufficient for thee. My 
 strength is made perfect in weakness." And with that word, 
 true faith, recovering its ground and action, rests content. 
 " Therefore if the vision tarry, wait for it ; because it will surely 
 come, and will not tarry." And in the meantime, and till it come, 
 "Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: hut 
 the just shall live by faith " (Habak. ii. 3, 4). 
 
 There is, however, not the slightest trace of any evidence to 
 prove that Jonah was alarmed at the difficidties of the work. 
 
 II. Shall we say, then, that he w^as alarmed at its dangers — 
 that he was afraid of his life ? 
 
 Little wonder though he had. It was a most irritating 
 message he was charged to deliver — to a most proud, head- 
 strong, irritable people. Short work might they make of the 
 poor prophet preaching death for their evil w^ays. Was it this 
 that terrified the man of God ? Was he very much afraid of 
 death ? Was he deeply in love with many days ! A very deep 
 misunderstanding of his character it must be that should lead 
 any one to think so ; and a very heartless, shallow insensibility 
 and incapacity to sympathise with or comprehend this greatly 
 tried child of God. There was little love of long life, little terror 
 of death, in him who calmly did his duty in the storm, when 
 " he said unto them. Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea ; 
 so shall the sea be calm unto you : for I know that for my sake 
 
yonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 37 
 
 this great tempest has come upon you" (chap. i. 12), And again, 
 did he not say unto the Lord in the bitterness of his soul — the 
 bitterness of death being past — " Therefore, now, O Lord, take, 
 I beseech Thee, my life from me ; for it is better for me to die 
 than to live " (chap, iv. 3) ? And again " he fainted, and wished 
 in himself to die, and said. It is better for me to die than to live " 
 (chap. iv. 8). Whatever may have to be said of the sinful 
 excesses of grief which characterised and dictated these most 
 passionate and mournful exclamations, they abundantly enough 
 bear out this, that it was not the fear of being put to death that 
 weighed with the prophet in forming his unhappy purpose to 
 flee from the presence of the Lord. An unholy man like Balaam 
 might indeed have acted from such a motive. The craven fear 
 and tell-tale conscious misgivings which dictated in his mouth the 
 desire, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my latter 
 end be like His" (Num. xxiii, 10), comported well with the 
 imbecility which the prospect of death would have struck into 
 such a mind as Balaam's. But any loyal and leal-hearted prophet 
 in Israel must have been quite familiarised with the expectation 
 of being almost at any time called to lay down this present 
 perishable life and be gathered to his fathers. A people of whom 
 the Lord of glory, in the days of His own commission among 
 them, could say, " Which of the prophets have not your fathers 
 slain ? " must have quite accustomed their prophets, and Jonah 
 among the rest, to reckon their life the most insecure of all their 
 possessions ; and if they had not made up their minds to count it 
 so, and be contented, their hearts must have been discouraged, 
 and their hands weakened every day, and in all the work of God 
 continually. The boldness with which a prophet in Israel could 
 rebuke and reprove their wild rebellions against God, and their 
 gross violence among themselves, must have sprung in all cases 
 from a prior and conclusive triumph over the fear of death. Let 
 no one go forth from the schools of the prophets in Israel, save 
 the man that has learnt to take his life in his hand — " counting 
 not his life dear unto him." 
 
 And, indeed, with regard to every true Christian, is not this 
 one of those things in which he will find his character making 
 progress, if indeed he be thriving in spiritual prosperity at all, 
 viz., deliverance from the slavish fear of death ? Will he not 
 
^S y onaJi s Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 
 
 have growing reason to feel that it is "better to depart and be 
 with Christ"? Reconciled in the blood of that sacrifice whose 
 unspeakable glory and unspeakably soul-refining power he can 
 never taste to the full extent he would desire ; and renewed by 
 that Spirit whose glorious love and power he cannot cherish in 
 his heart as he would ; living with God on the terms of a covenant 
 which has placed his eternal happiness on the security of an all- 
 precious purchase, and of an all-faithful promise; and finding 
 himself utterly incapable of entertaining the full and ever-glowing 
 gratitude which the placing of it on such a footing is worthy to 
 call forth ; he knows that he never will be at rest — never will be 
 at the goal and aim towards which his deepest principles and 
 feelings carry him, till, in the unclouded serenity and glory of 
 the world above, he shall pour forth the wdiole energy of a per- 
 fected and sinless nature in the song which in heaven alone can 
 do justice to his feelings, wdien, with "the ten thousand times ten 
 thousand and thousands of thousands," he too at last gets the 
 long-desired opening of the mouth to sing, " Worthy is the Lamb 
 that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
 strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing;" when with every 
 creature that is in heaven he unites in raising high again the 
 echoing psalm of heaven's ceaseless family worship, choiring back 
 evermore the rapturous refrain : " Blessing, and honour, and glory, 
 and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
 Lamb for ever" (Rev. v. 12, 18). 
 
 In proportion as a believer's integrity, amidst life's many 
 trials and the holy discipline of Providence and the growing en- 
 joyment of ordinances, becomes to himself, through Divine grace, 
 more and more manifest ; and as he dutifully realises the attitude 
 of one pressing toAvard the mark ; the prize of his high calling 
 brightens in its glory to his view : he is no longer afraid as he 
 was when an unsettled controversy with God hung gloomily over 
 him — no longer afraid to look at that prize, as if conscious that 
 it is for others but not for him ; the fascinating joy of real eter- 
 nal life has broken on his weary heart ; he turns with deepening 
 intensity of interest and increasing self-jealousy to examine the 
 foundations on which his hopes are reposing ; and though not 
 always confident, in reflex thought, as to his own state, he is 
 growingly confident and satisfied in direct contemplation of Christ 
 
JonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 39 
 
 and the everlasting covenant; the simple action of faith, whose 
 chiefest glory and very essence it is to be satisfied with Christ 
 alone — with Christ's sacrifice and covenant and word alone, when 
 no other grounds appear — the simple action of faith becomes 
 more and more intense, and the things that are unseen and eter- 
 nal consequently then unveil and unfold themselves to his joyful 
 encouragement. Inevitably, in such a case, it is for the sake of 
 others, and not his own, that this man will care for living long 
 on the earth. He will "have a desire to depart and be with 
 Christ, which is far better " (Phil. i. 23). And only if it be " more 
 needful" for others, whether for their temporal or spiritual 
 advantage, will he be reconciled " to abide in the flesh," at a dis- 
 tance from that full peace and full likeness to Christ which he 
 has learnt to count his own satisfaction : — " As for me, I shall see 
 Thy face in righteousness ; I shall be satisfied when I awake with 
 Thy likeness" (Ps. xvii. 15). The physical pains of death are, 
 after that, the only thing he has to dread ; growing confidence in 
 his Father's adorable wisdom — which may assign him protracted 
 suffering, but may wrap him in translation's haste and glory into 
 the kingdom of the blest — will enable him to trust the ordering 
 of his last hours to Him ; and thereafter, save for others, the love 
 of life here is gone ; " We are confident, and willing rather 
 to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord " 
 (2 Cor. V. 8). 
 
 If to such considerations as these we add the fact that this 
 holy man of God had a very difficult office to discharge among 
 that portion of the tribes that soonest and most deeply revolted 
 from God and righteousness, and among whom, therefore, like all 
 who had that lot assigned them, Jonah must have found himself 
 almost continually uncomfortable, and altogether and continually 
 destitute of sympathy, we have probably said more than enough 
 in the way of showing that the dread of losing life was not the 
 motive which prompted the inexcusable act of fleeing from the 
 presence of the Lord. 
 
 III. Shall we say, then, thirdly, that astonishment and per- 
 plexity as to .being sent to the Gentiles operated on his mind, and 
 led him to refuse a mission to the heathen ? 
 
 We have already spoken at length on the singular relations. 
 
40 JonaJis Flight : its Meaning and Motive. 
 
 in the development of the history of redemption, subsisting 
 between Israel and the Gentile world. And in that subject it 
 would not have been wonderful though the prophet's mind had 
 found enough to fill him with darkness and confusion. Indeed, 
 it must have been a severe trial to his confidence in God to be 
 appointed a preacher to those whom all along he had understood 
 to be in the meantime given over of the Lord. That seemed 
 generally understood — yea, conclusively settled. It seemed a 
 settled point that the heathen were, for the time being, aban- 
 doned ; that on them the prophetic office had no bearing. Did 
 not our Lord's own declaration point to this when He said, " I 
 am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel " (Matt. 
 XV. 24) ? Was it not a strange thing to a converted soul to be told, 
 "Depart, for I will send thee far hence to the Gentiles" (Acts 
 xxii. 21) ? And we remember how completely even such an one 
 as Simon Peter, whom Jesus, even in the days of His flesh, had 
 taught to call nothing outward " unclean," was puzzled and per- 
 plexed at the heavenly vision, and at the command connected 
 with it, that he should go to the Gentile Cornelius and preach the 
 gospel to him (Acts x. 15-28). And if Peter expostulated on this 
 subject, even in the face of a vision illustrating the truth, and 
 had his doubts, apparently, when sent for by an honourable man 
 who had also been instructed by a heavenly vision and a visit of 
 an angel from glory, how much more might Jonah have felt con- 
 founded at the sudden and unexplained command to go forth as 
 God's prophet to the chiefest city of the Gentiles ! 
 
 Yet there is not a trace of this as the explanation or the 
 motive of his disobedience. 
 
 IV. It remains, therefore, that we now state — and we can at 
 present do little more than state — the real cause. Jonah himself, 
 in the utmost possible candour, has disclosed it and recorded it ; 
 and there is not the slightest reason to imagine the existence or 
 operation of any other cause. When Nineveh was spared, 
 Jonah " prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray Thee, O Lord, 
 was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country ? There- 
 fore I fled before unto Tarshish : for I knew that Thou wast a 
 gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, 
 and repented Thee of the evil " (Jonah iv. 2). 
 
yonaJis Flight : its JMeaning and Motive. 4 1 
 
 Though we cannot at present open up very fully what is im- 
 plied in this singular and artless confession, or the precise nature 
 of the sin thus disclosed, we may not fancy that we have made 
 little or no advance in considering the character of this most won- 
 derful man. We see not a little into the marvellous power of 
 Divine grace in him, when we see that the gigantic obstacles 
 and difficulties of his mission did not, and never would have hin- 
 dered him ; that the fear of death was not a fear to which he was 
 in any degree a slave ; and that even the perplexities which, in so 
 unspeakably more favourable circumstances, all but drove an en- 
 lightened apostle from his propriety and duty, even in the gospel 
 age and in the fulness of Pentecostal times, had no weight to 
 stagger the noble heart of this much misunderstood servant of 
 God, To do iliat, it needed a deeper difficulty than ordinary 
 minds need. It needed more subtle and more spiritual tempta- 
 tion than the grosser cast of minds are even capable of feeling. 
 Little credit as he may get, his God gave him credit for being 
 moved to disobedience by no such commonplace motive as the 
 dread of difficulties, the love of life, or the mystery of the relation 
 of Jew and Gentile. He could appeal to God that another motive 
 than any of these was at work in his sorely tried spirit. The 
 Lord acknowledged the truth of Jonah's own representation ; and 
 so, surely, may we. The Lord exonerated him from the charge 
 of everything mean, sordid, and of the kind that sways the 
 worldly, and even oftentimes the more unrefined and low-toned 
 Christian spirit. The Lord gave him credit for being influenced 
 by a motive, no doubt mistaken, and leading him into sin, but 
 still the motive which none but a highly honourable and keenly 
 sensitive child of God, very loyal to his King, very tender to his 
 Father's glory, conld possibly have been influenced by, or able 
 even to imagine, save from his own truthful consciousness of its 
 influence. 
 
 We learn, therefore, these lessons from the subject : — 
 1. " Judge not, that ye be not judged." Especially judge not 
 hastily the motives of any whom you have reason to believe to 
 be godly men. Godly men especially lie open to have miscon- 
 structions put, and wrong judgments passed, upon their conduct. 
 If we heard their private prayers, we might get the true explana- 
 
42 JonaJis Flight : its IMeaning and Motive. 
 
 tion of what may seem otherwise inexplicable. We do overhear 
 a prayer of Jonah when his spirit was overwhelmed within him 
 — when his soul was too agitated to speak anything but the 
 bursting, burning truth. Were it not for that prayer and the 
 explanation it affords, all manner of false motives might have 
 been heaped upon the misjudged character of this most noble 
 prophet. We learn from his communion with God — what the 
 ever-blessed God did not for a moment cast doubt upon, for He 
 is very gracious, and owneth all sincerity even where it may be 
 sadly struggling to assert and keep its ground — we learn from 
 his secret communion with God, as it is recorded by the spirit of 
 inspiration, that not even hindrances of the most painful, power- 
 ful, perplexing character, did, or would have, induced him to be 
 disobedient to the heavenly command. And it is just this little 
 remnant of his prayers, saved and put on record to all genera- 
 tions, which vindicates him from the imputation of all manner of 
 poor, pitiful, and sordid, and commonplace motives, such as any 
 rude, gross mind, measuring the prophet's capacity by its own, 
 might have been pleased to cast upon him. 
 
 2. We learn how utterly worthless as a guide in duty man's 
 own wisdom must ever be, even thougli acting in combination 
 with the most exalted natural nobility, or even gracious refine- 
 ment of spirit. We have said that none but a soul of high- 
 toned spiritual dutifulness would have been open to the risk of 
 being perplexed by the idea that suggested itself to Jonah. Holy 
 zeal for the honour of God in a very singular crisis and move- 
 ment of His government ; great fear lest, sparing Nineveh after 
 the unmitigated threatening, God might be regarded as a change- 
 able God ; fear, not at all for himself, but fear lest his God might 
 be misjudged ; these things weighed with his anxious heart, as on 
 none but a regenerated heart could they practically have weighed 
 at all. Yet even in these circumstances, and amidst gracious de- 
 sires of the most self-denying and self-forgetting kind, his own 
 ideas ought to have been all trampled under foot ; and he ought 
 simply and immediately to have gone to " Nineveh, that great 
 city, and cried against it," believing that, without his anxiety and 
 without his aid, Jehovah could vindicate His own character in 
 His own way. Unquestioning obedience to God is, therefore, 
 most emphatically taught in this passage. Leave all things to 
 
JonaJis FligJU : its Meaning and Motive. 43 
 
 Him. Let His word of command be enough for thy duty — His 
 word of promise enough for thy faith. Whatsoever more thou 
 shalt in any case seek shall turn out thy thorn and thy trouble. 
 But the word of the Lord is very pure : therefore let His ser- 
 vants love it (Ps. cxix. 140). 
 
V. 
 
 JONAH'S FLIGHT: ITS LESSONS. 
 
 " But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, 
 and went down to Joppa ; and he found a ship gomg to Tarshish : so he paid 
 the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from 
 the presence of the Lord." — Jonah i. 3. 
 
 " Let no man say, luhen he is tempted, I am tempted of God ; for God cannot 
 be tempted with evil, neither tempteth lie any man ; hut every man is tempted, 
 when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath con- 
 ceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 
 Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from 
 above, and cometh dovm from the Father of lights, ivith whom is no variableness, 
 neither shadow of turning." — James i. 13-17. 
 
 JONAH was afraid lest, the inhabitants of Nineveh repenting, 
 and the Lord remitting- the punishment threatened, the God 
 of the Jews might be regarded as a changeable God. Inconsis- 
 tency and inconstancy are charges which a sensitive man can 
 scarcely with equanimity bear. When Paul did not arrive at 
 Corinth so soon as he intended, and when the enemies of the 
 gospel, ready to take any handle to disparage his character, 
 represented this as " lightness " (2 Cor. i. 15-20) — levity, fickle- 
 ness, the characteristic of a man that did not know his own 
 mind — this gave the Apostle great distress. " I was minded to 
 come unto you before, that ye might have a second benefit ; and 
 to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Mace- 
 donia unto you, and of you to be brought on my way toward 
 Judea. When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness ? 
 or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, 
 that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay ? But as 
 God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay ; " — it was 
 not equivocal, uncertain, and inconstant ; one thing to-day and 
 another to-morrow ; I meant what I said, with no reservation ; 
 " as God is true," I did. But as an honourable man repels such 
 
y onaJt s Flight : its Lessons. 45 
 
 a charge as directed against himself, how much more must a 
 faithful servant of the Lord indignantly repel such a charge 
 against his King and his God. For if such a thing can be said 
 of God, there is an eternal end of all constancy everywhere. 
 Paul in defending himself appeals, as the last prop and hold, 
 to God's own unchangeableness. Says he, "As God is true, our 
 word toward you was not yea and nay." But " if the foundations 
 be destroyed, what can the righteous do ? " If the very Gt)d to 
 whom the last appeal must be taken be not " without variableness 
 or shadow of turning," who then can prove, maintain, or assert 
 his own truth ? " Is God unrighteous ? God forbid : for how 
 then shall God judge the world ? " So reasoned Paul concerning 
 the Divine righteousness.* And, Is God capable of change ? 
 God forbid : for where then were any everlasting rock or stay ? " 
 — so, in imitation, we may reason concerning the Divine un- 
 changeableness. It was an inconceivable grief to Jonah to utter 
 any denunciation which he saw that, through infinite gracious- 
 ness, the Lord might yet, through repentance on Nineveh's part, 
 be, humanly speaking, prevailed upon to retract. 
 
 But why should he not allow the Lord to protect His own 
 character in His own way ? When he took counsel with flesh 
 and blood, when he conferred with his own carnal wisdom, he 
 forsook the first principle of piety, — subjection to the call and 
 word and will of God. He did not need to be less concerned for 
 the honour of God. Therein he did well ; therein his soul was 
 far more upright within him than in the case of multitudes who 
 
 * How would a "Broad Church" Catechism run, in reference to these 
 questions of the Apostle ? In some such way as this : — 
 
 Question. ' ' Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance ? " 
 
 Answer. He would be, if He did. Vengeance is in all cases unholy and 
 devilish. 
 
 Question. How then do you account for Paul telling the Romans (chap. ii. 
 8, 9) that God will "render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, 
 to every soul of man that doeth evil " ? 
 
 Ansiver. Paul had not sufficiently shaken himself clear of the vengeful and 
 sanguinary spirit of the Old Testament. 
 
 Question. "Then how shall God judge the world ? " 
 
 Ansicer. He won't do it. The "law of love" is working everything right 
 of itself. 
 
 They should really try a Child's Catechism. Henky Roger has shown thenx 
 the way very nicely, in an adjoining department : — See " Eclipse of Faith," 
 pp. 89-91. 
 
^6 JonaJis Flight : its Lessons. 
 
 think it quite an easy thing to discuss his character and pro- 
 nounce upon his sin. Nobly did he exhibit, even in and by his 
 error, the deep desire that glowed within him to see his God 
 riohtly understood and rightly honoured. But what he needed 
 was a simpler Abrahamic faith, allowing this new disclosure of 
 God's character to go forward at God's call, "not knowing 
 whither " it " went ; " but assured that God himself would bring 
 it safely and in stainless glory, to the mark and goal which he 
 had appointed. 
 
 Contrast, for instance, as to the principle involved, the faith 
 of Abraham in offering up Isaac, with the unbelief of Jonah in 
 fleeino- to Tarshish. Had Abraham so listed, besides the many 
 temptations to disobedience arising from paternal affection, and 
 from the unspeakable darkness that seemed to arise when the 
 child of promise, and thereby the future Saviour, the Seed, and 
 in Him all the promises, were put in danger, there was another 
 point to prove a temptation — another point in which Abraham 
 was tried on this most renowned occasion, and in which his faith 
 triumphed, exactly similar to that in which Jonah's faith was 
 tried and failed. Abraham might well have reasoned thus : — 
 " What will the Canaanites think — ' for the Canaanite was still 
 in the land ' — when they learn that, at the command of my God, 
 my hands have been imbrued in the blood of my child, offered a 
 sacrifice upon His altar ? How will they distinguish between 
 this surrender which in unquestioning confidence and duty I 
 make of my beloved one, and the bloody and accursed murders 
 wherewith they stain the service and propitiate the favour of 
 their unholy and abominable deities ? Alas ! alas ! they will 
 reckon my God, — my God, who is the Judge of all the earth, — 
 and ' shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ' — they 
 will reckon my God altogether such an one as their own." But 
 no such imaginations were allowed to weigh with Abraham. 
 If they arose and attempted to arrest his obedience, he warred 
 against them with spiritual weapons. " The weapons of his war- 
 fare were not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling 
 down of strongholds ; casting down imaginations, and every high 
 thino- that exalte fch itself against the knowledge of God, and 
 bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ " 
 (2 Cor. X. 4-5). Abraham brought " every thought into captivity " 
 
JonaJis Flight : its Lessons. 47 
 
 to the command of God. He cast down all his " reasonings." 
 Every " imagination " of his mind he bound with cords to the 
 chariot of God's Word, and made them follow as its humble cap- 
 tives. Against hope he believed in hope. He continued to be- 
 lieve that what God had promised He was able to perform — that 
 He was able to raise up Isaac again from the dead, from which, 
 indeed, he received him in a figure — and that He was able to 
 justify His own character and procedure in the eyes of the 
 Canaanites and of all the world, in His own time and in His own 
 way. Casting down, therefore, all reasonings, all thoughts, all 
 imaginations, and mastering them all in faith, Abraham calmly 
 went to Mount Moriah. Jonah fell by unbelief under their 
 power ; they mastered him, and ruled and drove him hard. 
 Jonah tied to Tarshish. 
 
 Blessed was Abraham's reward ; terrible was Jonah's chas- 
 tisement. In the upraising of Isaac from the altar, and in the 
 substitution of the ram caught in the thicket ; in the trial of his 
 own love also in surrendering his beloved, Abraham " saw the 
 day of Christ afar off," and the eternal Father's inconceivable 
 love to sinners in giving His eternal Son to save them — and 
 Abraham " was glad." Terrible was Jonah's punishment. He 
 too may be said to have seen the day of Christ afar off — but to 
 have been exceedingly filled, not with gladness, but with agony. 
 For the cross of Christ is God's work of infinite love and God's 
 work of infinite judgment too. On the side of its love, Abra- 
 ham saw it and was glad. On the side of its judgment and 
 terrors, Jonah doubtless saw it and was overwhelmed with an- 
 guish, while for three days and three nights his doom was as if 
 entering into the sufferings of Him who was " three days and 
 three nights in the heart of the earth." So singularly suitable in 
 each case was the reward and the punishment. " Great and mar- 
 vellous are Thy works. Lord God Almighty ; just and true are all 
 Thy ways." 
 
 There are several principles of God's moral probation of man 
 brought out in this third verse, describing, as it does, so graphi- 
 cally and rapidly Jonah's flight. 
 
 I. And in the first place, observe, that though Jonah was not 
 moved to disobey God originally by fear, alarm, or cowardice ; 
 
48 JonaJis Flight : its Lessons. 
 
 though it was under the force of a more subtle and spiritual 
 motive than these — one having in it apparently more of holiness 
 and godly zeal ; yet no sooner is he, through his disobedience, in 
 a false position, than fears and alarms get the mastery over him. 
 He is evidently in the attitude of a man who has lost his self- 
 possession. He betakes himself to Hight. Though not a wicked 
 man, yet engaged at present in a course of disobedience, he is 
 doomed, for the time being, and in so far, to feel the sore restless- 
 ness and alarms of the ungodly, according to the unchangeable 
 and terrible oracle : " There is no peace, saith my God, to the 
 wicked." It was not cowardice that tempted him to form his 
 disobedient resolution. But he has no sooner formed it than the 
 brave man is a coward immediately. He flees in terror. He is 
 in haste to And a hiding-place. 
 
 And this teaches us that, though it may be from a compara- 
 tively higher and purer class of motives that we may be induced 
 to disobey the Lord, no sooner are we committed to an act or 
 course of disobedience, than motives far less high and far less 
 pure, may immediately assert a most humiliating mastery over 
 us. It matters not under what influence you take up the position 
 of a rebel ; you may have been omnipotent against your meaner 
 enemies before ; but you are weak as a child against them now. 
 Once lay aside the spiritual weapons of implicit confidence in 
 God's truth and wisdom, righteousness and grace — once take 
 counsel with carnal reason and your own devices, distrusting and 
 forsaking the light of God's Word and Spirit, — carnal wisdom 
 and carnal weapons will not be found sufficient to protect you 
 long from enemies that once would have been very lightly dealt 
 with, very easily quelled and set aside. Principles of action too 
 pitiful and paltry — nay, too mean and base — to have had any 
 chance of securing your concurrence once, will present themselves 
 now, in the hour of your revolt, claiming kindred with you, 
 claiming control over you, with an insolence that may fill you 
 with bitterness, but which it may now defy you to repress. The 
 enemy at first may have needed to draw upon his more subtle 
 devices, in order to waylay, deceive, delude, disarm you; but 
 once you are disarmed, he can dispense with any peculiarly 
 refined style of dealing. Coarser method now will suffice. 
 Angels of light may have been required, as his messengers, to 
 
Jonalis Flight : its Lessons. 49 
 
 dazzle and mislead you from the narrow way into paths of dis- 
 obedience: but once there, fiends or evils of ruder form may 
 manage you; motives of impure and gross enough description 
 may suffice to move you, now that you are at any rate within 
 the meshes of his net. Cowardice may not have induced you ; 
 nay, such may have been the stuff of which your disposition, and 
 especially as moulded anew by grace, is made, that cowardice 
 never would have prevailed to cause you to refuse the mission to 
 Nineveh ; motives far deeper and more subtle, much more akin 
 to godliness and zeal, it may have been needful to ply upon you, 
 ere you were induced to adopt the sinful determination ; but once 
 adopted — your God now clearly and consciously disobeyed, and 
 your God therefore consciously and entirely distrusted, as distrust 
 grows assuredly out of disobedience — you are at once the coward 
 now. The " spirit of bondage again to fear " gets distressing do- 
 minion over you. You will flee now, even " when no man pursueth." 
 Ah ! it is very necessary to ply this solemn consideration on 
 believers battling the good battle of faith, too often feeling as if 
 the tide of it were going against them, too often ready to despond 
 and to despair when, after sustaining losses and wounds not a few, 
 they seem ready to refuse to resume the fight. The time was 
 when — in simple faith, in contrite humble-hearted gratitude, in 
 loyal acknowledgment that you were a little child, and your 
 Father's understanding alone fitted to guide you — you walked 
 humbly with God, carefully keeping yourself unspotted from the 
 world, rising nobly superior to the meaner forms in which the 
 world's evil too glaringly appears. The liberties with God's 
 pure and holy law which laxity of principle in worldly trade too 
 often takes and pleads for, appeared to you then in their true 
 character as bold offences against heaven's righteous King, earth's 
 holy and omniscient Ruler. When offering their services to you, 
 claiming your submission to them, in better than Hazael's spirit 
 you might have said : " Am I a dog, that I should do this wicked- 
 ness ? " And loving God's Word, and throne, and Sabbath — and, 
 in free and full reconciliation, walking with God — little success 
 could the enemy expect in tempting you in these directions. The 
 holy and sensitive spirit of a friend of God, enjoying actual 
 experience, and living in present habits of friendship with Him, 
 recoiled directly from every such suggestion or assault. But did 
 
 D 
 
50 JonaJis Flight : its Lessons. 
 
 the enemy deal more subtly with you ? Did he speak of your 
 friendship with God as now very stedfastly secured ? Did he 
 whisper that the constant, scrupulous, watchful, self-denying 
 self-jealousy, needed in the earlier stages of your Christian walk, 
 were not so necessary now ? Did he insinuate that being one of 
 God's friends and children, you might warrantably enough take 
 things into your own hand more boldly, and tread in your daily 
 walk and life with less timid footsteps ? Did he speak of the 
 great difficulty of judging precisely and exactly where the limits 
 of worldliness terminate and those of godliness begin ? Did he 
 point out a sort of middle land, as it seemed to be, between the 
 Church and the world — the children of God, and the children of 
 the wicked one — a sort of neutral ground on which, without 
 resigning their special character, both alike might meet and 
 dwell, or at least mutually visit and compliment each other, in 
 something, if not more like unity, at least less like bigotry and 
 religious narrowness ? Your solemn views of the dreadful con- 
 dition of worldly, unconverted men, lying in the snare of the 
 devil and beneath the wrath of God, were gradually worn down. 
 Slowly at first, and step by step — perhaps under semblance of 
 wishing to commend religion to some whose society you loved, 
 whose souls you really cared for — expecting thereby to bring 
 them all the more easily round to yours ? Ah ! but, like Jonah, 
 you were affecting to be wiser than God ; — you were, under the 
 cloak of spiritual zeal, really acting at the dictate of carnal 
 wisdom. You were disobeying a clear command — " Be not con- 
 formed to the world," — a command as clear as that peremptory 
 word, " Arise, go to Nineveh." And, — having entered on a course 
 of disobedience, — laxity of principle, worldliness of disposition, 
 fear of man's opinion, and false shame keep you from promptly 
 retiring to the ground you have forsaken, and a thousand other 
 very commonplace and coarse principles and motives, to which 
 you would once have nobly and easily risen superior, have you 
 in their power now ; and it may be only through some sore 
 crash of affliction, as in the case of Jonah, or at least through 
 deep repentance, as in the case of Peter, that at last you return, 
 softened and subdued, to trust the wisdom of God more than your 
 own, and to walk with Him, not in sparks of your own kindling, 
 but rather in the liirht of the Lord. 
 
Jonalis Flight : its Lessons. 5 1 
 
 s_ 
 
 Let this, then, be our first lesson. We may disobey God from 
 subtle and spiritual holy-like motives ; but we no sooner yield 
 than the coarsest may too sadly overmaster us. The angel of 
 light may be needed to betray us into sin. But our armour, our 
 simplicity, our singleness, our strength, being then gone ; the 
 ruder evils and meaner kinds of sin, starting from their conceal- 
 ments and surrounding us, claiming us now as their own, saying, 
 ^' God hath forsaken him : persecute and take him " (Ps. Ixxi. 
 11), may assert over us a power which in days of our integrity 
 and good conscience we found it comparatively easy to refuse 
 and resist. 
 
 No alarms prevailed with Jonah to disobey his King. But 
 disobedient Jonah is easily alarmed. He flees in haste and terror. 
 
 II. There is a second and very solemn lesson in the words, " he 
 found a ship going to Tarshish." Committed to a course of dis- 
 obedience, " he found " the means of holding on in it ; his heart 
 set on fleeing to Tarshish, a ship chartered for Tarshish without 
 difficulty he " finds." As evil luck would have it, as some speak ; 
 as his malignant stars appeared to rule, to use language equally 
 heathenish ! as God's holy providence arranged, to speak as godli- 
 ness and right reason dictate — Jonah finds events conspiring, as 
 it were, to aid him in carrying out his evil purpose. Being in the 
 way of disobedience, helps to disobedience meet him. A very 
 terrible consideration ! One that is always solemn and always 
 seasonable. 
 
 Beyond all question, if you are on the paths of sin, on the 
 broad road, which, if you be not turned aside from it, lands you 
 ultimately in everlasting ruin — beyond all question, in that path, 
 in that road, you will find means and opportunities, help and 
 facilities to sin. Ah ! how often the angry boy, on the play- 
 ground, has found the ready stone with which to prosecute his 
 quarrel and vent his wrath, creating long-lasting matter of pain 
 to another and grief to himself ! How often the man of unbridled 
 temper and murderous envy, jealousy or rage, in the heat and fit 
 of overboiling hatred of his brother, " breathing out threatening 
 and slaughter," has found as at his very hand, so opportune, so 
 fatal, the deadly weapon by which the murder in the heart and 
 feeling embodied itself beyond recall in the murder of the hand 
 
52 JouaJis Flight : its Lessons. 
 
 and of fact ! — as if the very fiend of malice placed the ready 
 javelin in Saul's hand, wherewith, save for special providence, 
 the youthful Psalmist of Israel, their future king, had been 
 pinned to the wall in instant death. 
 
 Yes ; it is a terrible truth that the sinner will usually find 
 provided, as it were, to his hand, the implements and opportunities 
 which a heart set to do evil will easily transform into helps to sin. 
 Doubtless this must be so in a state of probation such as that 
 under which in this world we are placed. Omnipotence, indeed, 
 might work so as that, when passion sways and rules the trans- 
 gressor, every help to evil should, as it were, retire before his 
 footsteps and elude his grasp. Miracle might snatch the weapon 
 of murder beyond the reach of the hand of revenge. Miracle 
 might draw a cloud of obscuration between the eye of lust and 
 the object on which it feeds its secret and unhallowed fire. 
 Miracle might make fire refuse to burn when applied by the 
 incendiary's hand. Miracle might make the atmosphere refuse to 
 carry the sound of words when the hoary blasphemer essays to 
 innoculate youth with his profanity. Miracle might so arrange 
 as that Jonah, seeking to flee to Tarshish, shall find no ship bound 
 for Tarshish. Nay, it is conceivable that God might institute a 
 kind of government and providence among men, in which these 
 things should form not miraculous and astonishing exceptions, 
 but the very style and staple of the system. But it would be a 
 wholly new system proceeding on new principles, making void 
 and setting aside altogether our present probationary condition. 
 To a state of probation — a state in which God suspends the 
 immediately observed retribution, delays the instant and exact 
 measuring out of justice till a day when the great drama shall be 
 wound up and all outstanding cases settled — to such a state in 
 which the sinner gets space or scope, time and opportunity, to 
 prove his rebellion or repentance, time and opportunity to return 
 and be reconciled, or to disclose thoroughly of what manner of 
 spirit he is, so that justice in the ultimate judgment may be easily 
 and clearly vindicated ; to such a state it seems essential that the 
 sinner should find, if he seek, the means of prolonging his rebel- 
 lion to its aim of embodying the spirit of rebellion in its actions. 
 To snatch away from him, as no doubt God could do if He chose, 
 the incentive to his lust, the weapon of his wrath, the vehicle of 
 
yonaJis Flight : its Lessons. 53 
 
 his flight, were for God to cease dealing with him as one under 
 probation. But God will not thus interfere to make completion 
 of a sinful purpose impossible. And can you complain ot this ? 
 Can you reasonably complain ? If your " heart is set in you to do 
 evil," and the ready means of evil most temptingly present them- 
 selves and lie ready to your hand ; if you love worldly talk on 
 Sabbath, and a worldly companion waylay you at the very door 
 of the sanctuary, and you refuse not his converse till every 
 sacred impression of the word and house and Spirit of God are 
 worn off: if, in short, you are under a state of trial, and God 
 actually arrange events to try you, can you complain ? Would 
 you wish this probation to end ? Would you wish swift and 
 sudden wrath to fall, as in every case where probation unim- 
 proved terminates, the wrath then swiftly falls at last ? Would 
 you wish it to fall immediately ? Do you wish your probation 
 ended ? AVill you quarrel with God for so ruling in His provi- 
 dence that what is essential to a state of probation — essential, 
 .therefore, to your deriving the benefit of a state of probation — 
 falls to your lot ? Will you say when tempted, that you 'are 
 " tempted of God"?* Nay : if the benefit of probation is assigned 
 you ; if your eternal estate is held in suspense, and you are now 
 dealt with so that that eternal state shall depend on how you 
 decide and act now ; if God thus patiently deals with you on His 
 part ; then all that is essential to a probationary state must be 
 submitted to on your part, and this among the rest — namely, that 
 if, in rebellion and revolt against the clearly revealed will of God, 
 you continue in the way of transgressors, you shall find the means 
 and incentives and facilities for sin surrounding you on all sides, 
 and multiplying as you go along ; you shall find this as one of 
 those continual facts and features which go to make that road 
 " the broad road," even as the gate of it is the wide gate, whereat, 
 alas ! the many enter in. 
 
 The righteousness of this arrangement on God's part might 
 be more clearly demonstrated were we to set forth the converse 
 
 * See Maclaxjrin's Sermon, "The sins of men not Chargeable on God," 
 and Principal Candlish's Sermon, "The Alleged Necessity of Sinning" 
 {^ ScripUire Characters^); the one the more profound and exhaustive as a 
 philosophical discussion, the other the more powerful and encouraging as a 
 personal expostulation and aj^peal. 
 
54 JonaJis Flight : its Lessons. 
 
 view of it, the corresponding fact, namely, that if your heart be 
 fixed and thoroughly set in you to do the will of God, you will 
 find just as readily, and just as abundantly, the means and in- 
 centives and facilities for doing good. This is hinted at partly 
 in that lovely declaration, " The Lord meeteth him that rejoiceth 
 and worketh righteousness." Providences — the God of providence 
 Himself even, and oftentimes very obviously His providences — 
 come forth in friendly forms and helpful action to aid the devoted 
 and joyful " worker of righteousness." The Lord maketh straight 
 His people's way before their face. Those very ways of the Lord 
 in which " transgressors fall " are all " right," and " the just 
 shall walk in them " (Hosea xiv. 9). He will keep tliem, from 
 the evil that is in the world; and the very events which the 
 wickedness of the wicked transforms into helps of sin, the right- 
 eous shall find the Lord disposing into hindrances. Ah ! how 
 often the humble believer, in the morning seeking increase of 
 grace and usefulness throughout the day, has seen the means and 
 occasions of usefulness come round about him to his hand as the 
 day wore through ; and in noticing his Father's hand in so 
 arranging them, with what heart of joy has he seized and im- 
 proved them ! Thus Abraham's godly servant, having gone to 
 his master's kindred to take a wife unto Isaac, and having 
 committed the matter to the Lord in prayer, with what lowly 
 gratitude and adoration does he recognise and acknowledge 
 the interposition of the Lord to aid and prosper him ! In the 
 path of his duty the facilities for success are found beauti- 
 fully placed around him. "And the man bowed down his 
 head, and worshipped the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the 
 Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left desti- 
 tute my master of His mercy and His truth : / h(,inq in the 
 way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren" 
 (Gen. xxiv. 26, 27). 
 
 Thus twofold, or double-edged, is the providence of God — 
 even as the Word of God always is ; — as the gospel is, a savour 
 of death unto death to some, of life unto life to others ; — as the 
 person of Christ also is, a foundation to them that believe, a stone 
 of stumbling and rock of ofi'ence to the disobedient ; even as aged 
 Simeon prophesied, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and 
 rising again of many in Israel ; and for a sign which shall be 
 
Jonalis Flight : its Lessons. 55 
 
 spoken against ; that the thoughts of many hearts may be re- 
 vealed " (Luke ii. 34, 35). 
 
 Consider, then, your position in the world. You walk, while 
 here, in the midst of means, temptations, facilities to evil, innu- 
 merable. A heart at enmity to God will certainly, in one form 
 or another, close with and accept these inducements to sin. It is 
 by these means that the god of this world blinds, snares, and 
 rules the ungodly. In the opposition of their hearts to God's 
 holy law and honourable rule, they are righteously tried, judged, 
 and punished, by being left to fall under the degrading rule and 
 tyrannising sway of the god of this world, plying upon them, as 
 he does in his malice, that singular state of things which God in 
 His holiness has established for rebels to whom He is patient and 
 whom he places under probation. Ah ! there is no security save 
 in returning, surrendering, and being reconciled to God. Owning 
 our unreasonable rebellion, our most heartless alienation from our 
 Father in heaven ; confessing and abjuring our suspicions, pre- 
 judices, and perverse misunderstandings of His glorious nature 
 and gracious rewards to us- ward ; accepting the sure peace which 
 His Son's blood has made, and tasting the free and full recon- 
 ciliation which His sacrifice has established; embracing also, by 
 free and firm faith, the regenerating spirit of adoption to dwell 
 in us and keep our hearts in the love of God and righteousness ; 
 dwelling then in the secret of the Lord, and claiming, as His 
 children and servants, the protection of the King amidst the 
 dangers of an enemy's country, and the perils of our probationary 
 state ; we shall find that the Lord keeps us from temptation or 
 opens up a way of escape, and, delivering as us our " shield " from 
 evil, He will be our " glory " also, and " the lifter up of our head " 
 (Ps. iii. 3). Then, even amidst many dangers, amidst facilities to 
 evil-doing through which the wicked plunge onward in accelerat- 
 ing speed to ruin, we shall walk at liberty, having respect to all 
 God's commandments (Ps. cxix. 45). 
 
 III. This verse reads a solemn lesson as to the intense deter- 
 mination with which the evil heart of unbelief will, when scope 
 is given to its reasonings, depart from the living God. 
 
 It is hardly possible to conceive of a firmer, a more dogged, 
 determined, resolved purpose of transgression than is indicated in 
 
56 Jonalis Flight : its Lessons, 
 
 the words which describe the flight of Jonah. Step after step 
 the disobedient prophet takes in consummation of his purpose — 
 and each following fast on the back of its predecessor, without 
 repentance and, as it would almost seem, without reflection. (1.) 
 He " rose up to flee." (2.) He " went to Joppa." (3.) He " found 
 a ship." (4.) He " paid the fare." (5.) He " went down into it." 
 And all " to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the 
 Lord." There is something awful and ominous in the very sound 
 of the words. Read them continuously : " But Jonah rose up to 
 flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord : and went 
 down to Joppa : and he found a ship ; and he paid the fare 
 thereof; and he went down into it, — to go with them unto 
 Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." 
 
 These words are like relentless, consecutive, fast-falling blows, 
 under which his whole character as an obedient man of God is 
 beaten to death and trampled under the foot of Satan. If Jonah's 
 past life of piety were likened to a tield, and his character as a 
 child of God were the harvest ripening on it, these successive 
 clauses, telling the story of his wild rebelliousness, are in our 
 ears, as if the rasping swing of death's, scythe time after time 
 passed through with mighty sweep and levelled all that waving 
 harvest with the ground — no good angel nigh to gather, but the 
 storm looming down which is to scatter it to the four winds of 
 heaven ! Or, if Jonah's future destiny might be conceived to be 
 told off" upon "the great bell of the universe,"* these same remorse- 
 less sentences, that utter forth his disobedience, are as if there 
 fell fast and gloomily upon the ear stroke after stroke of the 
 hammer of doom, pausing only with still more fearful omen 
 when the criminal has gone down into the ship, the convict down 
 into the hulk, — gone down into the cell of his condemnation ! 
 
 Ah ! beware of disobediences like these, stroke upon stroke. 
 You may think you gain your end ; but the Lord has you in His 
 hand, and never more so than precisely when you think you 
 have succeeded. You may resolve to disobey ; you may rise up 
 and flee ; you may find your way to Joppa ; you may find the 
 ship ready there; you may find the mariners make no objection 
 to your company, and are ready to receive the fare. You may 
 
 * John Foster. 
 
y onaJi s Flight : its Lessons. 57 
 
 crown all, and think the clay is gained, when you go down into 
 the ship. How successful has your scheme been ! Not a single 
 step in it has misgiven. The whole project thrives. Jonah is 
 " gone down into the sides of the ship ; " and after the weary 
 conflict in his spirit, and the weary flight to Joppa, he is quiet 
 at last, and "fast asleep." You think it is all right now, and 
 your plan is safe and your project sure. The last move has been 
 all that you could wish it to be. 
 
 Yes ; but that last move is your move into the very prison in 
 which God holds you now under lock and key, and will hold you, 
 till He either cast you out for execution, or bring you to repentance. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE STORM. 
 
 " But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty 
 tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." — Jonah i, 4. 
 
 "Stormy wind fulfillimj his word." — Ps. cxlviii. 8. 
 / 
 
 y rriHE Lord now begins to deal with Jonah with the view of 
 -L bringing him to repentance and obedience. He has per- 
 initted him to carry out his project of fleeing from the shores of 
 the sacred land. He has quietly left him to succeed so far, that 
 he thinks his plan is now safely on foot. He has not interfered 
 
 / to baffle any one of the successive steps he has had to take in 
 
 I putting his design into execution. Jonah has been allowed 
 
 thoroughly to show all his desire, and thoroughly to prosecute all 
 
 his design. And now, when the utmost success he could have 
 
 \ wished has crowned his efforts, immediately the Lord interposes 
 
 to show their futility. 
 
 For the Lord can afford to wait. You may trespass against 
 Him, and pass on apparently unpunished, the Lord apparently 
 uncognizant. But the path along which you pass has the punish- 
 ment lining both sides of it, and looming dark at some surely 
 fixed point farther on. In combination with your envious 
 brothers you may succeed in quietly selling Joseph into the hands 
 of Ishmaelites, and there may be no word of him and your offence 
 against him for many days. But a day full surely comes, when, 
 in combination with the same brothers, ranged in full number, 
 rank and file, and face to face, you have to cry out, " We are 
 verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish 
 of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear ; there- 
 fore is this distress come upon us " (Gen. xlii. 21). God has 
 many an agent whom He may commission in pursuit. He may 
 therefore make no haste in putting any of them under commission; 
 and you may have enormously the start of your pursuer. But 
 the fire, or the tempest, or the water, or the pestilence, when once 
 
The Storm. 59 
 
 under the command of the Most High, calmly and surely hunt 
 down the fugitive, and bring him resistlessly to the bar. There 
 is no art that can elude or baffle the messengers of Him who is 
 the Judge of the quick and the dead. There is no blinding them ; 
 there is no bribing them. There is no loophole of escape. " Be 
 sure your sin will find you out." With what measure you mete 
 out to others, it sliall be measured to you again. " They have 
 sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." " Though 
 they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them ; though 
 they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down; though 
 they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take 
 them out thence ; and though they be hid from my sight in the 
 bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he 
 shall bite them " (Amos ix. 2, 3). 
 
 Surely if there be " no divination against Israel," still less can 
 there be against Israel's God. All things are naked and open 
 unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do ; and all the 
 powers and elements of nature are in His hand, to prosecute His 
 controversies and to serve His purposes. Flight from Him is 
 futile, useless, and in vain. 
 
 Oh, what praise is due to that blessed Mediator, through 
 whom flight to God is possible, yea, blessed ! Seek no hiding- 
 place from. God. Let God himself be your hiding-place. " De- 
 liver me, Lord, from mine enemies : I flee unto Thee to hide 
 me " (Ps. cxliii. 9). " For this shall every one that is godly pray 
 unto Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found : surely in the 
 floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou 
 art my hiding-place ; Thou shalt preserve me from trouble ; Thou 
 shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance " (Ps. xxxii. 6, 
 7). Ultimately Jonah also learnt to adopt this more excellent 
 way ; but not till he had been taught by the discipline of sore 
 and stern experience. 
 
 Accordingly " the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and 
 there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like 
 to be broken." A " great wind , " a " mighty tempest ; " and " the 
 ship like to be broken," — as when the Lord sends forth " the east 
 wind that breaketh the ships of Tarshish." 
 
 I. Now let us observe here that it is not said there arose a 
 great wind ; but, " The Lord sent out a great wind." The Lord's 
 
6o The Storm. 
 
 hand is recognised, Tlie storm is attributed not to the elements 
 of nature, but to the God of nature ; to Him who is over all and 
 " above all." He has established laws in nature ; but they cannot 
 administer themselves. The Lawgiver administers them. He 
 has arranged a series of causes and elements, and placed them in 
 various adaptations towards one another. But He supports, 
 maintains, controls, and moves them at His own pleasure. 
 " Praise ye Him, sun and moon : praise Him, all ye stars of light. 
 Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above 
 the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord : for He 
 commanded, and they were created. He hath also established 
 them for ever and ever : He hath made a decree which shall not 
 pass. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps : 
 fire and hail ; snow and vapour ; stormy wind, fulfilling His 
 word " (Ps. cxlviii. 3-8). " They continue this day according to 
 Thine ordinances, for all are Thy servants " (Ps, cxix. 91). 
 Such is the doctrine of Scripture concerning the elements and 
 laws of nature. They are distinguished, indeed, by permanence 
 of properties and constancy of operation. Their regularity is 
 unbroken, save when miracle has occasionally intervened. Their 
 movements are calculable, or at least fit subject for calculation. 
 The movements of the planets have actually been calculated by 
 human wisdom ; and the motions of every mote of dust and drop 
 of water are capable of being as accurately predicted, were man's 
 powers of calculation as great as we can conceive them to be. 
 But while perfect regularity pervades all nature, and thus man 
 can reckon on a steady order of progression, in respect of " day 
 and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest," surely 
 this is not to exclude the superior and supreme action of a living 
 and personal God superintending and directing all. The order 
 and regularity with which events fall out, surely does not go to 
 invalidate the truth, that it is by divine superintendence, appoint- 
 ment, and control that they do so. It only shows in addition 
 that the Being who arranges and guides all, is a God, not of con- 
 fusion, but of order. The very regularity which scoffers found 
 upon as a proof that the laws of nature may account for all 
 without introducing the idea of a Supreme Ruler, will be regarded 
 by right reason, as well as by spiritual faith, as not only proving 
 that there is an almighty personal Governor sitting above all, 
 
The Storm. 6i 
 
 and guiding all continually, but that He is characterised by no 
 iitful, arbitrary, capricious changeableness ; that He is a " God 
 of order," " the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, 
 neither shadow of turning." 
 
 The Scriptures, in speaking of natural events, are remarkable 
 for the unfaltering and continual ascription of them to God. 
 " There arose a great wind," the vast majority of men would say. 
 Holy Scripture uses this style : " The Lord sent out a great wind 
 into the sea." Hence, according to the same style, those who go 
 down into the sea are said not merely to see great works and 
 wonders, but the works and wonders of the Lord ; as in that 
 magnificent, that unrivalled description of a storm, " They that 
 go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters ; 
 these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. 
 For He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth 
 up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven ; they go 
 down again to the depths : their soul is melted because of trouble. 
 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at 
 their wits' end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, 
 and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the 
 storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they 
 glad because they be quiet ; so he bringeth them unto their de- 
 sired haven. Oh that men would praise the Lord for His good- 
 ness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men ! " (Ps. 
 cvii. 23-31). 
 
 Throughout that splendid ode, the hand of the Lord in sending 
 forth and recalling the winds, and conducting the whole terrific 
 drama of the storm from first to last, is sedulously and sustainedly 
 acknowledged. 
 
 This is a peculiarity distinguishing the Scriptures. In them, 
 justice is ever done to the Supreme Being; and in a measure, by 
 all those, and by none else than those, who have drank into the 
 spirit of the Scriptures. Believers must be conscious of this, as 
 forming part of the great change which they have undergone in 
 being turned from darkness to light. Formerly they had no 
 pleasure in retaining God in their remembrance ; they had no 
 disposition to observe His hand and work in creation and provi- 
 dence. They took no delight in generously doing Him the justice 
 of attributing the stores of plenty wherewith the world is re- 
 
62 The Stoinn. 
 
 plenished to His bounteous liberality ; nor in reverentially own- 
 ing His voice in the tempest and the thunder, or His hand in the 
 bolts of lightning, or the stormy wind fulfilling His command. 
 Their thoughts of God, indeed, may at one time have been little 
 better than as of some abstract, impersonal, infinite terror, hang- 
 ing like a pall of death on their spirit. A living God, capable of 
 entering into fellowship with them, and striving to bring them 
 into fellowship with Him, may not have been in all their thoughts. 
 But when they underwent a change that may be described by 
 saying that the principles of their nature were brought into 
 harmony with the principles of Scripture, so that the language 
 of Scripture became the language of their heart, — in other words, 
 the language and mind of God's Spirit became the language and 
 mind of their spirit also; — then, just as Scripture witnesses 
 unfalteringly for the supremacy and sovereignity of God — of our 
 God, who is in the heavens, and doeth whatsoever pleaseth Him ; 
 yea, doeth all things, and doeth all things well — so also did their 
 thoughts and tendencies turn towards the acknowledgment of 
 their God, the living and the true, the One and the only God ; 
 and nature became to them an open volume, in which they have 
 ever since been reading " the invisible things of God, even His 
 eternal power and Godhead," understanding and seeing them in 
 the mirror of " the things that He hath made," and the events 
 which He causeth to fall out. 
 
 There are few surer signs of a change of heart and feelings 
 towards God than a strong disposition to trace with delight the 
 working of His hand and the evidence of His presence in the 
 works of creation and providence. The renewed soul longs after 
 God — the living God : " When shall I come and appear before 
 God ? " It hath a feeling many times as if it would " break " 
 (Ps. cxix. 20) in its yearning to get near unto God. There is at 
 such times a deep feeling almost of impatience at the present 
 necessity of walking by faith — of having to be content with 
 fellowship conducted only by faith. But in this trying life of 
 faith it is delightful to read in the heavens, stretched out with 
 their glittering hosts of mighty mansions : or in the urgent 
 ascending journey of the morning sun, scattering with his glory 
 the shades of darkness ; or in the mighty roll of the billows, 
 when they rise to assert their utmost majesty, as if each in turn 
 
The Storin. 63 
 
 were king of the ocean realm ; or in the voice of thunder, that 
 breaketh the cedars of Lebanon ; or in the lightning flash, seeming 
 to create out of darkness, and bury with utmost speed again, the 
 scenery on which, from heaven above, it glanceth forth its rapid 
 glory : — in all these it is delightful to a child of God to read the 
 working and the hand of the Father who has promised to bless 
 and to protect him. And though nature's estate carries in it, in 
 the meantime, many a ground of sorrow, and many a remem- 
 brancer of sin, — as when the low monitory wail of tempest prophe- 
 sies the storm that shall put many a life in jeopardy ; and the 
 sullen underswell and moan of the waves, outliving that storm, is 
 too often but the requiem of victims that failed in their weakness 
 to outride it, — it is a relief to the believing heart to know that 
 these sore evidences of derangement and misrule shall not always 
 last ; and that even already they are the " groanings " of creation, 
 "travailing" in pain to be emancipated from the bondage of 
 corruption, " waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God," 
 and longing to be delivered, as at last creation shall, " into the 
 glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 19-22). At 
 such times the believer learns to glory in this hope : — " Neverthe- 
 less we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a 
 new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Nor is he backward 
 to remember the solemn admonition ; — " Seeing then that all these 
 present things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought 
 ye to be in all manner of holy conversation and godliness ? " 
 (2 Pet. iii. 11, 13). 
 
 II. Another very interesting and important point is raised in 
 reading this verse. We see God's controversy with one individual 
 involving many others in danger. The storm is sent forth to 
 pursue, arrest, and punish Jonah, but it implicates in his punish- 
 ment multitudes, doubtless — multitudes who had neither share 
 nor knowledge of his guilt. Certainly it implicates all that sail 
 with him ; and many other vessels, in all probability, were exposed 
 to the same tempest. 
 
 Now, God can easily vindicate His righteousness in involving 
 many in the chastisement of Jonah ; but Jonah cannot escape the 
 responsibility and guilt of having been the occasion of injury 
 to others. 
 
64 The Storm. 
 
 1. The rio-hteousness of God is easily vindicated. No doubb 
 the storm was primarily designed to prosecute His quarrel with 
 Jonah. It was appointed for liivfi, — for him so specially and 
 expressly, so that, save for him, we have no reason to believe it 
 would have been sent out at all. And as a pursuer to arrest the 
 flight of a disobedient subject, the commission given to it is mani- 
 festly and wholly righteous. With regard to the other sufferers 
 from the storm, let us bear in remembrance God's great long- 
 suffering and forbearance. Let us not forget that " every sin 
 deserveth God's wrath and curse, both in this life and in that 
 which is to come." If this solemn statement be true, everything 
 less, in the case of unconverted sinners, than the execution of the 
 sentence on the barren fig-tree, " Cut it down ; why cumbereth it 
 the ground ? " — instead of being difficult to reconcile with Divine 
 justice, must rather be attributed to Divine forbearance. And 
 hence, though not conspirators with Jonah in his particular sin, 
 these mariners, with the multitude of their own sins, and with 
 these very idolatries of theirs which they insult the living God 
 with on this occasion itself (Jonah i. 5) — were sufficiently ob- 
 noxious to be overtaken and involved in this tempest, as well as 
 the guilty prophet. No doubt the leading aim — the immediate 
 Divine design — of this particular storm was to arrest and chas- 
 tise a particular offender. But all were offenders. And while 
 pursuing one special end, God might combine with it various 
 subsidiary purposes, and in connection with His leading one He 
 might gain them also. The iniquities of the sailors were not 
 unduly punished by this affliction coming upon them, though, so 
 far as appears, it would not have come upon them save for Jonah. 
 Great and marvellous is the scheme of God's moral government. 
 Ten thousand purposes is the Lord daily prosecuting by the 
 measures of His providence. One purpose, for the time, may rise 
 into a position of prominence and importance that seems to us to 
 cast all others into the shade. Yet while that one alone, from its 
 palpable and forcible prominence in our view, may concentrate 
 and engross all our attention, it neither engrosses the Divine 
 attention, nor deranges the Divine designs. The subsidiary and 
 subordinate ends are advancing under the Divine control with a 
 regularity never interfered with, and with a wisdom past search- 
 ins; out. The Lord's controversies on this occasion with these 
 
TJie Storm. 65 
 
 mariners may have been very indistinctly pointed out, and are 
 very partially explained to us, compared with the flood of light 
 that is thrown on His controversy with Jonah. Yet while His 
 punishment of Jonah has all this light thrown upon its perfect 
 equity and righteousness, equally righteous is God's dealing with 
 the rest, though its righteousness is not equally, or rather so 
 broadly, exhibited. 
 
 2. But this consideration, while it vindicates the justice of 
 God, affords no relief for the compunctions of Jonah. Jonah 
 cannot vindicate himself from the charge of being the guilty 
 means of involving others in the Divine displeasure, and bringing 
 down upon them a most afflictive dispensation. For while God — 
 continually meting out to sinners, while they are on earth, more 
 or less largely from a free fund of patience, which, though ever 
 righteously administered, is at the disposal of His mere mercy 
 and forbearance — can easily justify Himself, if at any time He 
 diminish the measure which he deals forth from that fund, 
 always finding sufficient reason in the offences against Himself 
 which He thus calls into reckoning ; yet Jonah, when he stands 
 in between these mariners and the amount of Divine patience 
 which, save for him, they would have enjoyed, can never justify 
 himself herein, inasmuch as he cannot plead their offences against 
 him as God can, — for they had never injured Jonah, — and even 
 though they had, lie is not to be acknowledged as the judge by 
 whom providential dispensations and punishments are to be meted 
 out to them. He, therefore, remains as blameworthy as if the 
 righteousness of these men's sufferings could not be vindicated at 
 all. They, indeed, have no right to lay the blame on him, as if 
 they were innocent. But Jonah himself must take all the blame 
 because he is guilty. They are not innocent ; God in thus dealing 
 with them is righteous. God is righteous in visiting upon them 
 transgressions of their own, and in punishing them in this par- 
 ticular way, namely, by sending among them a man whose very 
 presence and company involve a storm, and exposure to death by 
 means of it. But Jonah is not innocent of the distress entailed 
 on the mariners, because he carries about with him a disobedience 
 which God is righteously avenging upon him in a way that must 
 inevitably involve multitudes besides himself. 
 
 Thus may a calamity fall righteously upon a whole family for 
 
 E 
 
66 The Storm. 
 
 the sake of one guilty member ; and in the grief of none of them 
 is God unrighteous, while yet, in a sense, the whole guilt lies on 
 one. The father of a household may so offend the Lord, as that 
 the adequate punishment of his provocation shall not alight 
 solely on his person, but may involve all his house. " Is God 
 unrighteous " in chastising them ? " God forbid ; for how then 
 should God judge the world ?" But does this exempt the guilty 
 man from the blame, the compunction, the remorse, springing 
 from his being the responsible agent in bringing down on those 
 around him the complicated distress in which he and they alike 
 are sharers ? Assuredly not. And when the king of Israel dis- 
 obeyed the Lord and numbered the people, and was punished by 
 a pestilence on his land which slew three score and ten thousand 
 — innocent in this particular crime — it was not as one arraigning 
 the justice of God, but in the bitterest and most mournful com- 
 punction for having been himself the guilty cause of suffering and 
 death to others, that he exclaimed, " Lo, I have sinned, and I have 
 done wickedly ; but these sheep, what have they done ? let thine 
 hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house " 
 <2 Sam. xxiv. 17). 
 
 There is a very solemn lesson in this. 
 
 In our different families, we may, without taking heed to it, 
 be the guilty instruments of deeply injuring those we are bound, 
 and may be anxious to benefit. For, our individual provocations 
 may be provoking the Lord to limit the temporal prosperity, and 
 still more the spiritual blessing, which otherwise He might bestow 
 upon them. His righteousness in so dealing with them He can 
 easily demonstrate. But our guilt in leading Him so to deal with 
 them He can demonstrate as easily. He can prove that He is 
 just. But how can we avoid the blame of temporally and spiri- 
 tually injuring those to whom we ought rather to be the instru- 
 ments and channels of good ? The benefit of God's vindication 
 of His own procedure can never be arrogated by us — can never 
 pass over to us for our vindication. He vindicates Himself on 
 grounds which cannot be pleaded by us, for they do not pertain 
 to us. He vindicates Himself on the ground that the pains and 
 penalties from His hand, brought through us no others, are the 
 righteous punishment of their own offences against Him, or are 
 the beneficial chastisements through means of which He designs 
 
The Storm. 67 
 
 ultimately to crown them with benefits which in no other way 
 could He have conferred, or in no other way so well. We, on the 
 other hand, have had no righteous quarrel to prosecute, and have 
 been seeking to confer no ultimate good. With us lies the naked 
 evil — the unalleviated guilt ; and if there be aught of generous 
 feeling remaining, it will, when we awake to face the facts, sting 
 us to the quick with deep compunction and remorse. Let it not 
 be forgotten that in this way a single individual may be a source 
 of calamity to multitudes ; and that this may result the more 
 surely and extensively as that individual is more closely con- 
 nected with the cause and kingdom of the Lord. Because of a 
 single private member of a congregation, God, in visiting his 
 provocations with the punishment deserved, chastising his sen- 
 suality, or pride, or covetousness, or passion, maj^ involve in much 
 spiritual leanness and unprofitableness all his fellow worshippers. 
 For one single Achan, altogether unnoticeable and. insignificant, 
 save for his sin, the whole camp of Israel may be troubled ; and 
 victory may never return and tarry on their standards, till "judg- 
 ment return unto righteousness, and all the upright follow after 
 it." But how much more if the guilty individual be no private 
 and unnoticeable Achan, but a prophet such as Jonah ! In that 
 case, may not the " wind sent out into the sea " be expected to be 
 " a great wind,"- — " a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship 
 is like to be broken ? " 
 
 If, therefore, the question be raised by members of families, 
 Why is there not more of God's blessing on our households ? or 
 by members of congregations, Why is there not more spiritual 
 life in our assemblies ? — surely it is for each individual to examine 
 himself and prayerfully to inquire, " Lord, is it I?" The same 
 truth and generosity of spirit w^hich would revolt from inflicting 
 injury upon another, and which would say with the greatly 
 agitated king, — " Lo, 1 have sinned, and / have done wickedly ; 
 but these sheep, what have tliey done ? let thy hand, I pray thee, 
 be against me, and against my father's house," — will be incapable 
 of resting under the mere possibility of standing in the way of 
 good, or proving a channel of evil, to another. The bare possi- 
 bility will give pain : the bare possibility will suggest inquiry : 
 " Lord, Is it I ? " And when the risk, the danger, the possibility 
 of being an actual source of disadvantage, whether temporal or 
 
68 The Storm. 
 
 spiritual, does not tenderly touch the soul with sorrow and induce 
 examination, there is reason to fear that the clearest demonstra- 
 tion of this being not only a possibility, but the actual fact, would 
 be met with a heartlessness which neither Achan nor Jonah 
 exhibited, and which would go far to destroy the sympathy 
 and pity with which, in the one case, we listen to Joshua ad- 
 vising the culprit to "give glory to the Lord Ged of Israel, 
 and make confession unto Him" (Joshua vii. 19); and with 
 which, in the other case, we look on while they " take up Jonah 
 and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceases from her 
 raging" (Jonah i. 15). 
 
 To be instruments of good or evil to each other is what, in the 
 present state of God's government over us, we cannot possibly 
 avoid. " None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to him- 
 self " (Rom. xiv. 7). Society is constituted by Divine ordination 
 into a body politic ; and the Church, by eternal covenant, and by 
 every fundamental principle of its nature and estate, is a body 
 spiritual. It is one body. No member can isolate himself. If 
 he could, he would thereby destroy himself. "But God hath 
 tempered the body together, so that there should be no schism in 
 the body ; but that the members should have the same care one 
 for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members 
 suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members 
 rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in 
 particular. And God hath set some in the Church — first, apostles ; 
 secondarily, prophets ; thirdly, teachers : after that, miracles ; 
 then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. 
 Are all apostles ? are all prophets ? are all teachers ? are all 
 workers of miracles ? Have all the gifts of healing ? do all speak 
 with tongues ? do all interpret ? But covet earnestly the best 
 gifts. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, 
 and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tink- 
 ling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and under- 
 stand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though I have all 
 faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I 
 am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, 
 and though I give my body to be burned, and have not chairity, 
 it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; 
 charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 
 
The Stojnn. 69 
 
 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not 
 easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but 
 rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, 
 hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth" 
 <1 Cor. xii. 24-31, xiii. 1-8). 
 
VII. 
 
 THE PRAYER OF TERROR, AND THE SLEEP OF 
 SORROW, IN THE STORM. 
 
 "Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and 
 cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them ; 
 but Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship ; and he lay, and was 
 fast asleep." — Jonah i. 5. 
 
 "■Lord, in trouble have they visited Thee ; they poured out a prayer when Thy 
 chastening was upon them. " — IsAiAH xxvi. 16. 
 
 "And when He was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for 
 sorrow." — Luke xxii. 45. 
 
 IN last chapter we were engaged in considering the prophet, 
 not only as overtaken with punishment himself, but as a 
 source of calamity to others. We saw in this that God was 
 righteous, and Jonah guilty — that God was righteous, not merely 
 in pursuing Jonah, but in involving others in the calamity which 
 was sent forth immediately for Jonah's punishment, while Jonah 
 was guilty in entailing distress upon those who sailed with him. 
 Let us watch against carrying about with us a cloud of God's 
 anger, that may break upon ourselves and all round about us. 
 The Lord our God in such a case can easily clear Himself, but 
 He will not hold us guiltless. If the man is reprobated who, 
 knowingly bearing in his body a most virulent and infectious 
 disease, ultroneously mingles with society on all hands, and 
 extends the plague to multitudes, why is it that in moral and 
 spiritual things the same sharp and righteous judgment is not 
 pronounced ? " One sinner destroyeth much good " (Eccles. ix. 
 18). But one backsliding saint may destroy even more good, 
 and originate even more evil. For, on the one hand, God pursues 
 with much sharpness and severity His erring people. He can let 
 His enemies alone ; but He must, in very love, chastise and correct 
 His sons, — even at the risk of judgment that may swiftly involve 
 many around them, and, it may be, terminate to many their day 
 
In the Storm. 7 1 
 
 of grace and probation. He must chastise His children : " You 
 only have I known of all the families of the earth : therefore 
 will I punish you for all your iniquities " (Amos iii. 2). A sinner, 
 therefore, in your home or household, may not so swiftly nor 
 sorely be dealt with as a backsliding and rebellious son. And on 
 the other hand, as God's rio-hteous chastenings in this case are 
 more immediate and severe, so also are Satan's malignity and 
 malice : for, an unconverted sinner he has always in his power^ 
 and when he will he can blind him and soothe him into deeper 
 insensibility than ever. But when he has advantage over a saint 
 ensnared in sin, he knoweth that " his time is short," his oppor- 
 tunity precarious, and his work by no means easy ; therefore is 
 he strung to the utmost pitch of subtlety and power, "having 
 great wrath," and drawing forth on such a case his uttermost 
 resources. Hence, whether from Satan's devouring malice, or 
 God's correcting chastisements, a saint in rebellion is, in some 
 respects, a more dangerous inmate of a house, or congregation, or 
 community, than a sinner — more likely to prove a centre of 
 danger, a source of calamity to many. 
 
 What a thought is this ! How impressively ought it to tell 
 upon the hearts of believers ! And with what watchfulness and 
 jealousy ought it to inspire them ! For, what can be more painful 
 than to see the godly, through indwelling sin and indulged cor- 
 ruption, acting on the surrounding world, not as the lights thereof, 
 not as the preserving salt thereof, the centres and sources of 
 providential blessings and prolonged forbearance, prevailing to 
 ameliorate the condition, and prolong the probation, and delay 
 the condemnation of the ungodly, — but as swift provocatives to 
 wrath ; no more binding up the hands of God from " His strange 
 work" of indignation, but loosening the avalanche of Judgment, 
 and entailing on many a swift destruction ? Oh, how unutterably 
 more desirable the position of Paul in the selfsame seas, and over- 
 taken by the same "strong wind which breaketh the ships of 
 Tarshish " ! How different with Paul, in the prosecution of liis 
 ministry, from Jonah in fleeing from his ! — not entailing danger, 
 but deliverance : " And now I exhort you to be of good cheer : 
 for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the 
 ship ; for there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I 
 am, and idioiin I serve, saying. Fear not, Paul ; thou must be 
 
72 The Prayei'- of Terror 
 
 brought before Caesar : and lo, God Itaili given thee all them that 
 sail luith thee " (Acts xxvii. 22-24). 
 
 Believer ! are you, in this respect, as Jonah ; or as Paul ? Are 
 you, to others, a source of deliverance, or a source of danger ? Is 
 your company and neighbourhood dangerous, because you are 
 provoking the forth-flash of the bolt of anger ? Or is it truly 
 to be desired ? — according to what, while you are faithful to God, 
 shall evermore be God's faithfully fulfilled promise to you, " I 
 will bless thee, and mahe thee a blessing." 
 
 Let us proceed with the narrative. In the verse now before 
 us, the fifth verse, the immediate conduct of the mariners is 
 described — and the immediate conduct of Jonah, — under the 
 storm. 
 
 I. The effect of the storm on the mariners. 
 
 They " were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and 
 cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten 
 it of them." 
 
 1. We read, first, that " the mariners were afraid." From this 
 we learn that the storm was singularly violent, and the danger 
 imminently great. Sailors are not speedily alarmed. They are 
 proverbially brave and bold. But when even the crew themselves 
 on this occasion were alarmed, we gather that the tempest was 
 unusually terrific. God, indeed, employed no miracle in raising 
 this storm ; but having a special purpose to serve by it. He 
 stamped upon it a special terror, that His power and will might 
 be the more readily recognised as engaged in it. When we pro- 
 voke a controversy with God, and constrain Him to send after us 
 a prosecutor or pursuer. He can easily confer on His agent some 
 mark of majesty or terror, — some insignia of special power, — 
 some resistless tone or token, whereby we may be baffled in 
 attempting to hide from ourselves the source of his commission. 
 The Lord, the great Judge and Lawgiver, can clothe His officers 
 with somewhat of His own delegated attributes, and compel us 
 to recognise them as sent by HiTn. 
 
 2. The mariners " cried every man unto his god." Their 
 heathenism here displayed itself in their worship of many gods, 
 every man praying to his own god : while the amount of religion 
 
In the Storvi. ']'\i 
 
 natural to the human mind comes to light in these poor heathen 
 men. For there is in the bosom of every man by nature the 
 conviction that there is a God ; that there are at least superior 
 beings, if not One Supreme. There is wrought into the inmost 
 frame of our minds a conviction that we are dependent creatures ; 
 not our own masters, not gods unto ourselves. The consciousness 
 of sin — and sin is just an attempt to be gods unto ourselves — is 
 itself sufficient to testify to us of a God. Were our effort to be 
 independent a calm, simple, strengthening thing, the proof might 
 fail. But no man can consider his own feelings without being 
 convinced that the attempt to be his own lord and master, to do 
 just as he pleases, to be in subjection to no lord over his inmost 
 will, to walk in the light of his own eyes — the attempt, in short, 
 to be his own ruler, or his own god, is really a revolt against the 
 deepest convictions in his soul ; that it carries with it anything 
 but rest, calmness, strength, and satisfaction ; that, on the con- 
 trary, it has in it all the iiiarks of a struggle, of an unsuccessful 
 struggle ; that he remains still restless, unsatisfied, struggling — 
 struggling still in vain. The stronger his will is, the more is he 
 doomed to feel that he cannot assert its supremacy ; and circum- 
 stances outwardly conspire to aid the inward conviction. There 
 is a power controlling all things, and not to be controlled by us. 
 The will of man must break or bend ; it cannot possibly reign 
 supreme. The very restlessness — the very impatience of restraint 
 or contradiction — which men so often exhibit against the allot- 
 ments of Providence, is a confession that they feel themselves in 
 the grasp of a power mightier than their own. Whether we 
 bend in submission, meek and patient, or resist and defy, we are 
 alike owning a superior power. We are constituted so as that 
 we cannot help doing so. A knowledge, a feeling, an intuitive 
 belief in a God, is one of the deepest principles created in our 
 nature, and never extinguished. 
 
 Nor is it merely a superior power that we are by nature so 
 profoundly convinced of, but a living and personal Being ; and 
 this profound conviction manifests itself in calling upon Him, 
 as one who can exercise His power voluntarily, or refrain from 
 exercising it. This knowledge of a God may be unattended to by 
 multitudes, whether of heathens or of nominal Christians. For 
 the most part, it lies buried under worldly security. Sensual 
 
74 The Prayed' of Terror 
 
 indulgence seems to drive it farther and farther back into a 
 region of conceahnent and slumber. The prosecution of worldly 
 interests as the chief good tends more and more to impair its 
 testimony. But it is never dislodged. Men may "not like to 
 retain God in their knowledo-e;" but the knowledsre of a God 
 abides within them still. Seasons of dansfer and terror call it 
 forth to view ; and the sudden prayer of alarm is the proof that 
 even the most profane and profligate carry in their bosom the 
 evidence of their righteous condemnation; when, not liking to 
 retain God in their knowledge, they are " given over to a repro- 
 bate mind " for being unfaithful to the knowledge conferred upon 
 them from the first (Rom. i. 28). 
 
 We learn, then, from the conduct of these heathens, how 
 deeply rooted in human nature is the conviction of a God. But 
 we learn also the great worthlessness of prayers wrung out under 
 terror. There is inlaid in human nature a central assurance or 
 conviction of a God. In the case of the ungodly it is allowed, for 
 the most part, to lie utterly dormant and concealed. If imminent 
 and appalling danger force out some alarmed manifestation of it 
 in some excited cry to God for mercy or protection, there is really 
 as little evidence of grace or virtue in such a prayer, as when the 
 war-horse, in the instinct of self-preservation, rears in terror as 
 the gleaming sword flashes round his head. The prayer that is 
 acceptable to God is the prayer of faith, of calm confidence and 
 reliance on the word and love and Avisdom and power of a 
 gracious and reconciled Father. Very different from this is the 
 prayer extorted amidst the terrors of a storm from those with 
 whom otherwise prayer is unknown. Such prayers have in them 
 as little holiness or grace as the crash of the elements amidst 
 which they mingle, or the instincts of animal life. They are 
 prayers which a heathen may offer up— which these heathen 
 mariners on this occasion offered. Alas ! how much trust is often 
 placed— and how groundlessly — on prayers presented where the 
 terrors of Providence, acting on the mere instincts of nature, have 
 forced out something like the appearance of religion ! It is said 
 of the children of Israel that, when the Lord " slew them, then 
 they sought Him ; they returned and inquired early after God. 
 And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God 
 their Redeemer." Under the constraint of afflictive dispensations 
 
In the Storm. 75 
 
 and retributive judgments, they could not avoid calling God to 
 their remembrance ; and with much appearance of sorrow for 
 their offence, and promise of better things, they seemed to return 
 to their allegiance to the Lord, the King of Israel. They remem- 
 bered their obligations to Him as their Redeemer and Deliverer 
 — their high tower and their rock. Better feelings seemed for 
 the time to gain the ascendancy ; and, judged of by their conduct 
 under these punishments and trials, they would seem to have been 
 turned from the error of their ways to the living and the true 
 God. But it is added by the Spirit, through whom holy men 
 wrote as they were moved to put on record the melancholy 
 narrative : " Nevertheless, they did flatter Him with their 
 mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their 
 heart was not right with Him, neither were they stedfast in His 
 covenant" (Ps. Ixxviii. 34-37). And what are the enormous 
 majority of prayers extorted by the smart blow of affliction, or 
 the sudden apparition of danger or of death ? What are they 
 but a " flattering " of God, and a telling of " lies " unto Him ? In 
 the near view of eternal woe, the sinner may make promises of 
 any kind or to any amount ; and no wonder though he should. 
 To escape immediate and eternal ruin, no wonder though the 
 most abject, submissive, servile resolutions should be formed. 
 The alarmed wretch cringes at the feet of Omnipotence, and 
 promises whatever conscience may demand or superstition may 
 suggest, careless utterly for the time whether he have the pro- 
 spect of fulfilling his promises or not. But does such a style of 
 relio-ion or relio-ious exercise honour God ? Or is it honourable 
 to man ? The God who is so addressed is not honoured as a holy, 
 righteous, good and gracious Father ; He is flattered, fawned upon 
 as a tyrant, and cozened as a fool ; v/hile the worshipper himself, 
 clutching at false arguments and coining false promises, if by any 
 means he may avoid destruction, is clothing himself more abun- 
 dantly with disgrace, and sinking his moral nature into deeper 
 degradation. By such worship God is robbed of His glory, and 
 man of his manhood. Oh ! there is no " glory to God," no " peace 
 on earth," except through the great Advocate and Intercessor, 
 and through the prayer of faith presented in His name. Through 
 Him, and His infinitely perfect sacrifice, how manifestly does our 
 God appear to us, as no terrific tyrant under whom we must 
 
76 The Prayer of Tej'i^or 
 
 cringe in abject servility ? as no flexible fool whom we may 
 flatter into a change of purpose to suit our convenience, or secure 
 our impunity in sin. No : He is the God of infinite Love, giving 
 up His Son to die for sinners. He is the God of infinite, inflexible 
 Justice, subjecting His Son to death for sinners. It is an un- 
 speakably righteous thing to pray to Him. It is to be in calm, 
 deliberate, perfect resting in his righteousness and love in Jesus: 
 — no fit of momentary fervour ; no sentimental flash of feeling, 
 drawn forth as by the loveliness and beauty of the heavens 
 above ; and no instinctive spasm of soul created as by the terror 
 of the scene when all is changed, and storm and death seem to 
 fly around : — but the passing over unto God, on the terms of an 
 infinitely righteous and gracious covenant, of the whole inner 
 man, to take up its rest in God, as a Father and a Friend — the 
 Lord and King of the conscience, the Governor of heart and life ! 
 Ah ! there is often an impetuous blasphemy in the prayers of the 
 ungodly, when sudden danger or death first forces them to pray. 
 Nothing then of the spirit of godliness, adoring the majesty of 
 the Most High ; — nothing of tender, mournful sorrow for sin, 
 owning the righteousness of every punishment, however great, of 
 every threatened blow, however terrible ; — nothing of the meek 
 submission that says, or essays to say, " Not my will, but Thine 
 be done;" — nothing of the filial, unbounded trust which believes 
 that in any case all shall be well, and says, " Though my house 
 be not so with God, yet hath He made with me an everlasting 
 covenant, ordered in all things and sure." Oh, if these are some 
 of the elements of true prayer, how offensive unto God must be 
 many of those bowlings amidst danger, when the wild cry of 
 terror dictates impetuously to God what He shall do ! And in 
 how many cases does the danger serve only to bring to light that 
 original and instinctive knowledge of God which the wicked so 
 wickedly suppress, till by such means it is forced into the light, 
 and its existence discovered onlj^ to become the means of dis- 
 covering also the righteous ground of their final condemnation ! 
 How solemnly do such considerations teach us that the time of 
 health and quiet is the time for prayer ; and that if we leave 
 prayer to the time of danger or the approach of death, there may 
 be wrung from us, in that case, some instinctive cry to God, that 
 may serve merely the purposes of condemnation, and be only our 
 
In the Storm. 77 
 
 own sealing of our own death-warrant for ever ! " Behold, now is 
 the accepted time : behold, now is the day of salvation," 
 
 It is not meant to say that every believer, at the approach of 
 appalling danger, will be able to pray with holy calmness, with 
 undismayed and holy courage. He may, on the contrary, be 
 overwhelmed by the thought of having speedily to appear before 
 God in judgment. And every believer must know how insuf- 
 ficient he is in himself for maintaining the honour of God, and 
 the honour of his own profession, in such a crisis. But it will be 
 his earnest prayer that, in such circumstances and scenes, in 
 which the raging selfishness and evil conscience of the ungodly 
 are often so frightfully displayed, he may receive grace to mani- 
 fest the superiority of the Christian's character — to maintain the 
 calmness of the Christian's hope. It cannot be that, in such a 
 case, holy trust can rise superior to terror without a conflict, a 
 good fight of faith — the calm courage and believing confidence 
 of the spirit surmounting and suppressing the unbelieving terror 
 and distracted cowardice of the flesh. Every manifestation of 
 Christian character is indeed a triumph ; a triumph over precisely 
 the very principles which rule supreme in the sinner. And 
 hence, amidst scenes of sudden terror, a man's Christianity may 
 not be denied, though he cannot at once and immediately con- 
 front danger with a hero's calmness. Nevertheless, Christianity 
 inspires a calmness and a courage in the hour of danger, which 
 nothing else can inspire. And every Christian ought to pray, 
 that in the hour of danger his Christianity may triumph. We 
 do not know through what scenes of unspeakable danger or dis- 
 tress it may yet be our lot to pass. We may have to witness — 
 we may have to share — the overwhelming dangers of the tempest 
 and the shipwreck. We may have to pass through that most 
 searching of all ordeals, discovering, perhaps more intensely and 
 correctly than almost any other, whether the conscience is still 
 guilty, or the heart established in grace. It is for each of us to 
 inquire whether there be a well-founded probability of our pass- 
 ing through such a scene, with anything like true peace to our- 
 selves, and credit to the profession which as Christians we make. 
 Soon may some such trial overtake us. With what lowly 
 humility does it become us to think of it — to seek the grace that 
 is sufficient ! 
 
78 The Prayer of Terror 
 
 3. But we read further concerning these mariners, that " they 
 cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten 
 it of them." Yes: "skin for skin; all that a man hath will he 
 give for his life." 
 
 Thus the infinite littleness and triflingness of all earthly- 
 possessions is revealed. In such an hour, the heir of a hundred 
 estates is on a level with the humblest peasant : the richest and 
 the poorest meet together : the riches of the one must be tossed 
 overboard : for the life of either is more — infinitely more than 
 them all. 
 
 Why is not this habitually remembered ? Why should it 
 need storms, and tempest, and shipwreck, and threatened death, 
 to remind reasonable beings that their souls are infinitely more 
 precious than all earthly things ? Why should men not notice 
 this and act upon it, until God compels them, as in this case, to 
 see it ? He forces, in such circumstances, — He forces a sight of 
 the uselessness of all worldly good. " Thou fool," that lovest 
 these things more than God, more than thy soul ; if "this night 
 thy soul shall be required of thee," " whose shall these things 
 be?" Were it not better to prefer thy life to them now, and 
 sit loose to them ever henceforth ? " The life is more than meat, 
 and the body more than raiment." " Wherefore spend ye your 
 money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that 
 which satisfieth not " — which must be thrown overboard — which 
 must be parted with at last ? Oh, rather " eat ye that which 
 is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Feed it not 
 on husks. Prefer not perishing idols. 
 
 What will they do for thee in a dying hour ? The cry to the 
 physicians has been heard from the dying lips of the rich, " All 
 my fortune for another day of life." And " We could not prolong 
 your life for another hour, though you gave us the wealth of 
 worlds," was the answer. Blessed they who have the pearl of 
 great price ! " Though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
 of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." 
 
 II. But having considered the manner in which the mariners 
 were afi'ected by the mighty tempest which the Lord sent out : 
 let us inquire after the unhappy prophet who was the guilty 
 occasion of this alarming calamity. While terror reigned on the 
 
In the Stoinn. 79 
 
 decks, and the very mariners themselves were unmanned, strange 
 to say, he formed a singular exception. " Jonah was gone down 
 into the sides of the ship, and he lay, and was fast asleep." 
 
 It has been customary with commentators to deal out very hard 
 measure to Jonah ; and it is an easy task. Nothing can be easier 
 than to denounce his disobedience in fleeing from the presence 
 of the Lord, and refusing His commission to Nineveh. And this 
 has been done abundantly by many who have shown little real 
 knowledge of Jonah's actual position, and still less insight into 
 his character. And, in particular, he has been much abused for 
 being asleep during the storm ; and his sleep has been spoken of 
 as if it were the very acme or model of insensate spiritual stupi- 
 dity and godless security and apathy. Alas ! hov/ little do such 
 persons understand this singular man of God ! We venture to 
 say that had Jonah been distinguished for less sensibility, he 
 would have been more likely to be awake than asleep. It was 
 not insensate, secure, and slumberous apathy that lulled the pro- 
 phet into this singular, and so curiously timed, and so very deep 
 sleep. It was not because the things of God, and the will of God, 
 and his relation to God, were topics of negligent or slight con- 
 sideration with Jonah — but precisely the reverse. 
 
 Ah, how deeply agitated has this poor prophet — this frightened 
 fugitive — been ! Has it been costing him little care, think you, 
 that he is on the footing of a disobedient servant, a self-banished 
 son, with God ? Have his thoughts been few, and slow, and calm, 
 and easily arranged, and fully mastered ? And has he been quite 
 quiet in mind, and altogether self-possessed ? Oh, very far from 
 it. A thousand anxieties cut and harass his weary heart. The 
 sore sense of all being wrong between him and his God ; — the 
 sad consciousness of being the victim of his own rebellion, and 
 yet choosing to continue in it, a voluntary slave, disobedient 
 knowingly ; — the resignation of his ministry, a ministry so 
 honourable, though difficult ;: — the loss of his native land, and 
 such a land, Emmanuel's land ! — the dark future wrapt in gloom, 
 having nothing to promise, and everything to threaten; — the 
 countless fears and fightings with which, "in the multitude of 
 his thoughts within him," he must have been exercised, while in 
 the multitude of these thoughts no "comforts of the Lord 
 deliofhted " or relieved " his soul : " — these things must have cost 
 
8o The Sleep of Sorroiv 
 
 him an amount of anxiety and of mental excitement, that, work- 
 ing on a temperament like Jonah's, naturally nervous, and sensi- 
 tive to the very excess of irritation, must have worn him out 
 both in body and in mind, till at last, as he ended his weary flight, 
 and laid down his weary head in the hold of the ship, excited and 
 now exhausted nature locked him fast in sleep. Discrimination 
 is needed in judging of Scripture characters. And discrimination 
 is needed — and charity — in judging one another among ourselves. 
 Sorroiv, not insensibility, shall account to a gracious Lord for 
 
 /\ His disciples sleeping at Gethsemane's gate. " He found them 
 ) sleeping for sorrow " (Luke xxii. 45). May He not graciously 
 accept the same explanation of Jonah's deep sleep, while tempest 
 and terror reigned around ? 
 
 But while a more charitable account may thus be given of the 
 prophet's deep sleep, it does not hinder that we should see in it 
 the deplorable effects of being overtaken in a state of disobedience 
 to God. Jonah sleeping in the storm reminds us that the officers 
 of God's justice may be on the track of the fugitive, and hemming 
 him in on every side ; and he ignorant that they are let loose 
 against him. He, in fact, may be the very last to suspect that 
 they are already in pursuit. 
 
 O sinner ! the bolt may be almost on the wing that is to pierce 
 your heart. The tempest may be at its very height which is to 
 engulf you. The pestilence may be gathering up its chiefest 
 virulence to discharge into your body, and reduce it to a putrid 
 mass of corruption : and in your prayerless and ungodly estate 
 you may be locked in deep sleep of spirit. How can you tell but 
 substantially this may be your very case now, if you have never 
 yet entered into peace and fellowship with God ? To be verging 
 into the imbecility of second childhood, or to be nearing the grave, 
 without knowing it, is a melancholy picture. " Strangers have 
 devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not ; yea, gray hairs 
 are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not." But, for 
 God to be gathering around you the fuel and flame by which to 
 burn down your self-complacency and your refuges of lies, and 
 to be setting fire to them, and still you not knowing it, — this is 
 indeed alarming. Such a thing is, however, but too possible in 
 the case of those who are still neglecting the question of their 
 peace with God. " Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the 
 
In the Storm. 
 
 robbers ? did not the Lord, He against whom we have sinned ? 
 for they would not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient 
 unto His law. Therefore He hath poured upon him the fury of 
 His anger, and the strength of battle : and it hath set him on fire 
 round about, yet he knew not ; and it burned him, yet he laid it 
 not to heart " (Isa. xlii. 24, 25). 
 
 Even so. The rage of the tempest alarms others, while he 
 for whom it rages is asleep. 
 
VIII. 
 THE WORLD REBUKING THE CHURCH. 
 
 " So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, 
 O sleeper ? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, 
 that we perish not." — Jonah i. 6. 
 
 " If the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it he salted ? " — Matt. v. 13. 
 
 HERE we may profitably consider in the first place, the rebuke 
 administered to Jonah by the pilot ; and, thereafter, the 
 proposal made to him. The shipmaster has a proposal to make 
 to him ; " Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think 
 upon us, that we perish not." But first he rebukes him sharply : 
 " What meanest thou, sleeper ? " 
 
 It is a melancholy scene : a scene for a friend of God to sorrow 
 over ; for His enemies to rejoice in. A prophet of the Lord 
 rebuked by a heathen pilot ! The Church reproved by the 
 world ! And not in mere insolence and enmity ; not as the fruit 
 of an ingenious search for something to hold up to scorn ; but in 
 a matter that needed not the keen scent of malice to hunt out — a 
 matter that could not possibly be overlooked. 
 
 Ah ! there is an enmity in the carnal heart towards God, that 
 shows itself in malignant dislike of those that are His — of those 
 that bear in any measure of distinctness His image, and that 
 maintain with any degree of decision His cause. How often do 
 worldly men maliciously search out the faults of the godly, ap- 
 plying to them an altogether different measure from what they 
 mete out to their own worldly companions ! The godliness of 
 the godly provokes them. Conscience attests the superiority of 
 the truly religious man, and that attestation rises in their souls 
 whether they will or not. On that point, however, as on many 
 more, they are at war with conscience, and labouring to suppress 
 its dictates and decisions. They have a kind of perverse interest 
 in making out the godly, with all their professions, to be no better 
 
The World Rebuking the Chitrch. 83 
 
 than themselves. They would fain minister to their own ease, 
 and suppress their own misgivings, by concluding that, after all, 
 there is no reality — no permanent, effective, substantial reality — 
 in the piety of those that shun their ways and testify against 
 their wickedness. And in prosecution of this desire, how readily 
 will they bring out to view, and harp upon, failings, infirmities, 
 inconsistencies, such as, occurring in their earthly-minded com- 
 panions, would never for a moment be mentioned ! Eagerly they 
 will seek out the evidence, long will they keep up the memory 
 of such inconsistencies, such unworthiness, on the Christian's 
 part. They will watch for your halting ; and when they find 
 it, they will hail it with joy, and perpetuate its remembrance 
 with delight. 
 
 But if they watch for your halting, and search out diligently 
 your infirmity, what shall be said, if, without the need of their 
 search at all, you put your infirmity in its worst form under their 
 very eye ? What if, in the very eye of the world, you sleep as 
 do others — yea, sleep more soundly than others can ? What if 
 Jonah falls asleep, when even heathen pilots are awake ? 
 
 What is to be expected then ? Why should you look for 
 anything but rebuke — for being put ignominiously to shame — for 
 being covered with confusion. In such a case, you cannot attri- 
 bute that rebuke to pure malice, to special enmit}^, to an over- 
 searching inquiry into evidence, or an over-stern verdict on your 
 sin. In no case, indeed, are you entitled to palliate your infirmity 
 or abate your remorse and grief in bringing dishonour on your 
 high name, on the ground that the world has dealt with you in 
 keen and stern severity. Their motive in blaming will never 
 attenuate your blameworthinesss. And even when clear malice 
 can be proved against them, confounding your mere infirmity 
 with sheer hypocrisy and wickedness, your grounds of sorrow 
 still remain. But how unspeakably more poignant and piercing 
 must your grief and contrition be, if you have so fallen, so sinned, 
 so shown yourself indifferent to the will of God, as that, even in 
 friendliness itself, the worldling could not help expostulating with 
 you on your fall ! 
 
 It was thus with Jonah, the servant and prophet of the Lord. 
 It needed no malice, and it argued no enmity in the pilot to 
 rebuke him. He could not, indeed, have done otherwise. The pilot 
 
84 The World Rebuking the Church. 
 
 spoke sharply, but he spoke well — better than he himself knew. 
 The rebuke was'more fully deserved than the pilot himself under- 
 stood. " What meanest thou, sleeper ? " 
 
 1. For, in the first place, and speaking merely negatively, 
 Jonah deserved rebuke for what he did not do. 
 
 He was not bearing testimony for his God at this moment. 
 He was not exhibiting the power of trust in God. He had a 
 splendid opportunity of doing so, — and lost it. He lost a very 
 remarkable opportunity of bearing a noble and timely testimony 
 to the living and true God, " which hath made the sea and the 
 dry land " (chap. i. 9), and who sitteth above the floods, and 
 keepeth His people's souls in peace. Amidst the crashing storm 
 and the terror that reigned in the ship, Jonah, had he been in the 
 way of duty instead of fleeing from it, and in the exercise of faith 
 instead of worn out and worn down in a conflict with his own 
 conscience, might have stood forth, as Paul on a similar occasion, 
 fearless for himself — a sort of bulwark, a rock of strength to 
 others also. In the way of his duty to a reconciled God, and in 
 fresh and immediate confidence in Him, he might have been free 
 from the exhaustion caused by a long spiritual conflict ; awake ; 
 vigilant ; in perfect peace, in holy calm ; bold as a lion while 
 others trembled ; waxing stronger and stronger as the strength 
 of others waned. Ah, the question might have been asked him 
 then, " What meanest thou ? " — but it would have had another 
 import. How canst thou thus look on in peace, while heaven and 
 earth seem dashed together and commingled ? And he might 
 have answered from the Psalm, — for he knew well the Psalms, as 
 his prayer in the depths reveals, — he might have answered for 
 himself and for all believing Hebrews, " God is our refuge and 
 our strength, a very present help in trouble : Therefore will not 
 we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains 
 be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the waters thereof 
 roar and be troubled ; though the mountains shake with the 
 swelling thereof" (Ps. xlvi. 1-3). That would have glorified his 
 God in the eyes of the heathen mariners. That would have been 
 a testimony to the living power of the true God to support and 
 strengthen His waiting ones in all circumstances. And doubtless 
 such a testimony could not have been borne without making its 
 own impression on all who saw it, evoking in substance the ques- 
 
The World Rebuking the Church. 85 
 
 tion put by the king to Daniel, " Daniel, servant of the living 
 God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver 
 thee from the lions ? " (Dan. vi. 20). O Jonah, servant of the 
 living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to 
 give thee peace like this ? Yes ; " Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
 peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee " 
 (Isa. xxvi. 3). 
 
 This noble opportunity of witness-bearing for his God, how- 
 ever, Jonah allowed to pass unimproved. And do not we often 
 allow many a precious opportunity to pass without taking advan- 
 tage of it ? Are you careful, believing brethren — ye who serve 
 the living God, — ye whose consciences have been purged by the 
 blood of Jesus from dead works to serve the living God, — are you 
 careful, in time of trial, adversity, poverty, anxiety, or bereave- 
 ment, to show the world how the grace of God, how the faith of 
 Jesus, how the fellowship of the Spirit, can suffice to keep your 
 soul in perfect peace and perfect patience ! Do you loyally feel 
 the duty lying upon you to your King, to prove to those who 
 know Him not, and see not the light of His countenance, and 
 receive not His supplies of strength, that the strength he gives is 
 nevertheless very real, and that the light of His countenance 
 sweetens the afflicted heart, and sustains the anxious, waiting, 
 longhig desire, which being delayed would make the worldling's 
 heart altogether sick, while yours is strong ? Do you feel the 
 holy obligation, not merely of avoiding palpable and plain matter 
 of offence, but of — over and above a certain style of innocence 
 or inoffensiveness — positively causing your light to shine, so that 
 others, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father which 
 is in heaven ? Deliberately think, now. What is it you do, 
 what is it you design or attempt, in the way of positively com- 
 mending the excellence, the acceptableness, the beauty of true 
 Christian character, the value, the strength, the sweetness, the 
 cordiality, the true cheerfulness of having trust and confidence 
 in a reconciled God ? Would the world be led to feel from you, 
 and from what they see in you, that living piety, the piety of 
 faith and fellowship with God, of God's society and God's service, 
 is really excellent and precious — promotive of strength and purity 
 of character, promotive of peace and power of mind, promotive 
 of beneficial issues to yourself, and beneficent dispositions to your 
 
86 The World Rebuking the Church. 
 
 fellow-men — promotive alike of your comfort and usefulness here, 
 as well as of your high hopes and prospects for hereafter ? And 
 when the dark night of trial and forebodings descends, and others 
 lose all their comfort and all their courage ; when, in the sight of 
 death and eternal destinies, the hearts of others fail them ; do 
 you make it plain that in the faith of a crucified and risen 
 Saviour there is a power which no adverse power can baffle, and 
 a peace which no storm can break, and a hidden life — a life hid 
 with Christ in God, in the secret of His presence, in the covert 
 of His peaceful pavilion ? Ah, then you are indeed among the 
 children of light, not sleeping as do others, not sleeping as did 
 Jonah ; children of light — lights in the darkness ; your light so 
 shining that men shall glorify your Father in heaven. 
 
 But do you really watch thus to shine ? Do you not often 
 forget your duty thus to shine ? And yet, why hast thou seen 
 the light ? Why hath the Lord thy God shone upon thee, and 
 His glory risen upon thee ? Why hath He given thee the light 
 of salvation — the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
 the face of Jesus Christ ? Is it not that thou niayest reflect that 
 light ? If thou art not reflecting it, must thou not conclude that 
 thou art receiving it in less measure than thou knowest ? What 
 meanest thou, O believer ? — shining little ; showing others little 
 of the light, little of Christ ; doing little to tell of thy Saviour, 
 to shine upon thy brother as thy Saviour, thine Elder Brother 
 has shone on thee ? Arise ; " what meanest thou ? " Ay, what 
 meanest thou ? and what meaneth Jesus ? Meanest thou other 
 than He means ? Breakest thou thy fellowship with Him in this 
 matter ? Jesus meaneth some light to others as well as to thee ; 
 He meaneth to show them some light by means of thee. To this 
 end, wouldst thou but rise and reflect the light. He would shine 
 on thee more sweetly, more brightly, than hitherto He has ever 
 done. Come, and in the faith that Jesus shines upon thee, and 
 will shine upon thee more and more unto the perfect day, arise 
 thou and shine on others. " Arise, shine ; for thy light hath come, 
 and the glory of the Lord hath arisen upon thee " (Isa. Ix. 1). 
 
 Negatively, then, or in consideration of what he did not do, of 
 what he omitted, of what he lost the opportunity of doing, Jonah 
 merited the heathen man's rebuke. 
 
 2. But, secondly, Jonah not only deserved his rebuke on 
 
The World Rebuking the Church. 87 
 
 negative grounds, but also because he was a positive scandal or 
 stumbling-block in the circumstances. And from the picture, as 
 it appeared, of shameful supineness, stupidity, and insensibility, 
 which the prophet presented, the pilot was surely most justifiable 
 in somewhat sharply, or even roughly, reproving him. No doubt 
 the prophet's sleep had a very diflTerent origin and cause from any 
 that the pilot could have dreamt of or understood. Weary and 
 worn with spiritual conflict, and anxiety, and sorrow, the ex- 
 hausted fugitive sank to sleep, very much as the sorrowful 
 Apostles at the gate of Gethsemane, — not from utter and shame- 
 ful lack of feeling, but from wrongly governed strength of feeling. 
 And it is, indeed, indicative of very poor powers of appreciation 
 or sympathy with the spiritual mind to treat the prophet's 
 slumber as if it were quite parallel with the levity of lust- 
 drugged apathy of the senseless or sensual sinner. With us, to 
 whom the whole facts are revealed, it would be inexcusable to 
 class the sleeping fugitive with worldly sleepers — with those that 
 are at ease in Zion. But the astonished mariner had not the 
 means of judging that we have. He knew not the explanatory 
 circumstances that we know. The plain fact was before him, of 
 the prophet's slumber at such a time ; his being fast asleep, while 
 the storm had brought death to gaze upon them and to claim them. 
 And so, O believer, it may be on an occasion with you. The 
 evil in you that meets the world's eye may be connected with 
 your spiritual experience, with your knowledge and service of 
 the living God, much more closely than the world can be expected 
 to understand. Instead of arguing your utter hypocrisy — as the 
 shallow world, with its short and easy method, its quick and off- 
 hand receipts, is ever ready to argue — your infirmity may be 
 such as could not exist, or at least not in you, in its particular 
 form, save for your being, in the main, godly. For instance, you 
 may be ill at ease in conscience concerning some duty omitted, or 
 some offence given to your God. The iniquity may be such as 
 the world would smile at thinking fitted to give any sane man 
 trouble. It may be merely, — ah ! you would not say riiierely, 
 though they would, — it may be merely your want of realising 
 positive and happy fellowship with Christ. You may have been 
 growing strange towards your best Friend. Your enjoyment of 
 His word and ordinances may have been growing tame and dull. 
 
The World Rebuking the Church. 
 
 your joyful and cordial communion with Him desultory; your 
 alacrity and happiness in His service may have greatly diminished, 
 and your work for Him who loved you been hanging heavy on 
 your hands. You are ill at ease; and no wonder. Your con- 
 science upbraids you. You are uncomfortable. You are almost irrit- 
 able. You become unsocial, ungenial, uncongenial, sour, fretted, 
 an unhappy and unpleasant companion. The very worldling can 
 afford to point to you as far inferior, in real frankness, and free- 
 ness, and cordiality of feeling, to many who make nothing like 
 your professions of piety to God and charity to man. True, the 
 worldling cannot appreciate, and will not make allowance for, 
 those elements of Christian integrity with which your temporary 
 peevishness and fretf ulness, your present want of social kindliness 
 and geniality of temperament, are connected. And, in one sense, 
 it is very easy for him to cast a stone at you. It is very easy for 
 him, on his smooth sea, and with his shining sky ; and coasting 
 gaily along in his tiny shallop, to blame on your part the anxious 
 face, and knitted brow, and hard compressed lips, and abstracted 
 air, and unsocial bearing, while all the waves and billows of 
 inward anxiety are passing over j'ou. It is very easy for him to 
 blame you ; and it is very hard that such as you should be blamed 
 by such as he. Still the question is, What can the world take 
 you for, but what you appear to be ? And if inevitably they 
 must form a judgment that will not take all the trials of your 
 conflict into account, are you not the more bound to see that in 
 that conflict you so fight by faith, and, having done all, so stand, 
 that the cheerfulness of true Christian peace shall, if not uni- 
 formly, yet usually, be seen shining upon you, while the joy of 
 the Lord shall be your strength. 
 
 The worldling's conscience has not the tenderness of the 
 Christian's conscience, and therefore is not so readily pained. 
 The worldling's peace has not the purity of the Christian's peace, 
 and therefore is not so readily marred. It is easy for the one to 
 take things coolly ; to be quite gay and cheerful, frank, and free- 
 hearted, and joyous in his way ; while the soul shaken with 
 eternal verities, and watching to walk with a holy and eternal 
 God, may oftentimes be deeply tried, and liable to be greatly 
 fretted. And it is easy for the shallow, earthly-minded man, who 
 has let alone Christ, and whom now in judgment Christ is well- 
 
The World Rebuking the Church. 89 
 
 nigh letting alone ; it is easy for him, knowing nothing of the 
 trials, the terrors of sin finding him out, of God mercifully not 
 letting him alone, but proving, chastising, disciplining him, lest 
 Satan should gain dominion over him : it is easy for him to make 
 a mock of a sensitive, scrupulous, conscientious soul, under the 
 hiding of God's countenance for sin, and backsliding, and unbelief. 
 But still the question returns. What right have j^ou to be bringing 
 up an ill report on the religion of the Son of God, as if they who 
 profess it lose much in the way of cheerfulness, joyousness, 
 sweetness of temper, geniality of disposition, frankness of heart 
 and manner, which those who profess it not may retain ? Brino- 
 no such scandal on the brotherhood — on those that are within. 
 Be no such stumbling-block to those that are without. Let there 
 be nothing which the world can point to and say concerning it. 
 We are more distinguished for this excellence than you, — we, 
 who make no profession, than you, whose profession is great. 
 Hast thou no inward peace to sit enthroned on an open placid 
 brow ? Hast thou no joy within to break into a peaceful, placid 
 smile, the smile of frank and loving joy, that would tempt the 
 very child to flee to thee, as, in its innocence, its very choice and 
 chief companion ? Hast thou too much inward anguish with sin, 
 — with great and weary thoughts of life, and death, and ever- 
 lasting things ? And, as on a very sea of trouble, with the wind 
 boisterous, art thou so filled with anxiety and fear, as that tender 
 Christian peace and the lovel}^ garniture of attractive Christian 
 graces have little chance to be seen in thee ? Behold, brother, 
 a mild majestic form walking on those very waters, wending His 
 way towards thee ! Dost thou not recognise Him ? " It is the 
 Lord." Canst thou not say, " Lord, bid me that I come vmto 
 Thee ; " or, " Come Thou, good Lord, into the ship, and dwell 
 with me " ? And as you go to meet Him, even walking on the 
 waters, or, as you welcome Him into the ship, — and behold ! there 
 is a great calm, — learn, while now peacefully sharing His 
 dominion over all waves and winds. His victory over all tempests 
 and trials — learn in His society to cultivate all those graces which 
 shone in Him ; the mildness, the meekness, the genial lowliness and 
 kindliness that made even the face of " the Man of Sorrows " shine 
 joyfully on the children, and made His bosom the refuge where 
 they might so securely reckon on a place of nestling and of love. 
 
90 The World Rebukmg the Chu7'ch. 
 
 Wliy should the Church allow the world to bear away the 
 palm in reference to any one element of excellence whatsoever — 
 candour, courtesy, charity, kindliness, large-mindedness, liberality, 
 self-denial, any virtue whatsoever ? Why should there be one 
 single department of what is good — good in any sphere, moral, 
 physical, social, scientific — concerning which the world can with 
 any show of fairness profess to school the Church, or say, Stand 
 aside, for we are more at home here than you ? Nay : " Whatso- 
 ever things are true, whatsoever thino-s are venerable, whatsoever 
 things are just; whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any 
 virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things." The pilot 
 rebuking the prophet ! The world rebuking the Church ! These 
 things ought not so to be. 
 
 A Hebrew rebuked by a heathen : a Hebrew prophet by a 
 heathen mariner ! Yes ; but there is more in it than that. It is a 
 Hebrew prophet fleeing from, a commission to reprove a heathen 
 city, himself reproved by a heathen ! Surely it is punishing his 
 sin in kind. It is graving his libel on the rod that punishes his 
 offence. Yerily it is his sin finding him out. 
 
 How exact are God's retributions !' How strong, how exact, 
 how minute ! In their great leading features — also in their 
 manifold, minute details — the actings of His moral government 
 bear evidence of One who is the all-searching God, to whom the 
 darkness and the light are both alike. You cannot blind Him. 
 You cannot baffle Him. You cannot evade His notice. Also, 
 you cannot engage His attention so as to distract His memory. 
 In ten thousand ways He can, without a moment's warning, show 
 you forgotten sin, in mirrors which you cannot turn aside. He can 
 adapt His punishments, so that it shall be mere affectation for 
 you to doubt what the sin is He punishes for. He may keep it 
 secret between Himself and you, if the ends of righteousness do 
 not demand its exposure. But between Himself and you there 
 shall be no doubt left. A heathen shall reprove the man who 
 would not carry God's reproof to the heathen, — so that a man 
 shall say, " Yerily there is a God that judgeth on the earth." 
 
 Young man, do you know that Almighty God has a moral 
 government ? Do you know that He keepeth count and reckon- 
 ing ? Do you know that the pages of His reckoning never fade ? 
 
The World Rebuking the Church. 9 1 
 
 Do you know that He sometimes copies out a page upon the 
 memory and conscience of him whom it doth concern, painfully, 
 startlingly, alarmingly ; and he whom it doth concern, though 
 he shrink, though he scream, cannot break loose from the hand, 
 graving into his soul as with the point of a diamond, writing on 
 it as in lines of burning fire ? Ah ! young man, companion of 
 fools! thou knowest not the mysteries of God's government — the 
 mysterious capacities of conscience. Above all, thou knowest not 
 the relations between thy conscience and the all-searching, all- 
 reckoning government of thy God. "Rejoice, young man, in 
 thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, 
 and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine 
 eyes : but know thou, that for all these things the Lord will call 
 thee into judgment" (Eccles. xi. 9). 
 
 But what ! wilt thou wait till then ? Wilt thou not rather 
 take the judgment into thine own hand and judge thyself ? " If 
 thou wilt judge thyself, thou shalt not be judged " (1 Cor. xi. 31). 
 But at what judgment-seat shalt thou judge thyself ; and to what 
 penalty shalt thou condemn thyself ? Every sin of thine de- 
 serveth God's wrath. In every sin of thine thou hast forged 
 another chain binding thee over a prisoner to the day of His 
 wrath. Oh, these countless chains ! " wretched man that I 
 am ! who shall deliver me from them ? " I am loaded as with 
 irons. Who shall deliver me ? Who shall break them and set 
 me free ? Brother, there is but one only means of breaking these 
 irons and giving thee thy freedom again. They shall yield to 
 fire, and fire alone. The furnace of Jehovah's wrath. His righ- 
 teous wrath, will melt them, dissipate them, abolish them, if it 
 blaze in its undivided fierceness. It does so blaze. It blazes in 
 all its fierceness on Calvary. Yon cross is the furnace of wrath, 
 and He who suffered there comes and takes thee by the hand. 
 " Brother," He says, " guilty, weary, wretched, yet brother still, 
 partaker of flesh and blood as I am, wilt thou go with me through 
 yon devouring fire ? Every sacrifice shall be salted by fire. 
 Every chain of sin shall be abolished by fire — by fire only. Wilt 
 thou go with me ? On me alone shall the heat kindle — on me, 
 and on thy chains, thy sins, which the Lord hath laid on me. 
 One in the furnace with thee, such as I am, the Son of God, thou 
 shalt suffer no evil ; the fire shall have no power over thee ; not 
 
92 The World Rebuking the Chtiixh. 
 
 an hair of thy head shall perish, nor the smell of fire pass on thy 
 garments. I shall be made sin for thee, that thou mayest be 
 made the righteousness of God in me (2 Cor. v. 21). Only, it must 
 be in one. Brother, it is essential that I pass through the fires 
 with thee, — I in thee, and thou in Me." 
 
 Oh, most amazing proposal ! Oh, most gracious offer ! Wilt 
 thou not embrace it ? Wilt thou not go with Jesus ? He is the 
 sacrifice for sin. The flame kindles on Him, exhausts itself on 
 Him ; kindles on Him alone — on Him wearing thy chains, that 
 He may abolish them. He alone is the burnt-offering. In Him, 
 " It is finished." When thou goest with Him, the flame kindles 
 not at all on thee. And now, proving by faith this glorious 
 relief ; going by faith with Jesus through all the anguish of His 
 death and cross ; purified by His blood ; living by His sacrifice ; 
 emerging from the fire with Jesus — emerging into new life, as at 
 that empty grave where the angel of light shineth, showing you 
 " the path of life ;" standing there now with thy risen Lord, thou 
 art free as He is, unfettered, unhampered, emancipated from all 
 chains of darkness, bonds of condemnation, cords of death. Thou 
 art free as Christ is. Thy chains are gone. Thy sins are pun- 
 ished, avenged, abolished. Thy conscience is purged and clean ; 
 thy heart at ease — broken, contrite, weeping, mourning for Him 
 whom thou hadst pierced, for Him on whom the fire kindled 
 instead of thee — yet still joyful, grateful ; grieving gladly, glad 
 though grieving ; pure, affectionate, holy, childlike, free ; — free to 
 love thy wonderful Redeemer, free to serve thy risen Lord ; free 
 to say, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " and free to say 
 unto Him, " Here am I ; send me " (Acts ix. 6. Isa. vi. 8). Stand 
 fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made thee 
 free. Sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee. Thy sins are 
 forgiven thee ; go in peace ; go and sin no more. 
 
 And as thou goest, holy, sinning no more, — be cheerful, be joy- 
 ful, be strong. The dark night — the dread wrath — the furnace of 
 fire — are all behind thee. In the fresh morning of thy new life, an 
 elastic, bounding sense of freedom throbs within thee. " The path 
 of life," with the glory yonder, stretches in shining light before 
 thee. And now, " forgetting the things that are behind," press on 
 towards those that are before, — forward, upward, heavenward, 
 — straight to the " mark, for the prize of the high calling of God 
 in Christ Jesus" (Phil. iii. 13, 14). 
 
IX. 
 
 NATURAL RELIGION: ITS STRENGTH AND 
 WEAKNESS. 
 
 "Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we- 
 perish not." — Jonah i. 6. 
 
 " He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? He that chastiseili the heathen, 
 shall not He correct ? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall He not know ? " 
 
 "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity." — Ps. 
 xciv. 9-11. 
 
 THE pilot not only rebuked the prophet ; he had a proposal to 
 make him, — a call to address to him — a call to prayer : 
 "Arise, call upon thy God." And he backs his proposal by a 
 reason, a motive, an expectation of benefit : " If so be that God 
 will think upon us, that we perish not." 
 
 All this, as coming from a heathen, is peculiarly instructive. 
 And the two great truths it conveys are these : — First, That in 
 man's inmost nature, originally and radically, there are certain 
 principles of religion most strong and ineradicable ; and, Second,. 
 That these, without the guidance of revelation and faith, are 
 altogether insufficient as guides in his real relation to God. 
 Man's natural helplessness, as he stands related to the material 
 world, liable continually to become the victim of powers and 
 elements far mightier than he ; and his natural conscience, as he 
 stands related to the moral world, liable continually to be the 
 victim of a sentence and a condemnation which he is constantly 
 passing on himself, and constantly feels that a living Being far 
 mightier than he is passing ; — these two facts and conditions of 
 his existence on the earth necessarily imply a capacity for religion 
 and a certain religiousness, appertaining, of necessity, to human 
 nature, and developed in peculiar strength even in heathen 
 worship. In fact, the strength of these natural principles of 
 religion in the heathen reads a very solemn and alarming rebuke 
 
^4 Natural Religion : 
 
 to multitudes in civilised and Christian lands. In the progress 
 of modern civilisation, man may emancipate himself from the 
 solemn awe with which the heathen contemplate the powers of 
 nature ; but if he rise not to a holy veneration of the one Supreme 
 Author of nature, as a revealed and reconciled God, it is very 
 questionable whether he does not become in some respects a more 
 shallow and trifling being than the worshipper of idols. And the 
 weakening of this element — the sense of his littleness as in the 
 grasp and at the disposal of power higher than his own, — weakens 
 also the other element — his sense of the gravity of his moral 
 relations. Between these two, there is a strange interplay and 
 interchange of action. The one — his relation to the material 
 world — when rightly realised, tends to impress him with a deep 
 sense of his extreme insignificance — of his perfect helplessness 
 and littleness. A rotting worm in the ship, or a raging wind in 
 the heavens, may sink him ; a flash from the thunder-cloud, the 
 pestilence that walketh in darkness, the arrow that flieth by 
 noonday, may lay him low. Any one of a thousand accidents 
 may remove him from this passing scene of things. He is 
 extremely vmimportant, it would seem ; and when nature gathers 
 np her energies, and, as in the storm before us, puts forth her 
 mio-hty powers, the pride and self-sufficiency of man are swept 
 away in a moment, and he feels his littleness. Strange to say, 
 he thereby feels also his greatness — his true significance as a 
 moral, responsible, immortal being. Is there a judge ? Is there 
 a jrreat court of the universe — a final tribunal for all creatures — 
 an ultimate throne, occupied by a King of kings ? Before that 
 throne he feels that it is his high prerogative to stand ; before 
 that throne he is under call to compear. He feels iliat most of 
 all, when, in the great excitement and alarms of nature's threat- 
 ening and uncontrollable powers, he is led most of all to feel his 
 littleness. The very hour when, in relation to the material world, 
 and partly by the display of its gigantic elements, man learns to 
 read his helplessness, is the hour when, in relation to the moral 
 world, he learns to feel the high significance of his being. 
 
 Now, weaken the first of these, as in a highly artificial state 
 of society, where man seems to bend the elements to his pleasure, 
 making the very lightnings pass safely where he pleases, or con- 
 straininof them to bear his messages ; and let there be no corres- 
 
Its Strength and Weakness. 95 
 
 ponding improvement in his knowledge of the true God : feehng 
 less his real littleness, he becomes more blind than ever to his 
 true greatness, and (apart from grace) becomes more dependent 
 upon some alarming providence, such as now threatened the ship 
 and all on board with destruction, for being wakened up to feel 
 his true position, as a moral, responsible being, under law to the 
 great Ruler of the universe, and bound to compear and stand at 
 His bar. 
 
 It is on grounds like these that we might very easily main- 
 tain and prove the assertion, that godless men, in the days and 
 in the state of society in which we live, are more thoroughly 
 irreligious than the heathen are ; that covetousness, which is 
 idolatry — the rage for money-making, which supremely governs 
 multitudes, and is adapted by them as man's chief end — is more 
 contemptible than the worship of stocks and stones ; and that 
 under its sway human nature becomes even more perverted, and, 
 as to every element of natural excellence, suffers a more complete 
 break-down than in the case of the poor savage who roams the 
 forest, trembling at the thunder's voice, and bowing the knee to 
 the setting sun. 
 
 But we cannot prosecute this line of thought. It would lead 
 us too far from our present purpose. Be it simply remembered, 
 without attempting to trace their mutual relations and mutual 
 actions on each other, that, apart from revelation, prior to it, and 
 pre-supposed by it, as what revelation itself appeals to, there are 
 these two facts conspiring to make man naturally and necessarily 
 a religious being, namely — jirst, his observation of the powers of 
 nature, and, secondly, his experience of the powers of conscience. 
 
 Let us now, in the first place, estimate the strength of these 
 principles ; and then their weakness : both of these as exhibited 
 in the proposal of the heathen pilot. Let us consider, in a word, 
 how far natural religion can go, and where it fails. We have 
 before us a fair opportunity of settling this question. In this 
 hour of nature's terrors, where man's littleness comes into clearest 
 light, and where, in the prospect of death, man's greatness also 
 comes out in its fullest proportions ; when the speaker, moreover, 
 is no nervous and excited timid female, but a self-possessed 
 mariner, habituated to the dangers of the deep, and not unduly 
 alarmed ; in such a man, at such a time, — when not overdriven 
 
g6 Natural Religion 
 
 by alarm, yet stimulated to the highest pitch of earnestness, — 
 we seem to have a very embodiment, an impersonation of natural 
 religion in the very crisis of its power, acting to the utmost of 
 its capacity, and pausing only where its capacity ends. Hence, 
 in the proposal of the pilot, we may read — First, the power ; and, 
 secondly, the weakness of natural religion. And then we may 
 see that, whether among heathens or merely nominal Christians, 
 natural religion is substantially the same ; in other words, that 
 without converting and enlightening and renewing grace, with- 
 out the evangelism and spirituality of the gospel, without the 
 blood and Spirit of Christ, man's religion, anywhere and every- 
 where, is essentially heathen. 
 
 I. What is it that reason, unenlightened by the word and Spirit 
 of God, can do towards furnishing man with a religion ? What 
 can natural religion do for us ? 
 
 1, First of all, then, it may tell us that there is a God, and 
 that that God is One. The existence and the unity of God may 
 be proved by reason. These heathen mariners had many gods, 
 " They cried every man unto his god." And the pilot would 
 have Jonah to call on his God : " Arise, call on thy God." Jonah, 
 he took for granted, would have a God too. There were " gods 
 many," according to the mariner's views. And yet under this 
 multiplicity there lurked the idea of a unity also. For while 
 the pilot speaks as if he had the idea of many — Call on thy 
 God ; see, we are all calling each to his God ; call on thine too ; 
 yet he closes with a remark that seems to indicate that this 
 system of multiplication was rather, after all, a system of divi- 
 sion, and that out of the many they reconstructed and rose to 
 the idea of a single Supreme Being. For he adds, " if so be that 
 God will think upon us, that we perish not," — if so be that God," 
 — the God, the One God, the Supreme. 
 
 And unquestionably the whole herd of inferior deities whom 
 the heathen worshipped, were only so many sectional represen- 
 tatives of a portion of the powers believed to reside in a God to 
 whom might fairly be given, even by reason, the lofty designa- 
 tion, " God over all." 
 
 And, in point of fact, it is easily shown that, however it may 
 have been usually in the history of the world, it is quite within 
 
Its Strength and its Weakness. 97 
 
 the competency of reason to demonstrate the unity of God. 
 Man's connection with the natural world — his observation of 
 nature — suggests a designing mind ; a being possessing wisdom, 
 and power, and purpose : it never suggests more than one. The 
 wisdom, power, and goodness, which it sees to be requisite for 
 creating, preserving, and controlling the visible universe, are felt 
 to be unbounded, infinite. One such infinite Being is felt to be 
 necessary to account for things as they are. But not more than 
 one is felt to be necessary. Rather, more than one such infinite 
 Being, possessing all knowledge and power, is felt to be impos- 
 sible. The same result follows from connection with the moral 
 world. Conscience tells us of a Ruler and Judge, but only of 
 one. Its whole dictates would be misread, misinterpreted, and 
 reversed, by the introduction of two rival Gods claiming co-ordi- 
 nate shares in its veneration. The most distinct and sharp inti- 
 mation which conscience gives is that of One higher, one supreme 
 Ruler, claiming undivided allegiance. The good conscience — 
 tender and true and confessing — owns this : — " Against Thee, 
 Thee only, have I sinned." The bad conscience, whether in man 
 or lost angels, if examined aright, is seen to take this for granted, 
 to have this graven on itself as by a pen of iron, to have this as 
 the foundation of its terrors : — " Thou belie vest that there is one 
 God ; thou doest well : the devils also believe, and tremble." 
 The trembling, the terror, the fearful looking for of vengeance, 
 is all in one direction — all concentrated in one. 
 
 2. But further ; reason, fairly interpreted, assures us that this 
 God is a being capable of intercourse with His creatures. Reason, 
 indeed, cannot tell on what terms God will conduct intercourse 
 with His creatures ; or whether He will actually do so at all. 
 But reason can tell that God is a Being capable, if He pleases, of 
 conversing with His intelligent, reasonable, responsible creatures. 
 And this it deduces from the general principle, that God, the 
 Creator, cannot confer powers or privileges on His creatures 
 higher than He Himself possesses. It is one of the plainest 
 arguments that can be framed, " He that planted the ear, shall 
 He not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? He that 
 giveth man knowledge, doth He not know ? " (Ps. xciv. 9, 10). 
 The very purpose or desire on God's part to create man capable 
 of seeing, proves that seeing — vision — is familiar to God Himself. 
 
98 Natural Religion 
 
 The creating of an intelligent being is surely the work o£ a Being 
 who Himself is intelligent. And so the bestowal on man of a 
 capacity of holding intercourse and converse with another im- 
 plies, on God's part, the possession of the same capacity, and that 
 in the highest degree. For if I, God's creature, can reveal my 
 mind and thoughts to you, and am capable of receiving the reve- 
 lation of your thoughts, and wants, and wishes, which in turn 
 you make to me ; assuredly God, who made us both, must much 
 more be capable of disclosing His mind to both of us, and hear- 
 incy us when we go to disclose our mind to Him. 
 
 Hence reason itself demonstrates the possibility of a revela- 
 tion from God ; and the possibility of prayer, and of the efficacy 
 of prayer. 
 
 This the heathen pilot, you will observe, proceeds upon when 
 he summons Jonah to " arise and call upon God." 
 
 These are the two great truths that reason is competent to 
 establish : jirst, that God exists ; and, second, that prayer is pos- 
 sible, reasonable. The superior power observed in nature, in the 
 material world; and the supreme authority felt by conscience, 
 in the moral world : these two great general facts testify of a God. 
 And then the danger to which man is exposed in the material 
 world at the hands of nature and its elements ; and the distress 
 which man suffers in the moral world at the hands of conscience : 
 these two great general experiences prompt intuitively to depre- 
 cate God's anger, " that we perish not," and prompt to seek his 
 favour, " if so be that God will think upon us," or shine upon us, 
 be propitious, or favourable to us ; prompt, in short, naturally 
 and necessarily, to prayer. A God ; and a God to whom prayer 
 may be offered : these are the dictates of reason. In establish- 
 ing these two truths, reason is within its own sphere, thoroughly 
 within its competency; and in establishing them irrefragably, 
 reason exhibits its excellence and power. 
 
 II. But now observe reason's limit, and reason's weakness. 
 The God whom reason knows to exist, that God reason does not 
 personally know at all ; and the prayer which reason teaches to 
 be possible and reasonable, reason cannot conduct. Here, there- 
 fore is the twofold need for revelation from God on His part, and 
 for faith in that revelation on ours. 
 
Its Strength and its Weakness. 99 
 
 1. Reason knows that God exists ; but reason does not know 
 God. Reason tells that there is a God ; but we need revelation 
 to make us acquainted with Him. To know His existence is one 
 thing ; to know Himself is another. 
 
 I go into a gallery of paintings. My reason at once infers a 
 painter. These pictures did not spring into existence by chance. 
 They are the products of a designing mind, an agent, an artist. 
 The existence of such an agent is at once proved by the existence 
 of the paintings. Further, I examine them one by one ; I find 
 them all connected with each other. They are a closely concate- 
 nated series. The same style is visible in them alb The same 
 ultimate idea is kept in view by them all. They present, let us 
 say, a single individual in childhood, youth, manhood, old age. 
 They exhibit the great leading incidents of his life. From this 
 order and design, this purpose and idea, and from the manner in 
 which the painter has carried it out, I am gathering information 
 about him, about his style, his abilities, and powers in his art. 
 Nay, more, from the hearty manner in which I may see he has 
 brought forth all his finest powers to depict some scene, we shall 
 say, of home enjoyment, I may gain an insight into more than 
 his artistic and professional abilities. I may read not a little of 
 his personal predilections, his moral tendencies and tastes. 
 
 All this, however, I may learn, and much more. All that in 
 this way, at the very best, any man could learn, I may be sup- 
 posed to reach ; and yet the painter himself I may never have 
 seen — him as yet I know not. " I have neither seen his shape 
 nor heard his voice," nor understood his character, and mind, and 
 heart. Clear it is that wholly another style of knowledge of 
 him is possible ; yea, that another style of knowledge, not higher 
 in degree merely, but especially diferent in kind is needed, 
 before I can be said to know himself. 
 
 But let him enter his own gallery of paintings, and meet me 
 face to face.* Let him come into converse with me. Let him 
 tell me the idea which he meant, by this series of pictures, to 
 convey and impress ; let him carry me from one to another in 
 regular order, from first to last, and tell me all his purpose and 
 
 * This is but the reproduction, in another form, of a fine thought of Dr. 
 Candlish's in " Contributions towards an Exposition of the Book of Genesis," 
 Vol 1., pp. 3-5. 
 
loo Natiwal Religion 
 
 design. Clearly I am beginning to know liiin after another 
 fashion now ; and he casts more light now on the scope of the 
 paintings than the paintings formerly threw upon the skill of 
 the painter. 
 
 Still, however, if all that passes between him and me refers 
 exclusively to these works of his hands, I may have got a high 
 intellectual treat ; I may have got great light on the finest themes 
 of the finest of the fine arts ; his intellect, and skill, and art, and 
 science, may have been all made to pass before me, and here and 
 there a gleam of deeper principles and feelings may incidentally 
 have Abashed forth ; yet still I cannot yet be said, in any real 
 sense, to know the painter himself. For aught that has passed 
 between him and me, we may part, never to meet again, never to 
 feel the slightest interest in each other's fate and character. It 
 may live in my memory as a familiar recollection and a gratify- 
 ing incident that I had this rencontre with him ; but personal 
 knowledge of him I have not gained : and in an hour of sadness, 
 and of sorrow, I could no more proceed to cast myself on his 
 sympathy and aid, than on any stranger whom I had never even 
 seen in the flesh. 
 
 And the reason is, that you never become acquainted with, 
 you never really know, an}^ person, merely by discovering his 
 intellectual or scientific abilities. You never do know a neigh- 
 bour, save by knowing his moral character and his heart. It is 
 when you have evidence of his unbending rectitude, and get an 
 experimental insight into his unbounded beneficence ; when you 
 know that your friend can do you no wrong, and know that he 
 is disposed, to the limits of his power, to do you all good ; it is 
 then you know himself. When you know his righteousness and 
 goodness ! when you have experimentally ascertained that in 
 these two qualities he is all that you can ever need to draw, or 
 depend upon him for ; that in these respects you can thoroughly 
 lean upon and trust him : then you have formed a true acquain- 
 tance, not with the man's abilities, but with himself. Till you 
 reach and arrive at this knowledge, you must feel that you have 
 not the pleasure of his real acquaintance. If you have sought 
 in vain to get this knowledge, you must confess that you do not 
 know him, — perhaps that you do not know what to make of him. 
 
 And the same principles hold good as to your acquiring a 
 
Its Strength and its Weakness. lor 
 
 knowledge — a true knowledge of God ; your essaying to obey the 
 command, " Acquaint thyself with God." You may know about 
 God from the works of creation ; but in this way you can never 
 rise to a true and 'personal knowledge of God himself. It is one 
 thing to knoiv about God ; another to know Him. Nature and 
 conscience may tell about Him ; but revelation alone discloses 
 Him. Reason may discover much truth concerning His intel- 
 lectual powers, so to speak — His natural attributes ; but His 
 moral character and His heart it remains for Himself to reveal. 
 Is He so inflexibly just that rather than allow the least unright- 
 eousness to prevail — that is to say, to be unpunished ; for where 
 unrighteousness is not annihilated or married to his eternal 
 punishment, there it does prevail — is He, I say, so inflexibly just 
 that rather than allow the least unrighteousness to prevail, He 
 would suffer all heaven and earth to become one everlasting hell ? 
 and my conscience can get no rest and no satisfaction in estimat- 
 ing His character for righteousness till this be admitted. But if 
 this be admitted, what hope can there be for me, a sinner ? Is it 
 possible that at the same time He can be, towards me a sinner, a 
 God of grace, one infinite, boundless ocean of free, forgiving, 
 saving love ? Is this possible ? I cannot trust in God unless He 
 be infinitely, inflexibly, eternally righteous. If He could do the 
 least wrong, — or, which is the same thing, wink at the least 
 wrong, — even for the purpose of saving me, I cannot respect Him ; 
 I cannot trust Him. But if He cannot do on His own part, nor 
 tolerate on my part, the least unrighteousness, oh, how can I 
 trust in Him, or draw near to Him in peace ? He is to me, more 
 and more, an infinite mystery. As a living person, with whom I 
 have to do — my Maker and my Judge — the more I think of Him, 
 and the more I scan all that reason teaches and conscience tells, 
 so much the more do I find that, in proportion as I thus hnoiv 
 about Him, the less do I seem to knoiu Himself. Himself, in fact, 
 I cannot know till He reveal Himself to me as in the holy Scrip- 
 ture, shining forth there as in a mirror infinitely more bright than 
 creation, infinitely more serene than conscience. There I see His 
 glory, when I look to Christ. There I see the light of the know- 
 ledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In Him, 
 dying the death of agonising wrath for sin — thirsting, mourning, 
 bleeding, outcast, condemned, and dying — I see that God, not 
 
I02 Natural Religion 
 
 only rather than tolerate the least unrighteousness, would suffer 
 all created beings to become as hell, but bringeth hell into the 
 very soul of His beloved Son ; while rather than suffer me, the 
 hell-deserving one, to become as hell. His love to me is so incon- 
 ceivable that for me He giveth His eternal and beloved Son, a 
 sacrifice for me. If the Holy Ghost open my heart to receive this 
 revelation, I know my God now. I know Him personally. I 
 know Himself. I know Him far better than I know any other 
 person. My truest brother, my dearest friend, cannot so reveal 
 and make known himself to me as my God can and does. By the 
 Spirit and word of the Lord, the Lord God in Christ Jesus 
 becomes truly and surely known to me. 
 
 Thus while reason may tell that there is a God, and tell about 
 God, it is by revelation — by faith — that you know God himself. 
 
 2. In like manner, secondly, as reason tells that prayer is 
 possible, yea, reasonable, revelation alone puts us in possession of 
 the terms on which God actually hears prayer — puts us in a 
 condition actually to pray. 
 
 And, here, to speak solely of the essential point, reason tells 
 that, prior to obtaining aid and blessing, it is essential that the 
 Divine anger should be removed. " If so be that God will think 
 upon us;" — literally, if the Lord will shine upon us, if the Lord 
 will be propitious to us — "that we perish not." So spake the 
 pilot : and he spake the language of universal reason and con- 
 science. If God be propitious ; if God be favourable ; if God 
 turn away His anger, and turn to us in kindness — then, only 
 then, " we perish not." This, therefore, becomes the hinge of all 
 the inquiry : How shall God be propitious ? How shall man be 
 just with God ? How shall God be favourable to man ? 
 
 Take away my Bible from me ; obliterate from my mind the 
 knowledge which, from holy Scripture, I have derived ; or, in the 
 hour of my storm of terror in conscience, or alarm in the approach 
 of death, let me be incapable of spiritually realising, believing, 
 using and improving the information which holy Scripture con- 
 veys on this point ; let it still be to me a question, " How shall 
 God become favourable ? " and I am incapable of true prayer ; 
 my prayer is simply heathen. I cry to a Supreme Being, perhaps 
 — it may be in a very agony of earnestness ; but mark the tre- 
 mendous error of my prayer. I pray in order to make God 
 
Its Strength and its Weakness. 1 03 
 
 favourable. And this is a work too great for me. This is a 
 work in which I have no success. That is the aim and object of 
 all the sacrifices, penances, and prayers of Popish and heathen 
 worship. They are designed, if possible, to make God favourable. 
 With this intent — with this end in view — a heathen pilot prays, 
 and calls the prophet to prayer. And with this same end, every 
 awakened, startled, unconverted, unbelieving man prays, whether 
 nominally a heathen or a Christian. 
 
 It is the reverse with the converted — the believer. He prays, 
 not because he imagines God to be unfavourable and tries to 
 propitiate Him, but because God in Christ is favourable, and he 
 believes in Him as a propitious, pardoning, gracious God. He 
 does not pray in doubt, like the heathen pilot — " if so be God 
 may be propitious ; " but because God is propitious. A doubt on 
 that point quells all his power to pray. So greatly does he fear 
 the Holy One of Israel, that a doubt as to whether He be pro- 
 pitious strikes him dumb, and he dare not pray on such a sup- 
 position. The prayer of faith, which alone is truly prayer, takes 
 hold with tenacious grasp on the declaration, " There is forgiveness 
 with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared." And maintaining this 
 glorious ground — resting on this sure foundation — knowing the 
 terms of infinitely free and sure grace, and the gift of perfect and 
 imputed righteousness, which, in Christ Jesus, is the basis of holy, 
 trustful, true, and pure-hearted prayer, the believer casts away 
 all such " perchance," and " perhaps," and " if," and " if so be ; " 
 all such hesitations and uncertainties as spring from the unbelief 
 of heathenism and the heathenism of unbelief ; and relying on the 
 truth of the Father's gracious revelation, and the freeness and 
 perfection of the Son's righteousness, and the secret security of 
 the Spirit's light and grace ; in one word, taking God at His 
 word, and taking God's proposal as good and true ; feeling more 
 and more deeply his tremendous weight of sin, but looking more 
 and more intensely to the perfect sacrifice, and realising it as an 
 all-worthy object of immediate faith, and an all-worthy theme of 
 immediate gratitude and praise, the believing worshipper, with a 
 true heart, and in the full assurance of faith, may be heard ex- 
 claiming : — " Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion : and unto 
 Thee shall the vow be performed. O Thou that hearest prayer, 
 unto Thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me : as 
 
1 04 Natural Religion 
 
 for our transgressions, Thou shall purge them away. Blessed is 
 the man whom Thou choosest, and causest to approach unto Thee, 
 that he may dwell in Thy courts : we shall be satisfied with the 
 goodness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple " (Ps. Ixv. 1-4). 
 
 Thus we have seen both the power and the weakness of reason 
 in reference to religion. Reason is powerful enough to tell, first, 
 that there is a God ; and, secondly, that He is a Being capable of 
 holding intercourse with us if He pleases. But reason is so weak 
 that, in the first lolace, this God, whose existence it teaches, it 
 does not enable us to know ; and, in the second iilace, this exercise 
 of prayer, whose possibility and reasonableness it teaches, it can- 
 not enable us to conduct. 
 
 Reason, therefore, without revelation, is sure fatally to err ; 
 and whether in ancient Paganism, or in modern Rationalisms, 
 which are heathenisms, or in Popery, or in nominal, formal 
 Christianity, the error at bottom is identically one and the same. 
 If you would avoid being at heart altogether as the heathen, 
 there is no course for you but one. Awake to a sense of sin, and 
 of your tremendous yet glorious responsibility to God ; and come 
 in truth of heart to the cross of Christ's humiliation, agony, and 
 shame — His vicarious sufferings and death. There you must by 
 faith unite your responsibility with Christ's, or take His for 
 yours. Your guilt — your righteous liability to wrath, you must 
 terminate and quench in His blood ; your Judge by that blood 
 appeased, your Father by that blood reconciled. And in the un- 
 limited brokenness and gratitude of heart which will thus be 
 inspired ; in the perfect trust in God and adoring admiration of 
 Him ; in the fervour of thanks which you render at the remem- 
 brance of His holiness, and the reverence of filial joy with which 
 you contemplate and share His love ; you will feel a new life 
 begun, a life of prayer, the prayer, not of probability, of doubt, 
 of hesitation, of timid, shrinking, creeping fear and bondage ; the 
 prayer, not of abject flattery, of craven cringing, of labouring to 
 propitiate, or persuading to cease from wrath ; but of faith, of 
 the full assurance of faith, of access with boldness and confidence 
 through the faith of Christ ; for " This is the confidence that we 
 have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will. He 
 heareth us : and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, 
 
Its Strength and its Weakness. 105 
 
 we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him " 
 (1 John V. 14, 15). This is Christian prayer; less — less in essence 
 or principle — is heathenism. 
 
 There is one other remark to be made on this verse before 
 closing, and it is this ; — that a heathen pilot may here be accepted 
 as teaching us the reasonableness and propriety of united prayer. 
 Nature itself teaches that there is something in united supplication 
 more calculated to secure an answer. And what nature suggests, 
 the Scriptures confirm. We are told by our Lord that " if two of 
 us shall agree on earth as touching anything that we shall ask, it 
 shall be done unto us of our Father which is in heaven " (Matt, 
 xviii. 19). Do we then bring the concert and union of our prayers 
 into Christ's family with us, if, indeed, we have entered that 
 family ? If we have made common cause with the kingdom of 
 Christ — if we have embarked in this ship — can we really be in- 
 different to its general interest and safety, to the comfort, and 
 interest, and safety of our fellow-passengers for eternity ? If we 
 can — if we can sleep at our ease while the vessel is in danger, 
 are we not marked out thereby as the very souls for whose sake 
 the danger has come upon the vessel ? And what a call does this 
 thought address to us, as in the very language of a heathen 
 rebiiking us ; while — making allowance for the heathenism — we 
 may well on that account also be all the more ashamed by the 
 peremptory earnestness of a heathen man's demand : — " What 
 meanest thou, sleeper ? Arise, call upon thy God ; if so be that 
 God will think upon us, that we perish not." 
 
X. 
 
 CASTING THE LOT. 
 
 " And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that 
 we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. — Jonah i. 7. 
 
 " The lot is cast into the lap; but the ivhole disposing thereof is of the Lord." 
 — Prov. xvi. 33. 
 
 THE narrative does not inform us what response Jonah gave 
 to the shipmaster. His best response, no doubt, was silence, 
 To the rebuke addressed to him, however severe, he could offer 
 no objection — " What meanest thou, O sleeper ? " And as to the 
 proposal made to him, — " Arise and call on thy God, if so be that 
 God will think upon us, that we perish not," — he could scarcely 
 very readily promise compliance with it. A prophet and true 
 servant of the Lord though he was, he had, at present, and in so 
 far, retired from his standing as one in communication and in 
 communion with the King, and assumed the position of a rebel. 
 It is not, indeed, our works of obedience that secure our prayers 
 being heard ; and our works of disobedience, repented of and 
 confessed, forsaken and abandoned, shall not prevent our prayers 
 being heard. But it is obviously right and inevitable that a 
 state of disobedience continued in, a course of rebellion pursued, 
 should cut oft' the transgressing one from the fellowship of his 
 God. Prayer, indeed, is an appeal to God to accomplish concern- 
 ing us the things which He hath promised ; to carry out in our 
 experience and history, in our state and prospects, His oivn will. 
 But the man who is following out, not the Divine will, but his 
 own, is thereby in a position the very reverse of that which is 
 taken up by the soul in true prayer. Hence, not merely does 
 God refuse to hear the prayer of the impenitent : but really the 
 impenitent refuse truly to pray. The first true prayer that comes 
 from the transgressor begins with a resignation of his rebellion. 
 Your coming over to God to ask Him to fulfil His will — and 
 prayer is the offering up of our desires to God for things agree- 
 
Casting the Lot. loy 
 
 able to His will — implies the giving up, the surrendering of your 
 will to His. It implies your return to submission, allegiance, 
 loyalty, obedience ; and though it is not the merit of this return 
 to obedience which secures the hearing of prayer, this return to 
 obedience is implied in the very offering of true prayer. 
 
 In his present flight, therefore, from God's presence, and his 
 continued refusal to perform God's will, Jonah has shut against 
 himself the door of prayer. To pray in faith is to pray in sub- 
 mission to the Divine will, and on the warrant of the Divine 
 Word : but for Jonah to profess to do so, lays him open imme- 
 diately to the rejoinder of his own conscience, How canst thou 
 pretend such submission, when thou art carrying on this war 
 against God's will, and fleeing from the obedience of it ? Above 
 the voice of conscience, thus protesting his hypocrisy in pretend- 
 ing to pray, Jonah, till he repent and return to his allegiance, 
 cannot rise. Conscience is too mighty for him. His attempt at 
 prayer is strangled at its very beginning. He has the witness in 
 himself, against himself. And it is simply in accordance with 
 what conscience testifies, that God also testifies, when He refuses 
 in such a case to hear prayer. 
 
 To the Jews, continuinoj to refuse obedience to the will of 
 God, Jeremiah was required to speak thus, in the name of the 
 Lord : — " I earnestly protested unto your fathers, saying. Obey 
 my voice. Yet they obeyed not. And now a conspiracy is found 
 among the men of Judah ; they are turned back to the iniquity 
 of their forefathers, which refused to hear My words. There- 
 fore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, 
 which they shall not be able to escape ; and though they shall 
 cry unto Me, I will not hearken unto them " (Jer. xi. 7-11). In 
 like manner, by Isaiah, does the Lord contend with a gainsaying 
 and disobedient people : " When ye spread forth your hands, I 
 will hide mine eyes from you ; yea, when you make many 
 prayers, I will not hear : your hands are full of blood " (Isa. i. 15). 
 
 Does this, then, form any exception to the blessed truth that 
 God is the hearer and answerer of prayer ? No. But it proves 
 that He is the hater of hypocrisy. The man who, in known dis- 
 obedience to any command from God, approaches to pray, defies 
 the Divine omniscience, as if God did not know his sin. Or he 
 denies the Divine authority over him, as if God had no right to 
 
io8 Casting the Lot. 
 
 claim obedience in that particular ; no right to be displeased 
 though obedience be refused ; no right to complain ; no right to 
 count this a reason for interrupting peaceable and friendly rela- 
 tions. The very attempt in such a case to pray is an insult to 
 God. It is a cool and impudent attempt to proceed as if all were 
 right, as if nothing had happened. Should God, in such a case, 
 be inquired of ? Should the Most High consent to allow His 
 rebellious creature to reduce Him to so degrading a position ; to 
 assume over Him, what simply amounts on the sinner's part to 
 an overbearing attitude of dictation ? 
 
 You sin against God. You knowingly refuse obedience to 
 some particular of His clearly-revealed will. And, without re- 
 pentance, and return to a better mind and a better course, you 
 approach Him with your prayers and expect that He will answer 
 them ? You expect that He will wink at your sin ; allow you 
 to take your own way ; indulge you in your disobedience ; and 
 permit you in this matter to be a god to yourself : thereby con- 
 senting, in so far, to cease Himself from being God ? And all 
 this is implied in His continuing on a friendly and prayer-hear- 
 ing relation to you in the midst of disobedience ! Nay ! " I will 
 go and return unto my place, till they acknowledge their offence, 
 and seek My face ; in their affliction they will seek me early " 
 (Hos. V. 15). 
 
 It appears, then, that repentance is necessarily implied in all 
 true prayer. " Then shall ye find Me, when ye seek Me with all 
 your heart : " — when subjecting all your will to My will, and in 
 nothing continuing to rebel, ye can " delight yourselves in God," 
 then shall ye find Me ; then will I " give you the desire of your 
 heart." Not that repentance is the meritorious reason for our 
 prayers being heard ; they are heard in the mere and free grace 
 of God, and in the name and merit of Jesus. But repentance is 
 implied in an application to that grace — the grace of Him who is 
 the High and Holy One of Isi'ael, the supreme and sovereign God. 
 It is implied, also, in all real resting on the righteousness of Christ. 
 Hence, while we are heard solely in the name of Jesus, we may 
 see the meaning of the Apostle's declaration — connecting, as it 
 does by a sure link, the prayer of faith with unreserved obe- 
 dience — " Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we 
 keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in 
 
Casting the Lot. 109 
 
 His sight" (1 John iii. 22). Without repenting, then, and return- 
 ing to his duty, Jonali's prayers could not be heard. Nay, 
 rather ; trul}^ and from heart, Jonah could not pray. 
 
 To bring him to repentance, however, so that at last his 
 prayers may be heard, is the very purpose of God's strong-handed 
 dealings with him : and these dealings, before they secure the 
 end, must become more strong-handed still. It is another step in 
 this discipline of chastisement and correction which we are called 
 to consider in the seventh verse. " And they said every one to 
 his fellow. Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for 
 whose cause this evil is come upon us. So they cast lots, and the 
 lot fell upon Jonah." 
 
 Now, in this procedure, there are two things to be attended 
 to : First, the fact that each man, by making this proposal and 
 going into it, disowns the guilt ; and, second, the method by which 
 they propose to discover it. It is taken for granted that there is 
 guilt involved. It is felt that God, or the gods, the Supreme 
 Being, or supreme powers, are displeased. Guilt has been con- 
 tracted. A guilty party is in the ship. That guilt, that guilty 
 party, God is pursuing by this storm ; for the storm is extraordi- 
 nary, marvellous, if not miraculous. They are forced to believe 
 in some marvellous, some extraordinary and unwonted reason for 
 it. This reason they think they find, in the supposition that 
 some great crime lies concealed among them — some deadly offence, 
 such as may be righteously pursued and punished by this great 
 and marvellous tempest. 
 
 I. The mariners, for their part, one by one, disown this guilt 
 by the very proposal to discover it by lot. Far from being ready 
 in meekness and lowliness of spirit, to say, each one in his own 
 conscience, " Is it I ? " — we find them boldly refusing the charge of 
 criminality, refusing an appeal to their own consciences as a means 
 of discovering it, and proposing to discover it by an appeal to God. 
 
 Now, no doubt, as it happened, the anger of God was pursuing, 
 not them, but Jonah. That fact, however, was not discovered to 
 them till afterwards ; and so long as they were in ignorance of it, 
 their conduct is to be examined in the remembrance that they 
 ivere ignorant of it. What, then, are we to say of their denying 
 
no Castino- the Lot. 
 
 any guilt that could explain or justify on God's part, so to speak, 
 the strong tempest that now lay upon them ? Did they not ac- 
 knowledge themselves to be sinners ? Would they have boldly 
 stood up and contended that they were so righteous that God, or 
 the gods, would be unrighteous in sending any trouble upon 
 them ? Nay ; they would at once have admitted that they were 
 sinners ; that ordinary calamities and trials no doubt were right- 
 eously enough sent upon them, and were what they could not 
 complain of; and had this storm been merely an ordinary one, 
 they would have been all ready to admit that the trial it brought 
 with it was no excessive punishment of their offences. But it 
 was a tempest so marvellous, indicating so clearly the special and 
 great indignation of God, that it indicated a great and special 
 controversy — great and special sin. Such great and special guilti- 
 ness, deserving such great and special punishment — this is what 
 they deny by submitting the matter to the discovery and dis- 
 closure of the lot. 
 
 Now, here we have an exact picture of the extent to which 
 men are by nature willing to admit that they are sinners ; indi- 
 catino- also the point where their admission ceases. They will 
 admit that they are sinners so far as to acknowledge the justice 
 of the smaller trials that they are called upon, in Providence, to 
 endure. But depict to them the eternal wrath of God, the second 
 death, banishment from the presence of the Lord and from the 
 glory of His power, and consignment with lost angels to the lake 
 that burneth, and ask the worldly, unconverted man — Are you a 
 sinner to that extent ? guilty to that degree ? do you admit you 
 are a sinner to such extent as justifies God in appointing that as 
 the wages of your sin ? — and the carnal mind revolts from mak- 
 ing any such admission — revolts from honestly acknowledging 
 guilt that would explain, or account for, or justify, a judgment so 
 terrific, a vengeance so conclusive — eternal ! Let there be nothing 
 very extraordinary — extraordinary, terrific, or damning — in the 
 storm, the tempest, the punishment ; and the sinner will not 
 stand — will not think it worth his while to stand debating the 
 matter and justifying himself. He will admit his sinfulness ; but 
 then, in his sinfulness, admitted in these circumstances, he admits 
 nothing extraordinary — nothing extraordinarily sinful, base, or 
 ill deserving. Yes : and this admission he can make without any 
 
Casting the Lot. 1 1 1 
 
 great humiliation ; without needing to make any application, and 
 without, in point of fact, making any application to God for any 
 signal act of grace, or placing himself under any great obligation 
 to God. His trials and punishments being nothing very extra- 
 ordinary, he can contrive to bear them ; to stagger on under them. 
 He can contrive to outlive the commonplace, ordinary storms of 
 the deep ; to put the ship in order, and lie to till the tempest 
 abate. But let the tempest become absolutely intolerable — let 
 the anger that sends it rise in its terrors till it become evident 
 that the Almighty has a quarrel which He will not quash, and 
 which the sinner can neither bear nor outlive ; let there be de- 
 nounced upon him a punishment, a penalty, a wrath, a death, not 
 measured by his capacity of endurance, but by the infinite power 
 and glory of the God whom he has dishonoured and disobeyed ; 
 ask him now. Are you a sinner to this extent ? so great a sinner 
 that, in this, "God is just in speaking and clear in judging," and 
 appoints you nothing but your righteous and mere desert ? Ah ! 
 you ask him to pass a sentence of condemnation on himself as 
 linal, as condemnatory, as sweeping, as humiliating and complete 
 as that eternal death is finally destructive ; and you show him 
 that the only possible escape must be by receiving deliverance as 
 a signal act of grace — a magnificent act of stupendous and un- 
 bounded grace ; so that he becomes indebted to his offended God 
 for an undeserved kindness and compassion as inconceivably 
 tender, and great, and lasting, as that death is lasting and great 
 and terrific from which it saves him. The natural man is pre- 
 pared neither so to condemn himself, nor so to be indebted or 
 obligated to his God. To consent to condemn himself as worthy 
 of any such punishment — to feel so great sinfulness in sin as to 
 justify God in appointing for it such a punishment; — this, on the 
 one hand, implies a heart renewed by the Holy Spirit ; and, on 
 the other hand, the same newness of heart is realised when a 
 sinner is made willing to own that his escape from eternal death 
 is due to the pure favour of God ; that it lays him under incon- 
 ceivable obligations to God ; that it calls for unmeasured gratitude 
 to God ; unreserved, adoring, loving devotion to God for ever. 
 
 Have you come to this acknowledgment of guilt and grace ; 
 guilt on your part — grace on God's ? Have you come to feel 
 that God's sentence of condemnation to eternal death is simply 
 
1 1 2 Casting the Lot. 
 
 righteous : and that, therefore, His gift of eternal life is simply 
 gracious — of mere grace ; mere, amazing, unclaimable, inconceiv- 
 able grace, deserving celebrations of endless and adoring praise ? 
 Ah ! you do not know the sweet gratitude for grace, if you do 
 not know the unreserved and guileless acknowledgment of guilt 
 — the guilt even of eternal death, the guilt of " the wrath which 
 is to come." And in that case, you cannot speak, with the 
 Apostle's rapturously fine and tender feeling, of — "Jesus who 
 delivered us from the wrath to come." 
 
 Behold, by the aid of God's holy revelations, the everlasting 
 mansions of the guilty and condemned ! The storm waxes fierce. 
 The lake of lire burnetii. O sinner, are you for casting lots to 
 ascertain for whom ? Are you still asking. For whom could such 
 doom be righteously prepared ? Are you putting away the ques- 
 tion, " Lord, is it I ? " Are you putting away the answer — the 
 answer that God, by His word and Spirit, by His law and your 
 conscience, gives — " Thou art the man " ? What ! have you never 
 faced this question ? Is it new to you ? What ! and you a pro- 
 fessing Christian ! And never humbled, broken-hearted, self- 
 condemning ; justifying God's simple righteousness in condemning 
 you ; owning His mere grace, so free, so boundless, so lovely in 
 giving salvation by Jesus ! Know you not these first principles 
 even of Christian experience ? Ah ? if you know not, and own not, 
 these things — the justice and majesty of law ; the inexcusable- 
 ness of sin ; the righteousness of hell ; the undeservedness, and 
 freeness, and sovereign majesty of grace — you know not what it 
 is to " awake and arise from the dead " and come to Christ's " mar- 
 vellous light." Be not deceived by temporary, and trifling, and 
 easily disposed-of feelings with respect to sin. Thousands ad- 
 mit that they are sinners, and listen to hear of salvation, who 
 know not and own not the hell-deservingness of sin, and there- 
 fore cannot know the undeservedness and grace of salvation, and 
 can neither manifest nor feel the gratitude which, for such salva- 
 tion, is due. Ah ! when I look even to that lake that burnetii, 
 and that worm that never dies ; and when, by the Spirit of light 
 and strivings, the storm in my conscience, as to my relation and 
 feeling's and doing's towards God, waxes more and more tem- 
 pestuous, let me not cast lots to ascertain to whom such a doom 
 could be righteously assigned — for whose sake such a storm could 
 
Casting the Lot. 1 1 
 
 righteousl}' arise. I am myself the man. It is I whom siu is 
 finding out. Let me own that God is not unrighteous. Let me 
 confess I have given Him good and righteous cause for anger. 
 Let me no more extenuate my offence and justify myself. He is 
 righteous, and I am not. Against Him, Him only have I sinned, 
 that He might be justified when He speaketh, and clear when He 
 judgeth (Ps. li. 4). Especially let me be encouraged unto this 
 confession — yea, let me be generously overpowered, overwhelmed, 
 ashamed and charmed into this confession — seeing that He only 
 requires an admission that my case is simply the guilty one it is, 
 to absolve me gratuitously, fully, and for ever, from all its guilt, 
 and free me, immediately in hope, and soon in glorious fulfilment, 
 from all its misery. 
 
 No ! I will cast no lots to discover who is " the chief of 
 sinners." The great Prophet of the Church, by His word and 
 Spirit, declares unto me, " Thou art thyself the man." Yes : 
 and when I truly bow in meek submission, and in free, and 
 unreserved, and full acknowledgment, the same Prophet turns 
 not away from me, nor tarries for a moment in His communica- 
 tions till he tells me, with a voice as true, as powerful, as con- 
 vincing, " The Lord hath put away thy sin " (2 Sam. xii. 7-13). 
 For " if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to for- 
 give us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness " (1 
 John i. 9). 
 
 The conduct of these sailors implied that they made no con- 
 fession. They justified themselves as not deserving any such 
 prosecution and punishment at the hands of Divine justice as the 
 threatened destruction implied. And so can sinners own them- 
 selves to be sinners, and guilty to the extent of being worthy of 
 such ordinary punishment as they can put up with, and such that 
 deliverance from it would imply on God's part little grace, and 
 demand on their part little gratitude. But to own, in holy, self- 
 condemning silence, that they deserve the eternal wrath of the 
 Holy One of Israel — a wrath so great and so righteous that 
 deliverance from it cannot be proposed on God's part, save in 
 signal, and singular, and inconceivable grace and love, and cannot 
 be embraced on their part, save with feelings of unbounded grati- 
 tude and love in return ; this is the self-humiliation to which the 
 old Adam will never stoop, and which, wherever it is found, indi- 
 
 H 
 
1 1 4 Casting the Lot. 
 
 cates the presence of the new man, and the prior working of God's 
 regenerating Spirit. 
 
 II. Let us now consider the method by which they propose 
 to discover the guilt which they thus disown. " And they said 
 every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may 
 know for whose cause this evil is come upon us." 
 
 We have several instances in Scripture of the practice of casting 
 lots. It was by a lot — and after prayer to God to " give a perfect 
 lot" — that Jonathan was discovered as having transgressed his 
 father's rash and arbitrary command to the army not to taste 
 food till the going down of the sun (1 Sam. xiv. 42). It was by 
 lot, and after special prayer that God would guide the lot accord- 
 ing: to His will, that Matthias was chosen and added to the 
 apostleship, filling up the vacancy caused by the apostacy and 
 death of Judas (Acts i. 26). It was, in all probability, by the lot 
 that the Lord, the King of kings, indicated His choice of Saul to 
 be king over Israel (1 Sam. x. 21) ; and that the Righteous One, 
 the Judsfe of all, discovered Achan as the troubler of Israel's 
 camp (Joshua vii. 16-18). And we are familiar with the saying 
 of the wise man : " The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole dis- 
 posing thereof is of the Lord " (Prov. xxi. 33). 
 
 The principle implied in casting lots is, that thereby a solemn 
 appeal is taken to the Lord to indicate His pleasure in a matter 
 that cannot otherwise be decided. Or, taking somewhat lower 
 ground, it is a method of avoiding responsibility and shunning 
 occasion of jealousies. 
 
 A question arises. When is it lawful to have recourse to the 
 casting of lots ? And when would such procedure be unlawful ? 
 What are the limits between a legitimate and improper use of 
 the lot ? 
 
 Now, because such a question is only one of a class, a large 
 class of cases of conscience, all involving substantially the same 
 principles, and all to be dealt with in very much the same way, 
 let us devote a little attention to it. What are the limits between 
 a lawful and unlawful appeal to the lot ? 
 
 1. First, then, let me describe to you a case where its lawful- 
 ness is obvious. A general of an army is about to arrange his 
 forces for an assault upon the enemy's citadel. The party that 
 
Casting the Lot. 115 
 
 heads the attack are exposed to be cut in pieces ; the probability 
 of escape to each o£ them is exceedingly small, the probability of 
 death exceedingly great. They are, alas ! " the forlorn hope." 
 Overawed by the thought of appointing his fellow-creatures thus 
 to almost certain death, the general, instead of himself fixing on 
 the portion of his army that shall lead the van, chooses to decide 
 the matter by casting lots. Clearly he makes a most lawful 
 appeal to the lot in such a case. Whether simply as refusing the 
 responsibility, or as making a solemn appeal to God, he is only 
 embracing a legitimate privilege. He may with a good con- 
 science, as in the sight of God, and in the spirit of prayer, cast 
 lots to settle this very solemn matter. He ought to do it in the 
 spirit of prayer ; and, if a godly man, he will. Such is a case 
 where the lawfulness is quite unquestionable. 
 
 2. Let us go at once to the other extreme, and describe a case 
 where the u?ilawfulness is equally obvious. A party of men 
 agree to furnish each a certain sum of money to a common store, 
 and then they cast lots to determine to whom the whole sum 
 shall belong. The character of such a proceeding is clear. All 
 such lotteries, raffles, gamblings, are immoral, — profane. They 
 are, in their very essence, atheistic profligacy. The parties them- 
 selves may be made quickly to confess that they are. Will you 
 dare to say, we may ask them, will you dare to say that you can 
 ask the Divine sanction on a step like this ? Do you think, if 
 you lose in this speculation, that Almighty God will not hold you 
 responsible for the worldly good you thus lose ? for you put 
 away what God gave and what God commanded you concerning, 
 saying, " Occupy till I come." And He will demand an account 
 of it, as what you lost without His providence taking it from 
 you. And if you gain, will He not reckon with you, in like 
 manner, for being in possession of what He never gave ? And 
 will you dare to call Him in to decide and allocate in such shame- 
 ful transfers ? " The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole dis- 
 posing thereof is of the Lord." And you take that method which 
 most especially involves His finger to settle what He most especi- 
 ally abhors ! The reply of course is that any such thought of 
 thus appealing to God is never entertained. And doubtless that 
 is true enough ; for it is evident that the thoughtless agents are 
 acting all too plainly as those that are without God in the world. 
 
1 1 6 Casting the Lot. 
 
 But it remains none the less true that " the whole disposing of 
 the lot is of God ; " and if in such a case it would be blasphemy 
 to realise it to be so, and still persist, it is practical atheism not 
 to realise it all. For if " the very hairs of our heads are 
 numbered," and "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without 
 our Father ; " — and the falling out of the lot is not more truly, 
 but certainly more obviously, of His sole will and pleasure ; — 
 then if men can use it without thinking of God and His provid- 
 ence, attributing the result rather to chance, or luck, or fortune, 
 or fate, is not this an atheistic exclusion of the Almighty from 
 the affairs of His own world, and only next in its profligacy to 
 the blasphemy which would be involved in saying that they 
 appealed the lot to God, and sought to make Him a party to 
 their dishonourable dealino:s ? Enouo'h has been said to show 
 the immorality of casting lots in such a case. 
 
 We have taken, then, two extreme instances ; one where the 
 propriety and lawfulness are obvious, the other where the unlaw- 
 fulness and profanity are equally clear. But then, between these 
 two extremes there may range a vast variety of cases more or 
 less clear as they are nearer to the one or other of the extremes, 
 or approach to some middle line or limit between them. A father, 
 for instance, in dividing some little gifts or presents among his 
 children, to avoid jealousies or dissatisfaction, may have recourse 
 to the casting of lots. They (hraiu cuts. If this is right, it is 
 clearly not so obviously right as the case of a general drafting 
 by lot the parties to whom in the breach a death of violence is 
 all but certain. Or again, two young people, engaged in an exer- 
 cise of lawful recreation, may cast lots to determine who shall 
 begin. If this is wrong, it is clearly very far from being so obviously 
 wrong as an appeal to the lot in a matter of gambling. Is the one, 
 then, really right, and is the other really wrong ? Where is the 
 limit between the right and the wrong ? Where is the line that 
 separates the lawful from the unlawful use ? 
 
 Now this is precisely the question which we think no intelli- 
 gent religious teacher will undertake to answer ; and that simply 
 because the Bible itself does not answer it. The Bible does not 
 deal with God's people in the way of answering in set terms every 
 question of conscience that may arise. And if God himself does 
 not in set terms answer every such question, it would surely be 
 
Casting the Lot. 117 
 
 wrong in us to attempt to do so. We need not say that if every 
 case and question of conscience which might arise along the whole 
 course of time, and amidst the countless multitudes of the Church 
 in all climes and ages, had been, in so many words, provided for 
 and answered in a revelation from heaven, the sacred book would 
 have reached dimensions of such enormous magnitude as would 
 have rendered it perfectly useless. " I suppose that even the 
 world itself could not contain the books that should have been 
 written" (John xxi. 25). But apart from that consideration. 
 While God trains His children under certain clearly-enough 
 announced commandments, and has given us His moral law in 
 its various precepts as the rule of our duty, He has not placed 
 us under an unbending martial drill, under a miserable martinet- 
 like subjection to incessant, and express, and verbal instructions, 
 leaving no room for His free Spirit to exercise our consciences in 
 freedom, or to guide us in filial and manly enlargement. He 
 deals with us, not under a servile arrano^ement that would inces- 
 santly, and in terms, dictate to us, giving us nothing higher and 
 nobler to do than to creep along every moment exactly by the 
 tight line drawn for us, and to square our conduct by dead 
 mechanical rule. No. Our Lord gives us His holy law, which 
 is the image of His own holy nature, and the expression of His 
 own holy life ; and which bears in it, therefore, the image and 
 the impress of the freedom of His own free holy natures, both as 
 God and man. He writes this law on our hearts ; supreme love 
 to God, unfeigned love to man ; when He freely reconciles us, as 
 friends and children, to the Father. Then He places us in His 
 vineyard to do His work ; — " Son, go work to-day in My vine- 
 yard." That vineyard we find, not bordered, and hedged, and 
 railed in, on the supposition of. our being infants under tutors 
 and governors. We find in it no such series of instructions as 
 would allocate the particular duty of each particular hour ; and 
 we find no such arrangement as would ring us oflT, by bell or 
 token, from one duty to another, at the exact moment, leaving us 
 nothing to do but mechanically to wait the summons and follow 
 the continual leading strings. This is not God's way of disci- 
 plining His people. He leaves them much more at freedom, and, 
 in a sense, much more to their own discretion. Nor does He 
 thereby diminish their responsibility. Very much the reverse. 
 
1 18 Casting the Lot. 
 
 He lays upon them a far greater responsibility. He gives them 
 great general rules, and He calls upon them to apply these rules. 
 Instead of pointing out each separate thing they are to do, in 
 which case they might do it and be little disciplined in spirit by 
 doing it, He calls upon them in terms like these, " Whatsoever ye 
 do, whether in word or in deed, do all to the glory of God." He 
 asks them to keep alive on their spirits a sense of responsibility 
 to Him ; to walk under His eye, ready to do His will. He asks 
 them to keep a single eye to His glory, and a heart submissive to 
 His pleasure. And having freely adopted them to His love, and 
 graciously renewed them by His Spirit, He places them amidst 
 difficulties, no doubt, and trials and temptations, and in circum- 
 stances where their sincerity will be subjected to proof, and gives 
 them call and opportunity to show of what spirit they are, by 
 "doing all things in the name of Christ Jesus" (Col. iii. 17); or 
 doing all things in a manner " worthy of their high calling from 
 God" (Eph. iv. 1); by "doing all things to the glory of God" 
 (1 Cor. X. 81); or doing all things "unto the use of edifying" 
 (Eph. iv. 29). 
 
 Are you thus reconciled to God ? Are you, like Abraham, 
 God's friend ? And are there questions that arise, like this of 
 casting lots, or in matters of apparent conformity to worldly 
 custom, — cases of conscience and of casuistry ? And have you to 
 inquire, Is this lawful ? may I take the step that is recommended 
 to me ? does my Christianity require me, in this or that other 
 matter, to act differently from the multitude around me ? And 
 have you difficulty in settling a variety of points connected with 
 your actual daily doings in the world ? Expect not an exact, 
 minute, verbal statement, in every case, of what you ought to 
 do. Such statement is impossible ; and, were it possible, it is not 
 desirable. And beware of getting fretted into a regret that you 
 have not more definite and exact instruction. Look rather to 
 the spirit that dwelleth in you. Are you of the same mind that 
 was in Jesus ? How, think you, would Jesus have acted in the 
 case supposed ? Are you willing to decide by that test ? Bring 
 into mind the great principle, " Whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
 glory of God." How does the proposed line of conduct appear 
 when that rule of duty is applied to it ? Can you take this pro- 
 posed step, and yet glorify God ? Rather, can you take this pro- 
 
Casting the Lot. 1 1 9 
 
 posed step, and thereby glorify God ? Will it stand side by side 
 with a reanimated fear of the Lord ? Will it consist with the 
 spirit of prayer ? Can you engage in it, and your fellowship 
 with God not be interrupted ? Let no man say that solemn rules 
 like these, applied to our current and continual conduct, would 
 mar the happy social enjoyments of life, and the innocent re- 
 creations of buoyant youth or of fatigued manhood unbending 
 from weary care. It is not so. God hath made us for mutual 
 society; He hath made us so that continual strain on body or 
 mind without recreation is destructive to our health and useful- 
 ness. No enlightened conscience will see any inconsistency 
 between healthful and happy recreation, on the one hand, and 
 glorifying God, on the other. These very recreations, and what- 
 soever He doeth, the enlarged and free-hearted believer can do — 
 to the glory of God. Only let this principle really rule, — " How 
 may I best and to the utmost degree glorify God ? " — and all 
 narrow, creeping, bondage-ridden questions, and all symptoms of 
 a timid, hampered, unmanly, faltering, unfree walk with God, 
 will disappear. And without a free, holy, cordial, open, ingenuous 
 walk with God, all minute and accurate and verbal and mechanical 
 rules might most mechanically and accurately and minutely be 
 observed, but the soul of man be not any more trained to the 
 exalted dignity of a free companionship and unfettered friend- 
 ship with Heaven. 
 
XL 
 JONAH IN THE SHIP : ACHAN IN THE CAMP. 
 
 "Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this 
 evil is upon us ; what is thine occupation ? and whence comest thou ? Avhat is 
 thy country ? and of what people art thou ? And he said unto them, I am an 
 Hebrew ; and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea 
 and the dry land," — Jonah i. 8, 9. 
 
 '* AndJoshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord 
 God of Israel, and make confession unto Him : wnd tell me now what thou hast 
 done; hide it not from me." — Joshua vii. 19. 
 
 THERE is a strong resemblance between the ordeal which 
 Jonah is now undergoing for having fled from the presence 
 of the Lord and the land of Israel, and that to which a far less 
 distinguished member of his nation was subjected soon after that 
 land of Israel was entered on by the sacred people. That land 
 had been inhabited by transgressors whose wickedness had grown 
 up to heaven, and on whom God had now resolved to execute a 
 final work of judgment in their remorseless extermination, side 
 by side with His work of grace and faithfulness in establishing 
 Israel in the land promised to their fathers. The first city doomed 
 to destruction after the believing, triumphant entrance of Israel 
 on the consecrated territory, the Lord resolved to destroy in a 
 peculiar manner. He designed to read His people a lesson, in 
 the very commencement of their warfare of invasion, to the effect 
 that all their success depended on the forth-putting of power on 
 His part and the forth-putting of faith on theirs. It was a trial 
 of their faith, — their meek submission to the will, their confidence 
 in the word, their dependence on the power, of God. For six 
 successive days, the whole camp of Israel, the armed men, the 
 priests, with the ark of the Lord's covenant, move round the 
 strong-walled city. Not a blow do they essay to strike. Not a 
 shout of defiance do they send towards the fortress. Not a sound 
 of war is uttered. Not a move do they make towards victory, or 
 even towards conflict. Not a sound of any kind is heard, save 
 
yonah in the Ship. 1 2 1 
 
 the seven trumpets of the seven priests before the ark of the 
 Lord. Day after day nothing comes of it. Night after nii;]it, they 
 return into the camp and lodge there in peace. Jericho also sleeps 
 in peace ; no advance made whatever towards its destruction ; 
 free to laugh at the absurd movements, the childish pageantry 
 and empty procession of Israel's mad and moon-struck tribes ! 
 
 Yes ; it was, day after day, an increasing trial to Israel's 
 faith ; — a strange procedure ; to the men of Jericho " foolishness ; " 
 " to the Jews," save for their faith, " a stumbling-block." But 
 " by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were com- 
 passed about seven days " (Heb. xi. 30). 
 
 Thus singularly given up, by God's sole power, to Israel's 
 single faith, Jericho was to be entirely a devoted thing ; a whole 
 and unreserved victim to God's righteous wrath. " And the city 
 shall be accursed." Such were the stern and clear and most un- 
 mistakeable instructions of the Lord to Joshua, and from the 
 Lord, through Joshua, to the people : " the city shall be accursed," 
 — or devoted, — "even it, and all that is therein, to the Lord. 
 And ye, in any wise, keep yourselves from the accursed thing, 
 lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed 
 thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. But 
 all the silver, and. gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are con- 
 secrated to the Lord : they shall come into the treasury of the 
 Lord " (Joshua vi. 17-19). 
 
 This command Achan disobeyed. And the next solemn move 
 in Israel's camp, the next solemn chapter in Israel's history, after 
 the splendid miracle of Jericho's destruction, opens thus sadly and 
 gloomily : " But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the 
 accursed thing : for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, 
 the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed 
 thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled" (Joshua vii. 1). 
 This kindled anger the Lord kept for manifestation in a suitable 
 manner. The accursed thing detained — yea, " stolen " — from the 
 Lord, of the spoils of the first city, shall fatally bar them from 
 conquering a second. They flee before the men of Ai. Joshua 
 rends his clothes, and falls down before God in broken-hearted 
 alarm and prayer. " Get thee up : wherefore liest thou thus upon 
 thy face ? Israel hath sinned, and they have also trespassed my 
 covenant which I commanded them ; for they have even taken of 
 
122 yonah in the SJiip 
 
 the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and 
 they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the 
 children of Israel could not stand before their enemies" (verses 
 10, 11). Directions are then given by the Lord for the discovery 
 of the offender, and next day the multitudes of Israel stand forth 
 to be searched of the Lord. 
 
 It is a solemn scene. Every movement in it, as another and 
 another knell strikes strong, and with ever mounting force, upon 
 the evil conscience. A first step — a somewhat distant approach 
 to the discovery, is made : from the many thousands of Israel, 
 the tribe of Judah is selected. The eleven tribes breathe free. 
 On Judah all eyes are bent. By families, Judah now is tried. 
 The lot falls on the family of Zerah. The ground is narrowed 
 and narrowing. Justice is hemming in the guilty one. The 
 family of Zerah, man by man, passes in review, and the lot falls 
 on Zabdi, and " Zabdi was taken." " And he brought his house- 
 hold, man by man ; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of 
 Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken." For 
 " be sure your sin will find you out." 
 
 Is it not expressly said by an Apostle, speaking at the mouth 
 of the Spirit of God, that the events of Israel's history are 
 recorded " for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are 
 come ? " And what can be better fitted to speak to us in terms 
 the most overpowering and impressive, than the very silence, the 
 breathless silence, with which a scene like this is transacted 
 among the people whom the Lord had chosen to dwell among 
 them ? And was it not designed to produce this solemn and 
 awful impression, that every one who saw or heard of it 
 might " stand in awe and sin not," and do not thus wickedly ? 
 Ordinary providence, indeed, oftentimes worketh in this very way, 
 though without, it may be, those specialities and miracles that 
 appertained to Jehovah's dealings with Israel. How often has 
 the criminal become a spectacle to a whole camp — the object of a 
 whole nation's thought and speech ! For the finger of God is in his 
 trial ; and that finger of the living God, itself unseen, yet points 
 to this circumstance and that, lays them side by side, places and 
 pieces them together, carries them and places them beneath the 
 eyes of those staid and anxious men of jury and of judgment'; 
 and, on being asked to read and tell what they have seen, amidst 
 
A chart in tJie Camp. 123 
 
 the silence of a camp, or of a nation, they simply read what 
 their eyes have seen, because God's finger had written : — Proven : 
 Guilty ! 
 
 Let it be observed how tremendously conspicuous a man may 
 become, solely and alone, by reason of sin ; — as Achan did. No 
 public servant of the Lord ; no bearer of office among His people ; 
 no prophet like Jonah; but in private life, it may be in humble 
 rank, Achan, save for his sin, had passed in all probability through 
 life, with nothing to mark him out to others — certainly with 
 nothing to hand down his name to us. But a look of covetous- 
 ness flashes from his eye ; the ready hand executes the will of 
 lustful eye ; a few hours pass away in secret self-contempt or 
 shameless sin-drugged deep insensibility, or some average feeling 
 midway between these two extremes ; and lo ! by the finger of 
 God pointing to his sin, he is the spectacle of many hundreds of 
 thousands of eyes, all unanimously, simultaneously bent on him ; 
 he is the theme of many hundreds of thousands of tongues, soon 
 as a solemn awe releases them from breathless silence. 
 
 There may be worlds in space, inhabited by races of unfallen 
 beings, — worlds far more numerous than the crew of Jonah's ship 
 — yea, far more numerous than the spectators in the twelve 
 tribes of Israel — " the many thousands of Israel " — as they crowd 
 the plain in silent excitement, in the early sunlight of this solemn 
 judgment day near Ai. And they may be worlds of magnificence 
 and glory, and ofiicial dignity, one might say, in the grand priestly 
 service of the universe — as far transcending the native place and 
 position or capacity of this small world of ours, as countless 
 priests, and noble warriors, and girded Levites, and princes, and 
 great men in Israel, transcended in talent, in birth, in ofiice, in 
 honour, in fame, the poor and unnoticeable Achan. But as he, 
 for sin became the centre of all Israel's breathless regard : so may 
 this sinful world, and thou, sinner, be conspicuous in the 
 families of the wide, wide universe, solely, ay solely, because of 
 sin. This is thy tremendous distinction, O man ! thy terrible 
 conspicuousness — even that thou hast sinned. Thou art become 
 wonderful as having dared to rebel — rebel against the Most High 
 God. Thou art attracting much attention. Myriads of flashing 
 holy eyes fall on thee. God's tribes, and families, and households, 
 and holy ones, look on thee. " I charge thee before God and the 
 
124 yoiiah in the Ship : 
 
 elect angels!' Oh ! how canst thou stand their gaze ? How canst 
 thou see them, silent and breathless concerning thee ? Get thee 
 to thy hiding-place ; to that " man that is an hiding-place ;" that 
 God-man, for whose sake thou shalt be infinitely more conspic- 
 uous to the holy ones than even sin against the Highest can make 
 thee. Get thee into Him. Make Christ thy all ; while the 
 Father makes Him thine. And thus release the holy ones from 
 breathless silence. Give them leave — give them cause — man ! 
 to sing, " This our brother was dead and is alive again, was lost 
 and is found." Yea ! lest the tribes stone thee with stones, and 
 burn thee with fire; lest the angels, binding the bundles, bind 
 thee among them, and cast thee into everlasting fire ! yea, lest the 
 ship cast thee out into the raging lake that burneth. For whether 
 thou be Jonah, high in name and labours, or Achan, mean and 
 unknown, if thou meet the judgment and the lot impenitent : if 
 thou " stand in thy lot in the end of days," thy sin not till then 
 finding thee out, thy true and engrossing sorrow for sin only then 
 beginning; thy sorrow shall be sorrow unto death, and thy sin 
 be unhealed and eternal. 
 
 Let thy sin find thee out now; now, while thy Saviour seeks 
 thee — thy Saviour who came to seek and to find — and who is 
 offended, disoblioed, defeated in a loving, lonojins: wish, if He is 
 not gratified in being allowed to succeed in finding thee; — thee, 
 O trembling, smitten soul : thee, whom thy sins are finding. 
 
 Achan was taken. The lot fell on Jonah. 
 
 The treatment to which these two men were subjected im- 
 mediately on their criminality being revealed deserves special 
 consideration, and the comparison of the two cases suggests not a 
 few lessons of value. Thus, in the case of Jonah : " Then said 
 the mariners unto him. Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause 
 this evil is upon us ! what is thine occupation ? and whence 
 comest thou ? what is thy country ? and of what people art 
 thou ? " In the case of Achan : " Joshua said unto him. My son, 
 give, I pray thee, glory to the God of Israel, and make confession 
 unto Him, and tell me now what thou hast done, hide it not from 
 me." Such are the two addresses delivered to the two criminals 
 respectively, in the moment of their detection or discovery ; the 
 one by heathen sailors to the troubler of the ship, the other by 
 
Achan in the Camp. 125 
 
 Joshua, the man of God, to the troubler of the camp. And they 
 even invite comparison, while they promise to reward it. 
 
 I. Compare, then, these respective investigations. 
 
 1. First of all, observe the onanner of them. Mark the alarm 
 of the heathen : the calm solemnity of the man of God. 
 
 See the loss of self-possession on the part of the Gentile 
 sailors ; the alarmed haste, mingling wath irrepressible and 
 excited curiosity, as question after question comes pouring- 
 forth, each tripping on the heels of the former ; " What is 
 thine occupation ? And whence earnest thou ? What is thy 
 country ? And of w^iat people art thou ? " See, on the other 
 hand, the dignity and deliberateness of the holy Joshua : " My 
 son, give glory, I pray thee, to the Lord God of Israel, and make 
 confession to Him ; and tell me what thou hast done ; hide it not 
 from me." No one can thoughtfully read these two expostulations 
 to the prisoner, these two adjurations to him to tell the truth, to 
 speak out the fact, without feeling that in the one case there is 
 alarm, selfish fear, ungoverned curiosity, heathen haste ; in the 
 other, holy deliberation, reverential solemnity; a far higher 
 governing desire than selfish excitement on the theme or fear of 
 danger; a majestic, peaceful discharge of duty, as of one w^ho 
 puts himself forward only as the instrument and servant of 
 Jehovah. The moral littleness of Jonah's inquisitors comes out, 
 as tossed on a sea of mental anxiety, they have scarcely power or 
 time decently to ask a question, — not to speak of waiting for an 
 answer ; but forth flow^s a torrent of queries, very far in their 
 jumbled haste from the solemn dignity, the grave order of judi- 
 cial righteousness. The moral greatness of Joshua, on the other 
 hand, is seen in the stern, yet mild and quiet, resolve in which 
 he conducts and carries out the trial. There is righteousness in 
 his manner — righteousness inflexible in his manner, movements, 
 countenance, voice, and word: righteousness so strong that it 
 does not need to brace itself up nervously, exhibiting and reveal- 
 ing its weakness. And there is compassion also — compassion so 
 holy, so true, that it does not seek to prove itself by many words. 
 " My son," he says ; " my son," even to the man stained with the 
 accursed thing. With such majesty does holy character naturally 
 clothe itself ; holy character and holy office, held direct and in 
 faith from God. 
 
126 Jonah in the Ship 
 
 2. But, secondly, compare the two addresses to the criminals 
 respectively in regard to the 'matter of them. 
 
 There are two things to which an address, an adjuration, a 
 charge or inquiry directed to an offender in these circumstances 
 will have, or at least ought to have, respect. It will, or it ought 
 to be, designed to lead him to an admission of the fact, and to 
 lead him to an acknowledgment of the guilt. Now the two 
 styles of address before us are in marked contrast, as to the pro- 
 minence or proportion in which these two several elements are 
 set forth. The heathen mariners are almost exclusively bent on 
 ascertaining from Jonah the fact of his offence ; the guilt of it, 
 his feelings as to the guilt of it, his admission of the guilt of it, 
 they scarcely concern themselves about at all. Joshua, on the 
 other hand, while in duty required to search the fact, puts for- 
 ward, first of all, and prominently, his poor prisoner's duty to 
 God to confess the guilt. 
 
 Read now, again, in this light, the heathen sailors' series of 
 hot and hasty queries. There is not a single question concerning 
 guilt. Not a single word directed to Jonah to strengthen his 
 conscience towards confession unto God of his inexcusable trans- 
 gression. They are quite in a lower sphere with their questions 
 altogether. The event, the fact, the action, — not whether there 
 be that in it which adorable rectitude cannot but relentlessly and 
 rio-hteously pursue : but the act, the incident, the fact itself : give 
 them that ; satisfy them about that. Yes, satisfy them upon the 
 fact ; not glorify God concerning the guilt of Jonah and God's 
 righteousness in thus pursuing Jonah. Tell us, we pray thee, 
 for whose cause this evil is come upon us ; what is thine occu- 
 pation ? and whence comest thou ? what is thy country ? and of 
 what people art thou ? Give us the facts ; these bear on us — 
 bear on us and on our safety. Not, Own the guilt to God ; the 
 aruilt that bears on Him ; that bears on Him and His rights ; that 
 has been touching and tampering with His glory. To this higher 
 and holier element in the case the heathens do not rise. 
 
 It is otherwise with Joshua. With him this element is in the 
 foreground. " My son, give glory unto God, and Tvialze confession 
 to Him." Thou hast troubled us, indeed. For thee, our victorious 
 march has been arrested ; our arms soiled with dishonour and 
 defeat ; our brothers vilely driven back and slain, their shields 
 
Achan in the Camp. 127 
 
 vilely thrown away ; the hearts of the people melted also, and 
 become as water. Verily thou hast troubled us and smitten us 
 with grief, making amongst us " many a sweet babe fatherless, 
 and many a widow mourning." But while thou hast troubled us, 
 against God, against Him, Him only, hast thou sinned. My son, 
 give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto 
 Him. Tell me, indeed, what thou hast done; hide it not: for 
 " a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump ; " and the evil leaven, 
 the accursed thing, must be purged away. For against the camp 
 as well as thee, against the camp of Israel by and for thee, is the 
 anger of the Lord God of Israel kindled. Tell me, therefore, 
 what thou hast done ; but my son, give the glory to God, and 
 make confession of the guilt to Him. The sin, in the fad of it. 
 He knows : I know it not ; tell it to me. Thy sin, in the guilt 
 of it, is not against me ; 'tis against Him : to Him acknowledge 
 it. Give Him the glory of confessing to Him, — the true King 
 and Sovereig-n, the Most High, the Holy One in Israel. 
 
 Mark well the difference between the mere fact and the a-uilt 
 of your sin; and more especially the difference between the 
 admission of the fact and the admission of your guilt. Jehovah 
 comes into the garden in the cool of the day, and brings the 
 criminals from their hiding-place of shame into His presence. 
 The question is : Adam, hast thou eaten ? Eve, hast thou eaten ? 
 Not to ascertain the fact ; — for of that, apart from the Omni- 
 science of the Judge, their every look, every move, every attitude 
 is a sad, and sore, and sufficient demonstration ; — but to induce a 
 confession of sm, of guilt, of inexcusable offence, of righteous 
 liability to anger and punishment. What are the replies ? " The 
 woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did 
 eat." " I did eat." The fact is admitted. But is the guilt ? 
 Nay ; if it were, why this preface to the fact ; this dwelling so 
 fully on fact, and fact alone ; this brief history of the fact ; brief, 
 yet clung to so firmly — expected to be made so much of ? " The 
 woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did 
 eat." Clearly, the design is, while admitting the fact, to disown 
 the guilt ; to put the guilt on Eve ; " She gave me : " — to put the 
 blame, if need be, on God ; — " the woman whom Thou gavest to 
 be with me, she gave me : " — and but for the woman giving me 
 the fruit, and but for Thee giving me the woman, I had not eaten 
 
128 yonah in the Ship : 
 
 — for then it %yould have been wholly inexcusable. It is an 
 elaborate effort to disentangle the fact from the guilt ; to acknow- 
 ledge the one and disown the other. There is no giving glory to 
 God and making confession to Him. It is rather throwing over 
 the responsibility on Him ; laying blame at His door in the 
 enmity of falsehood : not taking blame to self, and lying down 
 at His feet in the confidence and confession of trvith and candour. 
 
 And the woman, she also admits the fact ; — " I did eat." But 
 she too rejects the guilt ; " The serpent beguiled me, and I did 
 eat." Were it not for him having beguiled me ; had I done it 
 without him beguiling me ; I would have been guilty indeed, 
 silent, speechless, inexcusable, without a plea, and my guilt 
 without palliation. As it is, I have this to say for myself — this 
 plea, this answer, this defence, this shield, this extenuation, this 
 claim against condemnation and death ; " The serpent beguiled 
 me, and I did eat." 
 
 What are your repentings ? What are your admissions at a 
 throne of grace ? Is it merely the fact of your sin that you 
 admit ? Is it the exceeding sinfulness of sin, rather, that you 
 feel ? The former you may do, and that may satisfy a heathen. 
 It is the latter that satisfies God, — and a man of God. " Give 
 glory unto God, my son, and make confession to Him." 
 
 Give glory unto God ! What glory ? and unto what God ; or, 
 unto God, under what aspect or relation, shall I give glory ? 
 Unto the Lord God of Israel, my son. Unto the God of His 
 people, the God of salvation, standing to thee in Christ in that 
 relation — thy God, O poor offender ; the God of thy salvation, 
 notwithstanding all the guilt and blackness of thy sin. Thee He 
 is seeking to save, by this very discipline by which He makes 
 thy sin to find thee out. To number thee among the Israel to 
 whom He is the God of salvation — this is His design in sending 
 forth thy sin — letting loose thy sin — to hunt and harass thee 
 with fear of death, of judgment, of eternal wrath, with present 
 pain of bitter shame and burning conscience. See Him in Christ 
 — too soon thou canst not. Thou canst not too soon realise Him 
 in Christ the God of righteous, holy mercy to thee, the God of thy 
 salvation. And as suchlet Him have glory from thee. 
 
 And what glory ? Glory, as the heart-searching, all-seeing 
 God : " Thou God seest me ; " "0 God thou knowest my foolish- 
 
Achan in the Cajup. 129 
 
 ness ; and my sins are not hid from Thee." Glory as the Sovereign 
 One, the Ruler, the Lawgiver, the King, the high and lofty One, 
 throned in the court of last appeal, into which, until I come, I 
 never know the greatness and honour of my nature as re- 
 sponsible there. Glory, as the Being who alone can decide on 
 my case : who alone can master all its intricacies ; witness, and 
 attest, and understand all its facts ; weigh and measure all its 
 criminality ; scan and foresee all its fruits and issues : who alone 
 can master and reverse all its evils. Glory, as the Just One, who 
 can do me no wronof : the Judge of all the earth, who will ever 
 do that which is right. Glory, as a just God and a saviour, freely 
 justifying the ungodly who believe in Christ ; and who, with His 
 Son's most glorious and evermore amazing cross, and by its efficacy 
 ministered unto me continually by His gospel and His Spirit, 
 opens and searches all my heart, penetrates it with the power of 
 His Son's most terrible but saving death, draws out from their 
 recesses all my lingering enmities, and jealousies, and distrusts, 
 and dislikes, and constraining me to make a clean breast in tell- 
 ing all its foulness. Himself then purges me with hyssop that I 
 may be clean, creates a clean heart within me, and makes me 
 whiter than snow. Yes ; let my sin be before me as Achan's 
 was. Let me realise God and His holy ones looking on me — " I 
 charge thee before God and the elect angels " — let me have no 
 door of escape, and above all let me seek none ; let me give glory 
 to God, and make confession to Him. Glory be to God, there is 
 room yet for giving glory to Him — vile though I may be in His 
 sight and in my own — though I be of all earth's poor prisoners, 
 and caught ones, and convicts, the very chief. Still I may give 
 Him glory ; and He will not refuse it at my hands. Only let me 
 feel that I deserve His anger. And only let the cross of His 
 beloved Son arise, in the Spirit's light, more and more to my 
 view. Oh, that cross of Christ ! Oh, the blessedness of perfect 
 expiation of sin effected there, that sin may be forgiven there, — 
 freely, fully, for ever forgiven if I only carry it there ! Oh, the 
 dawning, the fast breaking hope that beams and brightens there I 
 Oh, how it makes me honest, how it makes me true, if I really 
 see it ! I give glory to God, and make confession to Him at His 
 Son's cross. And the light of His countenance beams even now 
 on me above it ; and the glory of His eternal home bursts open 
 
 I 
 
1 30 Jonah in the Ship : 
 
 for me yonder behind it. What matters the complexion of my 
 lot 'twixt now and then ? Weary years of varying, vexing care ; 
 sharp, swift trials, following fast on each other ; trying duties 
 manifold, it may be ; the thousand ills of man's estate in chang- 
 ing combinations, in fast succession, or in slow detail ; I may have 
 to prove them all. But what although, if I have been able only to 
 glorify God in making confession to Him, and He has not rejected 
 the 'glory, but been indeed glorified in me ? It is but a little 
 while, and He shall straightway glorify me with Himself. And 
 even now, if stern, relentless justice should require, as with Achan, 
 that I be offered up a victim to the peace and welfare of the camp ; 
 let me only see that it is God who deals with me and demands 
 it ; let me only hold fast by His justice, satisfied in atonement by 
 the Lamb — and His love, certified and sealed in atonement by the 
 Lamb — and even still, I can give Him glory ; for though I be 
 " delivered over for the destruction of the flesh," and " though the 
 outward man perish," and " I have the sentence of death in my- 
 self ; " it is " that I may trust in Him who quickeneth the dead," 
 that the " inward man be the more renewed," and " that the spirit 
 may be saved in the day of the Lord." Nay ; all lengths can I 
 go through the cross of Christ. Let the Spirit only bring forth 
 upon my heart more and more of the power of that cross (and its 
 power is altogether endless and supreme), and let me even, if need 
 be — and it is well to study even the extremest case — let me even, 
 if need be, be carried down with Achan to the valley of Achor, 
 and let the people stone me there : — Give me only, still, and 
 always, and there, the cross of Christ, as the Lord still, and 
 always, and there, doth give me ; and, nerved anew vinto the 
 uttermost of all my need, I have even " the valley of Achor for a 
 door of hope." 
 
 In this spirit, as we have ground in holy charity to hope, 
 Achan met and acquiesced in his fate. In this spirit, we know 
 that Jonah more than acquiesced in — himself pointed out — his. 
 
 II. Having contrasted the two appeals made to the respective 
 parties in their so similar circumstances, let us in like manner 
 compare their respective answers. And the point of interest 
 turns here again on the relative importance assigned to the ad- 
 
Achan in the Camp. 131 
 
 mission of the fact on the one hand, and the admission of the 
 guilt on the other. 
 
 Thus, in the one case, Achan with much simplicity and meek- 
 ness owns the guilt against God. '"'And Achan answered Joshua, 
 and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, 
 and thus and thus have I done." And then, because the case 
 required the minuteness of fact also, in order that the last rack of 
 the cursed thing should be purged away, he goes on minutely to 
 specify every particular, with all the exactness that his preface — 
 " thus and thus have I done " — would seem to promise. 
 
 Again, on the other hand, in the case of Jonah, the admission 
 of the fact is out of all comparison the least of it. The fact, 
 indeed, he admits, briefly, oft'-hand ; fully, without reserve ; also 
 without dwelling upon it. What he dwells upon, what he aggra- 
 vates, is his' guilt, his blame-worthiness, his criminality, his ill- 
 deservingness, his entire deservingness of all that God is doing. 
 " And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the 
 God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land." There is 
 the acknowledgment of his guilt. And these are the things that 
 aggravate his guilt. He is " an Hebrew ; " one of the favoured 
 people, of whom he knoweth, and hath had rich experience, that 
 God dealt not so with any nation. And he knows " the God of 
 heaven," and " fears " Him, the God that " made the sea and the 
 dry land," the living God, the Supreme, the Creator, the Preserver 
 of all the ends of the earth, the Answerer of Prayer unto His 
 people, answering them at times by " terrible things in righteous- 
 ness," yet still " the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of 
 all them that are afar off upon the sea " (Ps. Ixv). For such an 
 one to sin, and to sin thus ; for a Hebrew to cast himself out 
 among the heathen ; for a believer in the God of heaven, the 
 Maker of the sea and of the dry land, to flee from land to sea, 
 away from the presence of the Maker of both, this indeed was 
 deep-dyed guiltiness and sin. And all this, to his own humilia- 
 tion, Jonah distinctly speaks out and specifies. The mere fact, 
 the mere admission of the fact, is with him a small matter; all 
 the more so, as his interrogators seemed to count it the most 
 engrossing. With him, the matter of the guilt, the offensiveness, 
 the aggravated and inexcusable criminality, is by far the most 
 important thing calling for admission, for acknowledgment ; all 
 
132 Jonah in the Ship : 
 
 the more so because his interrogators made so light of it, so little 
 of it, overlooked it indeed so completely. With him now, in 
 his returning integrity and rising penitence, the admission of 
 his guilt is the great point. He disposes quickly of the fact. 
 Accordingly, in our narrative the admission of the fact is thrown 
 quite into a parenthesis, quite into a corner, into the shade, into 
 the background. It is set aside quite in an ofF-hand way. His 
 telling them the fact is recorded as a matter of course ; no atten- 
 tion is concentrated on that. It is not engrossed among the other 
 parts of his reply, but merely stated to have formed a part of it. 
 It seems as if it had been engrossed in the narrative as by a hair- 
 breadth escape : " The men knew that he had fled from the 
 presence of the Lord, because he had told them." In this slight 
 , and unnoticeable way, — scarcely for a moment breaking the deep 
 solemnity of the record as it discloses the action of a fallen but 
 godly man's conscience of the guilt, — the mere admission of the 
 deed is disposed of and set at rest. On the solemn owning of the 
 guilt all our notice is concentrated. And not only so in Jonah's 
 original converse on the very scene itself. But, as we are to 
 remember, Jonah himself is afterwards the writer and author, 
 under God's Spirit, of this very record before us. It is he who 
 tells the story. It is he who so quickly disposes of his own 
 acknowledgment of the fact : " The men knew that he had fled 
 from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them." And 
 it is he who, on the the contrary, recounts and puts on record for 
 all generations the full statement of his aggravated guilt and 
 shame : " I am an Hebrew, and I fear the God of heaven, who 
 , made the sea and the dry land." I who have fled from His 
 X presence, did so in the face of such light, such privileges, such 
 / responsibilities as an Hebrew, a fearer of the living God, alone 
 ' can know. The admission of the fact is secondary ; and both as 
 a penitent groaning under God's hand at the time, and as a pro- 
 phet writing God's Scriptures afterwards, Jonah brings out its 
 second ariness. He makes no secret of it, indeed ; but he makes 
 no great matter of it. The great matter — the great point with him 
 is " giving glory " to God ; owning his deep guilt ; shielding and 
 glorifying, even in his own punishment, God's unspotted right- 
 eousness. Is not this the proof that he is, that he is still, that he 
 is once more, a true fearer of the Lord, a leal-hearted son and 
 
Achan in the Camp. 133 
 
 servant of God Most High ? Is not this the action, and test, and 
 proof of filial truth and trustfulness ; of a true son's true, and 
 loyal, and holy heart ; even amidst sin's acknowledgment ; yea, 
 never more truly than in the very fact and moment of sin 
 acknowledged in all its guiltiness, its utter inexcusableness, its 
 exceeding sinfulness ? Never is one more intensely a son than 
 in the very act of confession, when confession is heartfelt, in- 
 genuous, true and full. " Give glory unto God, my son, and 
 make confession to Him." 
 
 O fallen prophet ! rising man of God ! thou art a Hebrew ; 
 thou fearcst God! Not, Thou didst once fear God, thou didst 
 once belong to the commonwealth of Israel and covenant of 
 promise. Fallen thou hast greatly ; pursued thou art hotly ; 
 punished with strong cords of chastisement, by the strong hand 
 of the Almighty. Yet still thou boldest thine integrity ; still 
 thou fearest God. O blessed word ! " I fear, I do fear, I am fear- 
 ing, the God of heaven." Yes ; hold fast thy fear of God. Hold 
 to it, and protest that still thou fearest God. Say not, I once 
 feared the Lord ; once in days gone by, before I disobeyed Him 
 and fled. The enemy would have thee to put it all to the past, 
 to set it all aside as past. Nay ; hold to it that still, disobedient 
 as thou hast been, miserable as thou art, still thou fearest God, 
 truly, reverently, filially, penitently, giving Him Glory. Fallen 
 thou hast. Yet let this be thy challenge to the foe : " Rejoice not 
 against me, O mine enemy : when I fall, I shall rise again ; when 
 I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." Fallen thou 
 hast. Yet, challenging and defying the enemy, appeal also to the 
 Lord ; even as the Lord, by this very punishment, appeals to thee. 
 For is He not appealing to thee ? Hark ! the terms of His appeal ! 
 Jonah, son of Amittai, fearest thou Me — Me the Maker of this 
 raging sea, and of the dry land ? Seest thou not, Jonah, that 
 thy God is keeping fast hold of thee ; and not even thy sin shall 
 pluck thee out of thy Saviour's, thy Father's hand ? Seeth thou 
 not that He is keeping fast hold of thee, that thou mayest keep 
 fast hold of thine integrity and of Him ? Seest thou not that 
 this very raging of the sea, raging against thee, raging against 
 thy sin, is sent forth to keep alive, to quicken, to stimulate, to 
 restore thy true and trusting and obedient fear of God ? Doth 
 not every wave, in its tumultuous terror, as it dashes on the 
 
134 Jonah in the Ship. 
 
 ship, cry as from God : " Jonah, son of Amittai, fearest thou Me ? " 
 A brother of thine in after days, as foully fallen, shall hear a 
 still small voice beside the soft rippling wave of Galilee's lake, 
 say, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me ? " And canst thou not 
 reply, somewhat as he shall, " Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou 
 knowest that I fear Thee " ? 
 
 Yes ; there is uprightness in thee still, man of God ; and by 
 thine uprightness thou shalt rise again, through the mercy of thy 
 God, into righteous peace and dignity, into labours and useful- 
 ness still in His service. Cast not away thy fear of God, which 
 hath great recompense of reward. Only be true. Only be truth- 
 ful to man and true to God. Come what may, give God the glory. 
 He can do thee no wrong, even unto eternity. Is He not thy 
 God ? And is He not also, O sinning, fallen, troubled, penitent, 
 rising brother, is He not the God of the sea ? That raging sea 
 can never hurt thee, true to thy God, who is also the God of 
 heaven, of the sea, and of the dry land. Confess to Him. Return 
 to Him. Give glory unto Him. Come of it whatsoever may, 
 Give Him glory. Though He slay thee, yet still do thou trust in 
 Him. None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate. 
 
XII. 
 AGGRAVATIONS OF THE GUILT OF BACKSLIDING. 
 
 "And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew ; and I fear Jehovah, the God 
 of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men 
 exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the 
 men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had 
 told them." — Jonah i. 9, 10. 
 
 '•^ Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the 
 Lord thy God, when He led thee by the icay." — Jer. ii. 17. 
 
 THE answer ingenuously given by Jonah to the hasty series of 
 questions which the excited sailors poured upon him, is a 
 sufficient proof that the grace of God was now bringing him to 
 repentance, as the providence of God was bringing him to punish- 
 ment. " I am an Hebrew, and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, 
 which made the sea and the dry land." Combine this bold con- 
 fession of his faith with the full acknowledgment of his fault — 
 " for the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, 
 because he had told them," — and we have abundant materials 
 whereby to judge of the frame of mind to which the prophet was 
 now brought. The elements of a true repentance are distinctly 
 before us, as true repentance appears in a believer. 
 
 For it is as a child of God that Jonah here repents ; and there 
 are elements of sad remorse and contrition in a believer's repent- 
 ance, which have no place in that first exercise of godly sorrow 
 in which the sinner returns to the Lord. The believer sins against 
 all the grace and favour which, as a believer, he has enjoyed ; and 
 this goes to deepen the grief and shame which he feels when 
 brought to repentance. 
 
 Are you, as Jonah, a true worshipper and servant of God ? 
 And are you, like Jonah, overtaken by Divine displeasure in a 
 course of disobedience in respect of some known point of duty ? 
 And are you at last humbled to own your guilt? You will 
 acknowledge these three things in the exceeding sinfulness of 
 your sin. You have sinned: First, against the knowledge of 
 
o 
 
 6 Aggravations of the 
 
 what God is in Himself ; secondly, against the experience of what 
 God has been to you ; and, thirdly, against the consideration of 
 what yon have been to God. 
 
 These three elements all appear in the guilt of Jonah, and are 
 expressly owned by himself. (I.) Against what God is in Him- 
 self, Jonah owns that he has sinned ; against " Jehovah, the God 
 of Heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land." (2.) 
 Against what God has been to him, Jonah confesses that he has 
 sinned ; " I am an Hebrew : " a member of the people whose God 
 Jehovah is ; for whom Jehovah hath done great things : to whom 
 He hath given " the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, 
 and the law, and the service of God, and the promises ; whose are 
 the Fathers ; and of whom as concerning the flesh, the Christ 
 should come, who is God over all, blessed for ever." (3.) And, 
 thirdly, against what he himself has been to God, Jonah owns 
 that he has sinned : " I fear Jehovah ; " I am one of His true 
 worshippers, His children, His servants ; I have been enrolled 
 among the true Israel — a true child of the covenant — a messenger 
 of it also, standing in the counsel and in the secret of the Most 
 High ; for " the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." 
 Yet against this also have I sinned. 
 
 By all these three considerations ought Jonah to have been 
 restrained from sinning, and retained in his loyalty to God. The 
 glory of God — the God of heaven, of the sea, and of the dry land 
 — ought to have restrained him. The graciousness of God towards 
 himself ought to have restrained him. And the grace of God in 
 himself ought to have restrained him. And when, in the face of 
 all these three considerations, his disobedience breaks forth and 
 carries him impetuously away, do they not all go to aggravate 
 the guilt which he contracts ? 
 
 When tempted to sin — to distrust and disobey the Lord — do 
 you, O Christian, keep these three things in view ? Do you give 
 these three things due weight ? Do you remember the glory of 
 God, as He is in Himself? Do 3'ou remember His great gracious- 
 ness to you ? Do you give heed, do you give scope, do you give 
 fair play, to the instincts and dictates of His grace in you ? 
 
 L Take your stand under the bright canopy of heaven ; look 
 above you and look around. The " heaven " above, " the sea and 
 
Gtiilt of Backsliding. 1 3 7 
 
 the dry land " below ; creation's all ; lo ! it came from the hand of 
 Him whom now you propose to disobey, from whose pre'^ence you 
 propose to flee. How infatuated ; How insulting, how provoking 
 to God ! His hand, " that made the heaven, and the sea, and the dry 
 land," — can it not find you, even though you " take the wings of 
 the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ? " He 
 that formed all, and continually preserveth all, shall He not con- 
 tinually behold all ?— and whither shall you flee from His presence, 
 or how shall you be justitied, excused in forgetting it ? Are you 
 relapsed so far into that deep ungodliness, that utter death 
 towards God, from which His saving grace aroused you ? Are 
 you so far fallen from the sweet enjoyment you once had in 
 looking upward and around on all the wondrous fabric of heaven 
 and earth, and feeding your secret reverence for God your Father 
 by recognising the traces of His goodness, power, and wisdom in 
 the things that are made ; by listening — as we delight to listen 
 to the praises of one we love — listening to the heavens as they 
 declare His glory, to the firmament as it showeth forth His handi- 
 work ? Ah ! consider " the invisible things of God " as they are 
 revealed " by the things that are made." When thou considerest 
 the heavens, the w^ork of His fingers, the moon and the stars, 
 which He has ordained, see that thou not only say, " What is 
 man, that God should be mindful of him ? " but. What must I be 
 if I be forgetful of God ? This is the primary element in your 
 sin. Against the God of glory — against the glory of God — is sin 
 directed. And the consciousness, the conviction, the confession 
 of this, is the primary element in repentance. 
 
 II. But, secondly, see what God hath been to you ! See His 
 graciousness to you-ward ! You are "an Hebrew." Or, which 
 is the same thing, you are a Gentile brought nigh ; for the middle 
 wall of partition has been broken down, and you have been 
 adopted into Israel's privileges — engrafted into Israel's privileges 
 — engrafted into Israel's goodly olive ; and how great are your 
 advantao-es thence accruing ! The revelation of God in the visible 
 Church is unspeakably more tender, and unspeakably more full, 
 than that which the visible creation aflbrds. His glory is seen 
 as in a glass in that divine word which He hath given in the 
 Church, that testimony which He hath deposited in Israel. They 
 
138 Aggravations of the 
 
 are but dim and shadowy traces of the majesty of God, which the 
 framework of the world bears. The word, as in a mirror, brings 
 the full glory of the Highest to view. There He explains Him- 
 self, and speaks familiarly. There He tells the principles on 
 which He rules the world and saves the lost. There He reveals 
 His Son, righteously bearing the condemnation of the guilty, 
 lovingly redeeming them with the price of His life. There He 
 tells of the adoption, and the covenants, the giving of the law, 
 and the service of God, and the Fathers, and the coming of the 
 Christ as concerning the flesh. And to you — to you, as substan- 
 tially an Hebrew, an Israelite, a member of the favoured nation, 
 added to that nation by the taking away of the middle wall of 
 partition — to you He testifies that all these gifts of His grace ; the 
 adoption, the glory, the covenants, the oracles of God, the Fathers, 
 and the glorious ancestry, the Christ and the great salvation; — 
 to you all these things belong — belong as by birthright, insomuch 
 that your living without them can result alone from your reject- 
 ing them. Is not this the Lord being gracious to you ? And 
 when, in the face of this, you sin against Him, is not your sin 
 highly aggravated ? By birth, by baptism, jou are an Israelite. 
 You may sell your birthright. You may make void your bap- 
 tism. But it is by your own act that you make void the one ; 
 it is by positive deed of sale that you disparage and alienate and 
 put away from you the other. Humbly and believingly improved, 
 your birthright, and baptism, would have been seals of grace and 
 pledges of glory. Though they be rejected and abused, you are 
 responsible for them still ; and they constitute a grievous aggrava- 
 tion of your sin. 
 
 Yes ! I believe we have much to learn of the responsibilities 
 that lie upon us simply from belonging by birth to the visible 
 Church ; from being, by the removal of the middle wall of parti- 
 tion, exactly in the position of having to say with Jonah, in all 
 the spiritual and substantial import of the confession, " I am an 
 Hebrew." Nor is our repentance pervaded so fully as it ought 
 to be with the sense of overwhelming, inexcusable, aggravated 
 guiltiness, unless we feel that we have sinned against the great 
 graciousness of God to us-ward in His Church, which is His own 
 house upon the earth. 
 
Guilt of Backsliding. 139 
 
 III. But thirdly ; if you are a believer, your disobedience is 
 aggravated by the fact that you fear God — that God's grace is 
 within you. His glory in Himself ought to secure your reverence. 
 His graciousness towards you might have been expected to retain 
 you in His love and service. But surely His very grace operating 
 in you ; His own Son formed within you ; His Holy Spirit dwell- 
 ing in you ; the new creation, the new heart, the new man which 
 the exceeding greatness of His power has in-framed in you ; ought 
 to restrain you from knowingly disobeying j'our Father's will. 
 Surely, when you actually, by grace, do fear the Lord ; when the 
 Lord actually " worketh in you to will and to do of His good 
 pleasure;" you may be called upon with special good reason to 
 " work out your salvation with fear and trembling." And if 
 against the power of Divine grace even in your own soul; against 
 the instincts of a new nature ; against the claims and promptings 
 of an indwelling Christ — of " Christ in you, the hope of glory ; " 
 against the loving movements of the Holy Spirit resting on and 
 abiding in you ; you suffer your indwelling sin to break forth and 
 carry the day ; oh ! surely this consideration may well touch and 
 soften your heart, abasing you in the very dust, and filling you 
 with bitter grief and shame. Let the heathen sin against the 
 glory of God as inscribed on the heavens and the earth. Let false- 
 hearted Israelites sin against God's great graciousness towards 
 them in His word, and house, and ordinances, — His message 
 of grace. His treaty of peace, His offer of eternal salvation. But 
 for you to sin against the glory of God as exhibited to all, and 
 the graciousness of God as testified in the Church, and also 
 against the grace of God dwelling in your very self as in its 
 chosen shrine and temple ; oh ! this is sin that is " as scarlet, and 
 red like crimson." 
 
 It hath pleased God to reveal Himself by the works that He 
 hath made, — patent to all. And it hath pleased God to reveal 
 His love and kindness towards man in the Scriptures He hath 
 given; and these are patent to all in the Church — manifest 
 wherever the Church extends. But it hath "pleased God to 
 reveal His Son in you ; " to " shine in your heart and give you 
 the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
 Jesus Christ;" to "write His law also on your heart and put 
 His fear within you ; " and is there any one that can sin under 
 
140 Aggravations of the 
 
 deeper aggravations than you? — just because you truly fear the 
 Ood of heaven, the God of the Hebrews, the God and Father of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ — your God and Father in Him. Let the 
 consideration of these aggravating elements enter into your 
 repentance, as they entered into Jonah's. Alas ! against whom 
 have you sinned ? Against the high and lofty One that in- 
 habiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, and whose glory is above 
 the heavens. Against what a world of forbearance and grace on 
 His part towards you have you sinned ! And, thou that truly 
 fearest the Lord ! against His own Spirit and work in thy very 
 soul is thy sin committed. Oh, surely into "tjour repentance there 
 may well enter an element of special grief and mournfulness. 
 " O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body 
 of this death ? " 
 
 But how important to be able, in believing confidence, to add, 
 "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Is it not the 
 infinite, free, unchanging love of God in Christ, which forms the 
 only covert under which you can repent in peace ? Is it not a 
 fresh view of the bleeding Lamb of God, in the infinite glory of 
 His Person, and the all-sufficiency of His sacrifice, and the 
 immovable sureness of His covenant of peace, wdiich enables 
 you to hold fast your integrity amidst the deep consciousness of 
 great and grievous transgression ; which enables you still to say, 
 and to say with truth, " I fear the God of Heaven ? " For there 
 is in that slain Lamb, that eternal Son of God, giving Himself in 
 mortal w^oe a sacrifice for sin — " there is forgiveness with the 
 Lord, in Him, that He may be feared." Believing this, you are 
 set free from the sad snare — the strong temptation which labours 
 to make void and prevent your repentance — the temptation to 
 justify yourself, to seek excuses and extenuations, to make out 
 that, considering the circumstances, your guilt is not so very 
 great. Unbelief, despairing of forgiveness, and the carnal mind 
 which is enmity to God, abhorring the deep obligation to God 
 which such forgiveness would infer, are shut up to deceitful and 
 disingenuous attempts at palliation and self-defence. But faith — 
 realising the truth and sure gift of a free and full forgiveness, 
 embracing " the blessedness of him to whom the Lord imputeth 
 not his sin " — guilelessly takes home the guilt to self, and prompts 
 that ingenuous, free, and frank, and open-hearted, and broken- 
 
Guilt of Baclzsliding. 141 
 
 hearted penitence in which "there is no guile" (Ps. xxxii. 1-5). 
 Such was Jonah's penitence. 
 
 While the prophet's repentance is thus in progress, and before 
 we come to the great catastrophe of the narrative, there are three 
 incidents that transpire in the meantime, to which successively 
 our attention may be directed. 
 
 1. In the first place, we are told that on the back of Jonah's 
 answ^er to their questions, "the men were exceedingly afraid." 
 They were afraid, not now at the storm merely, but at the power 
 and righteousness of the true God, and the distinctness and extent 
 in which He was now manifesting His anger. And this was, 
 doubtless, one of the effects which God's righteous prosecution of 
 Jonah in his disobedience was designed to produce. " When the 
 judgments of God are abroad, the inhabitants of the world will 
 learn righteousness." The bringing of iniquity to light, and to 
 judgment, and to punishment, is an eminent work of God ; in- 
 dicating an all-seeing and righteous Supreme Judge — showing 
 " that His great name is near " — fitted and designed also to cause 
 men to fear and do no more wickedly. The judgment of God upon 
 the shamelessness and profligacy of the sons of Eli was intended 
 to produce this eflect. " And the Lord said unto Samuel, Behold, 
 I wnll do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of him that 
 heareth it shall tingle" (1 Sam. iii. 11). And when the case is 
 not a shameless profligate, but a holy prophet, in whom God will 
 not suffer sin to go unpunished, how much more emphatic is the 
 lesson ? When He who hath embraced His people into a covenant 
 of pardon and of peace, is seen pursuing their sins — their expiated 
 sins — with evidences of His abhorrence, how solemnising is it ! 
 When He " pardons their iniquity, yet takes vengeance on their 
 inventions " (Ps. xcix. 8), and that vengeance is enough to strike 
 awe into the minds of onlookers, how much more terrible must 
 be His vengeance on unpardoned, unbelieving, ungodly men ! If 
 judgment begin at the house of God, what shall the end be of 
 them that obey not the gospel ? The very fear which these 
 heathen men felt, may well rebuke the careless and insensible. 
 For there are those who see and hear of the judgments of God on 
 the ungodly, and yet are never moved to reverence, and fear and 
 tremblincr. The same thinsfs that w^ould strike reverence into a 
 
142 Aggravations of the 
 
 heathen will not move a man that is hardened under means of 
 grace. He is hardening himself " as in the provocation ; " and all 
 methods of rousing and arresting those that are at ease in Zion, 
 come, in process of time, to be powerless and in vain. " Woe 
 unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the mighty 
 works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, 
 they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. And 
 thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought 
 down to hell ; for if the mighty works which have been done in 
 thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this 
 day" (Matt. xi. 21-23). 
 
 2. We may notice the question which the men put to Jonah. 
 " Why hast thou done this ? " Oh ! what a rebuke ! Fleeing 
 from the presence of the gracious and holy Jehovah, Jonah finds 
 himself impanneled and cross-questioned at the bar of heathen 
 sailors. Could anything he might have dreaded in the path of 
 commanded duty have been half so humiliating as this ? Doubt- 
 less, in the path of duty a man must take up his cross : and 
 oftentimes it may be painful and humbling. It is well for the 
 Christian to remember, when more generous motives are not 
 likely to prevail, that in fleeing from that path, he lies open to 
 incidents that may be more humbling still: and under them, 
 sustained by no lofty sense of loyalty to God, but with spirit 
 embittered by self-displeasure, he must be destitute of the con- 
 solation and dignity involved in bearing the cross. For the cross 
 always carries honour and comfort with it. Always it is true, 
 that he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, while he that 
 exalteth himself shall be abased. Look at Jonah, for instance. 
 How deeply is he abased ! A man whose intellect has been 
 irradiated by the light of God's word and Spirit — who has been 
 exalted to the lofty rank of God's messenger and friend, standing 
 in His counsel, and entrusted with His secret — whose character 
 has been framed of the Spirit for communion with God, and 
 refined and sanctified by His fellowship and service ; — for such 
 an one to have his duty pointed out and his offence rebuked by 
 ignorant, unrefined, rude, yea, idolatrous and heathen men ; how 
 painful is the retribution ; and how just ! 
 
 Listen to the question. Suppose yourself in Jonah's place, 
 and hear the question put to you — put to you, a man of God, by 
 
Guilt of Backsliding. 143 
 
 heathen men, " Why hast thou done this ? " Did your God 
 pi-ovoke you to flee from Him ? Did He deal so hardly and 
 unkindly with you that you had no alternative but flight ? Were 
 you tired of your God ? Had you found Him out — as no more 
 worthy of your trust and obedience ? Had you got to the end of 
 all the duty that you owed to Him — or of all the protection or 
 support that He could afford to you ? 
 
 " Why hast thou done this?" If the mission on which He 
 sent you was difficult, and the warfare heavy, did He send you 
 on your own charges, so that, being unable to defray them, you 
 have not dared to face the undertaking ? Did He demand your 
 self-denying labour, and give you no encouragement, no counte- 
 nance, no support ? Is this the character of your God ? Is the 
 God whom your fear, O Jonah, so hard a taskmaster — so un- 
 feeling and severe ? 
 
 Ah ! it is well, in your sins and backslidings, to have this 
 question pressed upon you. 
 
 " Why hast thou done this ? " When your heart, that once 
 found its sweet and chosen pleasure in the Scriptures, in medita- 
 tion, in prayer, now follows so keenly the things that perish in 
 the using, and allows itself to be moulded by the fashion of the 
 world that passeth away ; — why is this ? When you have for- 
 saken your first love, abated the zeal and contracted the extent 
 of your first works ; — why is this ? Let it not content you to 
 regard the question as a mere vague rebuke — as a mere remem- 
 brancer that what you have done is indefensible. Press the 
 question. Accept it as a question under which you may not only 
 well be expected to wince and feel sore — but as a question to be 
 deliberately faced and kept in view, till thorough restoration, 
 and confirmed revival, and zealous return to first love and first 
 works, are again secured. 
 
 " Why hast thou done this ? " Produce your strong reasons. 
 Has God been a wilderness to you ? Have you found a better 
 friend ? Have you found a worthier portion ? Have you found 
 a sweeter employment than meditation in His word and calling 
 on His name ? 
 
 " Why hast thou done this ? " Have you found Him unfaith- 
 ful to His promise ? Have you discovered that He discourages 
 His people ? Will you say that the more you have known Hira, 
 
144 Aggravations of the 
 
 the less you have thought of Him ? It looks like it, O backslider. 
 It looks like it, if you can remember days when you loved Him 
 more, and served Him better than now. 
 
 " Why hast thou done this ? " Has the world been better to 
 you than God ? Has it been more full, more steadfast, more 
 satisfying, more true than God ? Ah ! must you not say that the 
 more you have known it, the less cause you have had to be 
 pleased with it ? But, does it look like it — if you can turn again 
 to its beggarly elements ; and bind in your chiefest thoughts and 
 anxieties with those things that are seen and temporal ; while 
 the things that are unseen and eternal are losing their hold over 
 you, and not influencing, pleasing, profiting, sanctifying, animat- 
 ing you to love and duty, as before ? 
 
 TJrge this matter, O backslider, to an issue — to an answer. 
 Let the case go fairly and fully to trial. As to the men of the 
 world, the world is their god. No wonder that they serve it. 
 But why hast iliou done this ? — thou who art an Israelite and 
 fearest Jehovah — the God that made the heavens, and the sea, 
 and the dry land. 
 
 3. Let us observe, in the third place, that all the frankness of 
 Jonah's confession, and all the truth and depth of his repentance, 
 avail nothing to the removal of the Divine anger. For we are 
 told that still " the sea wrought and was tempestuous." Jonah's 
 detection, and humiliation, and rebuke, and repentance were not 
 enough. For all this, the Lord's hand w^as stretched out still. 
 Confession before God will not always suffice ; — no, nor even con- 
 fession before man. God may still pursue His controversy. It 
 is not in any case your repentance which pacifies His anger, and 
 satisfies His justice. You never purchase His pardon by the price 
 of your penitence. That is not in any sense, nor in any degree, 
 the ground on which the Lord forgives you. Without repen- 
 tance, indeed. He will not forgive. To forgive sin, while still by 
 you cherished and retained — that is to say, to testify the removal 
 of His anger, while you remove not that which has caused it — 
 would be to declare Himself now reconciled to your iniquity, and 
 no more displeased with the abominable thing. Repentance is 
 required unto forgiveness; imperatively demanded. "Let the 
 wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts ; 
 and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon 
 
Guilt of Backsliding. 145 
 
 him, and unto our God, for He will abundantly pardon." Still it 
 is not on the ground of the merit of your godly sorrow that the 
 Lord blots out the iniquity of your sin. And therefore, to deepen 
 your repentance and confirm it ; to inspire you with a holy terror 
 of like iniquity in time to come ; to grave painfully and burningly 
 into your heart and memory experiences and recollections that 
 shall rise swiftly to the aid of your integrity and virtue, if 
 tempted to like offence again ; God may see meet to prolong the 
 storm that He has awakened, even after it may have been blessed 
 to bring you to repentance. 
 
 Even so did He deal with Jonah. It would not have effected 
 the intended discipline, correction, and improvement of his soul, 
 to have now given commission to the waves to be still. Alas ! 
 there are more of God's waves and billows to go over him. It is 
 a fearful thing even for a believer to fall into the hands of the 
 living God. For God, even the God of the believinp' and redeemed, 
 is a consuming fire. It is no mere matter of Divine sovereignty, 
 but a certain and inevitable effect of the Divine holiness, that the 
 storm cannot cease till you cast the offending thing overboard ; 
 that the ship can have no peace while the Jonah is in it ; the camp 
 no victory till Achan is stoned ; and your soul no taste of the 
 peace and love of God till its idols are abolished and abandoned. 
 The whole character of God requires that He should refuse to 
 speak peace to those who retain anything against which He has 
 announced and directed His displeasure ; or who neglect anything 
 which He has enjoined as a means of grace, or demanded as a 
 tribute of gratitude. You complain, perhaps, that you find little 
 progress in your religious knowledge, and little joy in religious 
 ordinances — that you cannot rise to that sweet peace, and sure 
 hope, and lively zeal in duty, which you see by the Scripture 
 believers are warranted to expect, and which perhaps in a 
 measure you may have yourself formerly enjoyed. Have you 
 examined yourself ? Are you sure there is no Jonah in the ship ; 
 no Achan in the camp ; no idol in the temple ; no sin of commis- 
 sion or omission, which as a canker at the root of your religion is 
 spoiling all ? Be assured that till it is searched out and consigned 
 to destruction, it is impossible the bright light can shine again on 
 the pages of the word to you ; — or the sweet and tender joy of 
 sitting at the feet of Jesus visit you ; — or the serene contentment 
 
 K 
 
146 Aggravations of the Guilt of Backsliding. 
 
 with your lot on earth again compose and strengthen you ; — or 
 the full devoted gratitude which makes self-denying duty light, 
 again carry you on ungrudgingly in all the work of the Lord. 
 For the Lord our God is a jealous God. And many a believer 
 has suffered bitterly from provoking God to act upon that declara- 
 tion, — so honourable to His own holiness, and to His love of 
 holiness in His people: — "I will go and return unto My place, 
 till they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: in their 
 affliction they will seek me early" (Hos. v. 15). 
 
XIII. 
 THE CASTING OF JONAH INTO THE SEA. 
 
 "Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may 
 be calm unto us ? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. A.nd he said 
 unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea ; so shall the sea be 
 calm unto you : for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. 
 Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land ; but they could 
 not : for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore 
 they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech 
 Thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent 
 blood ; for Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. So they took up 
 Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea ; and the sea ceased from her raging. 
 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the 
 Lord, and made vows. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow 
 up Jonah." — Jonah i. 11-17. 
 
 ' ' Thou answerest them, Lord our God ; Thou wast a God that forgavest 
 them, though Thou tooJcest vengeance of their inventions." — Ps. xcix. 8. 
 " Righteousness and peace have hissed each other." — Ps. Ixxxv. 10. 
 
 AS the marvels of this stirring scene heighten to their crisis, 
 the conduct of all the parties concerned becomes truly 
 noble, and in every respect worthy of much admiration. In all 
 that is recorded of the prophet, nothing appears to us so exalted 
 as the combination of godly meekness and godly boldness with 
 which he faces and accepts the tremendous punishment of his 
 transgression. And it is questionable whether a crew of his own 
 highly favoured countrymen would have enacted a worthier part 
 towards him than that which was adopted and carried out with 
 so much propriety and dignity by the heathen sailors. Truly 
 Jonah had even more good reason than Paul to use the language, 
 " The barbarous people showed me no little kindness " (Acts 
 xxviii. 2) ; while they, on the other hand, as they were about to 
 consign him to a doom which turned out to be a period of " three 
 days and three nights in the whale's belly," might not unjustly 
 say of the prophet, what the centurian said of Jonah's antitype, 
 about to be committed " for three days and three nights to the 
 
148 The Casting of yoiiah into the Sea. 
 
 heart of the earth ; " — " Certainly this was a righteous man " 
 (Luke xxiii. 47). 
 
 Altogether, there is in this scene, on all hands, an amount of 
 veneration and deference rendered to justice, — to severe, but pure 
 and perfect righteousness, — that cannot fail to render it very- 
 impressive to every right-minded reader of the passage. There 
 is a calm, judicial dignity exhibited by all the parties, which 
 speaks well for their character and bearing in a crisis so fitted to 
 alarm and to unman them. And it forms a striking proof of the 
 fact that it is righteousness alone that will bear men through the 
 most fiery trials. Amiability, kindliness, capability of gentler 
 and refined emotion, may grace and adorn the man ; but it is 
 righteousness, the love of truth and justice, which forms the 
 foundation and the solid pillars of his character. In the hour of 
 peace, and of gentle, undisturbed serenity, the amiable may be 
 more acceptable than the sternly just. Nevertheless, — though it 
 is true that, whereas " scarcely for a righteous man would one 
 die, peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die," 
 — in critical hours of destiny it is righteousness that towers aloft 
 above the storm, and — somewhat even like unto God Himself — 
 is " mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty 
 waves of the sea." 
 
 I. In this view, consider, first, the righteous procedure of the 
 sailors in consulting with Jonah himself concerning the steps 
 that were now rendered necessary. Something must be done — 
 and they put the matter to the prophet. " Then said they unto 
 him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto 
 us ? for the sea wrought and was tempestuous." The storm 
 ceaseth not : the ship can hold out no longer : the cause of the 
 storm has been revealed ; for God hath disclosed it by the lot, and 
 Jonah confessed it from his own conscience. And now that the 
 cause is known, what shall be done for removing it ? Evidently 
 something must be done, if they are not all prepared to perish 
 together. And they consult Jonah himself. 
 
 It says much for them that they do. He had been something 
 more, and something worse, than a thorn in their side. And they 
 might have been expected, as heathen men, to have had little 
 scruple in taking brief -handed measures, and making short work 
 
The Casting of Jonah into the Sea. 149 
 
 with the troublesome stranger. For a perfect stranger he was to 
 them. No ties of friendship, or acquaintance, or kin, or country- 
 could he plead ; and the subject of a strange but strong God, bring- 
 ing down his God's wrath on them — verily, they had little to thank 
 him for ! And why make any difficulty in getting rid of him ? 
 
 1. But God has imbued responsible man with a natural and 
 profound horror of shedding his brother's blood. Nor is this con- 
 fined to those who are in possession of the Scriptures, those holy 
 writings in which God said — at the very constitution of the world 
 and of society, on re-arranging that constitution after it had been 
 obliterated by the flood — " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
 shall his blood be shed." It is a feeling that has gone down all 
 time, with all the families of Noah ; and that, whether the 
 covenant with Noah — whether the Scripture or that special 
 command in it — has gone down to them or not. However much 
 extreme hardening, through indulgence in sin, may sear the 
 conscience, and go far, apparently, to obliterate this horror at 
 the guilt of murder, it is more proper to say that such searing 
 and hardening rather overpowers than obliterates it. For it 
 abideth still; and it affords one of a multitude of harmonies 
 between the religion of the natural conscience of man and the 
 religion of the revealed will of God. For, — whatever may be 
 said by some who would seem to seek a character for good feeling 
 higher than God Himself, — as it is apart from and prior to the 
 Bible, or any precept there, that man instinctively abhors the sin 
 of murder ; so, it was prior to any particular dispensation — any 
 Mosaic economy, for instance, or Jewish theocracy — and as 
 applied to all lands and all times, that God, in starting the world 
 anew in the ark-saved family of the patriarch, gave forth the 
 unrepealed command, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
 shall his blood be shed." Nor should it be forgotten, as sufficient 
 for ever to silence the advocates for the abolition of capital 
 punishment, that God has not only given an unrepealed com- 
 mand which He might have been pleased to rest on His own 
 authority and will alone, but He has condescended to give the 
 ground and reason of it ; and so long as both the command re- 
 mains unrepealed and the reason remains a fact, so long is the 
 proposed abolition of capital punishment a daring insult against 
 the Most High. God hath given us the reason why the shedding 
 
1 50 The Casting of yonah into the Sea. 
 
 of man's blood must be avenged by the murderer's death — " for 
 in the image of God made He man." And until this truth 
 becomes untrue, that is, until man cease to be a free, intelligent, 
 responsible being, — fallen, indeed, and in a vast multitude of 
 cases, alas ! unrenewed, yet still responsible, intelligent and free, 
 — capital punishment, both by God's commanding will and by 
 God's assigned reason, is the murderer's doom. And nature and 
 reason sanction the sentence. 
 
 It was nature and reason, working in this very direction, that 
 induced these sailors to pause ere they rid themselves of the 
 source of their danger by casting their fellow-man to the waves. 
 
 2. But there was something more than this, doubtless, at the 
 bottom of their judicious and righteous deliberation. They might 
 be irritated by the rebellious subject of a strange God bringing 
 all the anger of his God upon them in this fashion ; but, behold 1 
 how great this new and strange God is ! Evidently He is a strong 
 God. May He not be the true God ? — the one living and true 
 God ? Let them, therefore, pause and weigh well their doings, 
 while evidently the prophet's God is near. 
 
 For, have they ever found such a God among their own gods ? 
 Have they ever found a God who sitteth above the floods, and 
 ruleth in the raging of the sea, and telleth by lot with whom He 
 is displeased, and followeth up His displeasure with quick and 
 quickening tempest ? Is it not a new experience to them ? That 
 this great God is near unto them. His marvellous works are 
 emphatically declaring. They feel this. They will stand in awe 
 and sin not. They will do nothing rashly to provoke His anger 
 against themselves. They will rather consult His prophet. 
 
 8. For, disobedient though he may be, Jonah, they perceive, 
 is His prophet, and His servant still. Revering his God, they 
 respect hir\%. They feel that it is a solemn thing to have to do 
 with anything that this God marks as His own — marks as His 
 own even by His displeasure. Hence they pause. " With the 
 well-advised there is wisdom." 
 
 For these reasons, then, the mariners put the matter to Jonah 
 himself. If something painful has to be done, they will at least 
 consult with himself. If possible, they will secure his own con- 
 currence. It may be they shall receive his own directions. 
 
 This generous and handsome style of procedure ; how fitted 
 
The Casting of yonah into the Sea. 1 5 1 
 
 was it to touch a chord in the prophet's heart, and make him 
 bitterly regret bringing danger and risk of death on men who 
 could deal so nobly with him ! Stimulated to rival the righteous 
 and dignified procedure of those on whom he had brought such 
 impending ruin, and who, — in the very crisis of it, and when they 
 have discovered the instrument of that ruin and now have him 
 in their power, — so forbearingly and respectfully abstain from 
 retaliation, revenge, hatred, or haste ; under the humbling and 
 rectifying influence on his own mind which this fair and honour- 
 able treatment exerts : Jonah now seeks to emulate their rectitude 
 and do them justice, as they are so disposed to do justice to him. 
 
 II. Hence his magnanimous proposal in reply : " Take me up 
 and cast me forth into the sea ; so shall the sea be calm unto you : 
 for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you." 
 
 Could anything be more noble, upright, honourable ? There 
 is, first, a renewed acknowledgment — frank, free, and full — of 
 his own obnoxiousness to the Divine anger, and of himself as the 
 source and occasion of the present danger : — " For I know that 
 for my sa,ke this great tempest is upon you." There is, secondly, 
 an unreserved surrender or appointment of himself to death, as 
 the means of solving the appalling difficulty, and stilling the 
 raging of the deep : " Take me up, and cast me forth into the 
 sea." And there is, thirdly, — what may be valued as coming from 
 a prophet of that God " which made the sea and the dry land " — 
 a prediction that the expedient will be efficacious : " So shall the 
 sea be calm unto you." 
 
 In small compass, how complete is Jonah's reply ! It meets 
 the case ; it meets all the case. Yet it has all the brevity of a 
 sentence of judgment delivered from the bench. 
 
 And so, indeed, it is. Under God, and at the mouth of God, 
 Jonah becomes judge in his own case ; and he judges, even in his 
 own case, with all the relentless righteousness which the sternest 
 judge in any case could exhibit. No half measure, no compromise, 
 no delay, no alternative; the one clear, immediate, complete, irre- 
 vocable, final doom : " Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea." 
 
 Now, try and conceive of the height of true moral grandeur 
 to which Jonah at this moment rises. He is clearly and con- 
 sciously facing Eternity ; and oh ! how very far is he from doing 
 
152 The Casting of yonah into the Sea. 
 
 so in the revolting blasphemy of one who can take the infinitely 
 awful movement as one would take a leap on chance and in the 
 dark ! No : he " fears God." He has been a regular, habitual 
 fearer of God ; and he truly fears God still. He has offended the 
 Most High of late. He has fled from Him. He has seen, for 
 some time, little of the light of His countenance. He has tasted 
 little that the Lord is gracious. Nay, rather, the Lord's wrath 
 has waxed hot against him ; His hand hath pressed him sore. At 
 this very moment he hath terrible experience of the power where- 
 with his Almighty God can prosecute an oflfence against His 
 honour, and bring the offender to punishment. "Deep calleth 
 unto deep, and at the noise of God's waterspouts all his billows 
 go over him," while he flees in disobedience " from the land of 
 Jordan." And yet he will " remember the Lord from the land of 
 Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar." And he 
 will take no crooked way of dealing with God, or evading His 
 hand and justice. The storm is to him the voice of God; awful 
 as to Adam in the garden in the cool of the day ; crying, "Jonah, 
 where art thou ? " — more terrible than the still small voice on 
 Horeb after a strong wind, after the earthquake, after the fire, 
 " What doest thou here, Elijah ? " — " What doest thou here, 
 Jonah ? " Yet Jonah's integrity quails not. He denies not his 
 own guilt. He denies not the Lord's righteousness. 
 
 When he entered the ship, — his conscience tumultuating with 
 guilt, his heart throbbing w4th the hurry of his flight, — worn out 
 with agitation and excitement, and going down like a hunted and 
 harassed one to find rest in " the sides of the ship," — how wide 
 the contrast between the storm in his soul and the placid sea on 
 which the happy bark, unconscious of its burden, set sail ! Now 
 the sea storms and is tempestuous : but the contrast is as great. 
 For, as the result of repentance and returning duty, Jonah's soul 
 is placid, meek, and mild as a weaned child — calmly strong in 
 righteousness also, as a mighty man of power rising above all im- 
 pending evils. 
 
 Are you thus upright before the Lord ? Are you truly peni- 
 tent for all sin ; for the sin that doth more easily beset you ; for 
 the sin which God may be pursuing wuth His displeasure ? Do 
 you own the justice of all His dealings with you ? Do you 
 indeed yield the victory to God, according to that oracle, " Yea^ 
 
The Casting of Jonah into the Sea. 153 
 
 let God be true and every man a liar ; as it is written, That thou 
 mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when 
 thou art judged ? " You can do so only through the intervention 
 of the great atonement and your faith therein. Never can you 
 face all righteousness till you flee to the cross of Jesus. There, 
 He by whom all things were made, both in heaven and in earth, 
 whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, 
 suffered under the hand of Divine justice, and satisfied Divine 
 justice. That cross is the only school where an immortal, respon- 
 sible man can face all righteous questions, and solve them, and 
 accept the true solution. Have you been there and settled all 
 your own case with the Judge of the quick and of the dead ; 
 settled it on the terms that are so honourable to the character of 
 God, and that must now and ultimately be so remedial to yours ? 
 Have you fled for refuge to the hope set before you in the Gospel ? 
 Have you the anchor of the soul within the veil, designed and 
 fitted to enable you to ride out the storm ? In one word, have 
 you peace with God on the righteous footing of an imputed right- 
 eousness, and a perfect reconciliation by sacrifice ? Then see that 
 you evermore face what is righteous, and turn to no crooked way, 
 no evasion, no subterfuge, no refuge of lies, no path of compromise 
 or of deceit. Walk humbly, yet walk boldly and firmly, with 
 God. Though He slay you, still trust in Him. Your chiefest 
 trials are designed to teach you this. Your agony of conflict with 
 infirmities is designed to teach you this. The apparent contra- 
 diction between providences very sore and promises most sweet 
 is designed to teach you and train you to this. Though the fig- 
 tree shall not blossom, though there be no fruit in the vine, 
 though the labour of the olive fail ; though your house be not so 
 with God ; though heart and flesh faint and fail ; though God 
 Himself slay you with His sore displeasure : still it is a faithful 
 saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that His own Son died for 
 sinners and rejoices to save them ; that he that believeth in Him 
 shall never die ; nor from such an one shall the covenant of God's 
 peace or the promise of God's presence and protection be removed, 
 world without end. Therefore, in any circumstances, never doubt 
 that the path of duty, — though it seem to be the path of anguish, 
 of agony, of darkness, or of death, — is yet the way of life, light, 
 and comfort ; and however to fiesh and blood it may be hard, 
 
154 ^-^^ Casting of yoiiah into the Sea. 
 
 hold to the motto which men of the world may have devised and 
 may admire, but which men of God alone can rightly go through 
 with, " Let justice be done, though the heavens rush to ruin." * 
 
 " It is the Lord : let him do with me as seemeth good in His 
 siffht." It is the Lord: the same who hath counted me faithful 
 and put me into the office of His prophet; the same to whom I 
 have been unfaithful ; from whom I have fled ; from whom I 
 have deserved so ill. " Righteous art Thou, Lord ; yet let me 
 talk with Thee of Thy judgments." Yea, let me ask from Thee 
 faith and courage and strength to bear them. It is the Lord ; 
 the Judge of all the earth : and " He will do that which is right." 
 It is the Lord : and if His hand is strong to smite, 'tis also strong 
 to save. Let Him do with me as seemeth good in His sight. 
 Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. " Take me up and 
 cast me forth into the sea." 
 
 III. This emulation of generous and righteous and extremely 
 handsome action between Jonah and the mariners goes forward 
 yet another stage. The mariners admirably meet the prophet 
 again. If he responded generously to their righteous and digni- 
 tied deliberation in consulting with himself, or rather in leaving 
 the matter in his own hands, they reciprocate no less beautifully 
 to the meek and subdued spirit of the prophet when he prescribes 
 his own death as the only means of appeasing the sea. 
 
 Touched with kindliest feelings of humanity, and touched with 
 admiration of the minoled solemnitv and righteous boldness with 
 which the prophet can propose the sacrifice of his own life to 
 their safety, the men evidently resolve that only in the last and 
 direst extremity shall they act as he has indicated to them ; and 
 that extremity, they rule, has not yet come. Till then, they 
 will make every eflbrt. " Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to 
 bring it to the land ; but they could not : for the sea wrought, 
 and was tempestuous against them," 
 
 It was well that it was in their heart. The Lord denied them 
 their desire ; but it was well that it was in their heart. It showed 
 their humanity ; their solemn fear of shedding innocent blood ; 
 their profiting under that fear of God which Providence had been 
 
 * Fiat justitia, mat ccelum. 
 
The Casting of Jonah into the Sea. 1 5 5 
 
 inspiring into their minds. It gave Jonah the opportunity of 
 being still more satisfied that the proposal he had made was the 
 only one that could meet the case. And it brought more clearly 
 to light the solemn fact that God was indeed pursuing this matter 
 to His own appointed issue, and would allow no effort, however 
 well meant, to baffle His purpose. God had righteously destined 
 the prophet to be cast into the sea ; — yea, we may say, to suffer 
 death for his offence in fleeing from his duty. For however God. 
 interposed at a later stage, and miraculousl}'' saved the prophet's 
 life, it was nevertheless so much an interposition of miraculous 
 goodness and miraculous power, that his restoration from the 
 deep was more a resurrection than an escape. For certainly it is 
 one clear inference we may draw from the analogy suggested by 
 our Lord : — " As Jonah was three days and three nights in the 
 whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three 
 nights in the heart of the earth ; " — that it was a resurrection-life 
 that Jonah afterwards possessed, as well as the Son of Man. 
 Surely Jonah like the Son of Man, was appointed unto death, 
 Witli death, then, we say, had God resolved to punish Jonah's sin. 
 And the strength of the Divine purpose is the more terribly 
 brought to light when every effort to save Jonah's life comes to 
 nought. " The men rowed hard to bring it to the land but they 
 could not." 
 
 No ; they could not. For the counsel of the Lord, it shall 
 stand ; and he will do all His pleasure. And the Lord executeth 
 righteous judgment. 
 
 Young man ! bear this in mind. You may go certain lengths 
 aside from the ways of wisdom, integrity, temperance, truth ; 
 and to some extent, and in a certain sense, your friends may 
 interpose and bring you off". Hearts beating somewhat towards 
 you like God's heart — " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ! " — 
 may be at your service, even in your evil plight. Prayers and 
 intercessions, counsels and rebukes, and kindliest efforts of right- 
 eousness and love, may take your feet out of the net, and place 
 you in a somewhat even path again, giving you a fresh start and 
 a new chance of better things. But beware. Embrace it if it is 
 so. Embrace it noiv, and improve it. Thank God for it and im- 
 prove it. Cast yourself on Him — His grace. His word, His Christ, 
 His Spirit, His providence, His fatherly love and righteous will. 
 
156 The Casting of yonah into the Sea. 
 
 " As for me I will serve the Lord." " Depart from me, ye evil 
 doers : for I will keep the commandments of my God." And let 
 this be vigorous ; in lively fear before the Lord ; in humble peni- 
 tence and firm faith of that mercy which is in the heavens ; and 
 let it be daily, dutifully, faithfully, manfully followed up. 
 
 For, turning aside again, or going certain other lengths, may 
 land you, ere you are aware, in a position from which no one 
 will bring you off. However many more true friends you may 
 have than you deserve, and with whatever zeal and love they lay 
 all oars in the water in your service, it may utterly baffle them to 
 bring you off. For there are laws, physical, social, moral, from 
 the effects and influence of which no one can bring you off. 
 Remember that word of the Spirit : " Every man shall bear his 
 own burden." To your own master, in the long run, you must 
 stand or fall. Bless God that He is able to make you stand. 
 But also, when finally provoked. He is able to seal your doom. 
 And if you so provoke Him, then, — as to the interposition and 
 efibrts of your friends, — " The men rowed hard to bring it to the 
 land, but they could not ! " 
 
 IV. The admirable bearing of all parties in this drama becomes, 
 if possible, still more engaging. 
 
 It becomes manifest that Jonah's doom is inevitable ; that 
 Jonah's hour is come. " The sea wrought, and was tempestuous." 
 And its " tempest," and its " working," and its demands were — 
 for hi7)i. Doubtless, while the men had betaken themselves to 
 pains, Jonah had secretly been engaged in prayer. But the pains 
 taken by them are useless ; for still " the sea works and is tem- 
 pestuous." And to the prayers of the prophet every thundering 
 billow, — as " the sea works and is tempestuous," — gives him back 
 his stern and ominous answer, as if saying for God, as God Him- 
 self said to Moses, — " Speak to Me no more of this matter, for 
 thou honouredst Me not." 
 
 So Jonah's hour is come. 
 
 It is a solemn moment. Apart even from some of its most 
 appalling circumstances, it is a solemn moment. The funeral of 
 the dead at sea is solemn. Though the waters around and the 
 heavens above be all serene, it is a trying hour when the remains 
 of the much-loved friend, or of the mere acquaintance, or even of a 
 very stranger, have to be committed to the deep. And hardened 
 
The Casting of Jonah into the Sea. 1 5 7 
 
 indeed must that heart be that can pass unmoved through the 
 hour when, with mournful funeral service, and from the hands of 
 comrades or of crew, the sea receives another to " the dead that 
 are in her." But when we try in imagination to stand on the 
 reeling deck beside this man of God, offending, yet honourable 
 and honoured, and see alike the firm resignation, combining 
 meekness and moral majesty, with which the prophet faces the 
 waves roaring for him as the lion ravening for the prey, and the 
 mournful admiration and regret with which these heathen men 
 look upon their guest, — revealing that high appreciation of his 
 character which, even though known to them only in connection 
 with his offence against God and his occasion of extreme distress 
 to them, they have irresistibly been drawn to entertain, — we are 
 overpowered with the impression that high above the floods 
 sitteth an unseen One who is carrying out a righteous award, 
 and who, while He hath said, " Touch not Mine anointed, and do 
 My prophets no harm," would appear to have said so, not merely 
 to procure them protection when they are right, but because He 
 Himself will chastise them when they err. Silence is our best 
 expositor here. Another such funeral service truly neither the 
 sea nor the dry land ever witnessed. For here are men, not 
 accustomed to call on Jehovah's name, and from whom little, in 
 a sense, could be expected, going through with a duty the most 
 agonising that can ever fall to a creature's hand, in a spirit of 
 godly deliberation and — one almost feels constrained to think — 
 of truly gracious prayerf ulness ; and following it up with sacri- 
 ficing and vowing to the Lord ; as if they now gave themselves 
 as wholly to His grace as they have given His offending servant 
 to His justice. " Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said. 
 We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for 
 this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood : for Thou, O 
 Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. So they took up Jonah, and 
 cast him forth into the sea : and the sea ceased from her raging. 
 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice 
 unto the Lord, and ma-de vows." 
 
 Thus did these men. They awoke to know the living and 
 the true God. They prayed to Him. They appealed to Him. 
 The storm, they clearly saw, was in His hand : a reason for it, 
 they saw, was in His heart. And that reason they saw as clearly 
 
158 The Casting of Jonah into the Sea. 
 
 as they saw the storm. His hand, they saw, was ahuighty. His 
 heart, they saw, was righteous. In brief time, they learned not 
 a little of the living and the true God. They felt His anger. 
 They even became executioners of His wrath. They emphatically 
 justify their deed as being constrained to become executioners of 
 the wrath of the living God. It is a solemn initiation into the 
 knowledge of His name. 
 
 And now their guest, their passenger, is gone. The sea has 
 closed over him ; and the sea has " ceased from her raging." Yes : 
 if they doubted that a Living One was moving the storm by the 
 power of His hand and according to the purpose of His heart, 
 they can now, at least, doubt no more. The sudden appeasing of 
 the tempest tells its own tale. They fear God in the calm 
 " exceedingly," — more than in the tempest. And now, under no 
 stress of weather, under no strain of terror, they vow, not an 
 extorted, mercenary vow, but a free and voluntary dedication of 
 themselves to the Lord. One would fain say these men were 
 converted to the God of Israel. One would fain hope they lived 
 and died in His fear and in His favour. 
 
 It is a calm. The clouds have parted. The waves are hushed. 
 The heavens are beautiful and blue. Onward the strange vessel 
 flits, beating her quiet tack ; unconscious of her matchless story ; 
 but her crew aware " that a prophet of the Lord has been among 
 them " ! 
 
 And thus died Jonah. To them, at least, thus died Jonah ; — 
 the death of a criminal pursued by justice ; yet the death of a 
 repentant and righteous man ; in death triumphing over death ; 
 committing himself to God in singular meekness and faith ; 
 acknowledging the justice of his doom, and relying on Divine 
 pardon and protection ; committing his body to the sea and his 
 soul to the God whom he feared, — the God of heaven, and of 
 the sea, and of the dry land. Thus died Jonah. 
 
 So the story reads. And — save for the inspiring Spirit of 
 God continuing His revelations — so the story would end. To all 
 this the mariners could bear witness ; and here their witness- 
 bearing, their story would end. And in this there is a precious 
 lesson. 
 
The Casting of y onali into the Sea. 159 
 
 In God's people and His prophets, their offence and their 
 chastisement may be capable of being reported ; the knowledge 
 o£ them common property. For, their offence and their chastise- 
 ment may be upon the surface ; and upon the surface there may 
 be nothing more. But the story may not end thus. There may 
 be deliverance, forgiveness, marvels of grace and prayer, and love 
 and joy and communion with God, beneath the surface or behind 
 the scenes. Beneath the surface and behind the scenes, there 
 may be such salvation as the world shall never know. 
 
 "Thus died Jonah;" — so these mariners, on reachinof land, 
 and rehearsing the story, would say as they brought the marvel- 
 lous narrative to a close. Literally, beneath the surface, God 
 carried on the marvellous story more marvellously still ; bringing 
 in His own unique, peculiar work of — Life in the midst of death ; 
 His ever glorious work of justice satisfied by being executed, and 
 grace reigning through righteousness unto life from the dead. 
 "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." 
 
 Oh, fear the Lord at all times. There is no want to them 
 that fear Him. Accept no deliverance at the expense of right- 
 eousness or truth or duty. There is a better deliverance for you. 
 On, therefore: on, rather: fronting the righteousness; facing 
 your duty ; trusting your God. Is anything too hard for Him ? 
 and is not His faithfulness in the very heavens ? Not His dark 
 dispensations, but His clear and ever bright word of covenant grace 
 and truth, is the ground and warrant of your faith. And, there- 
 fore, though He slay you, you may trust in Him still. 
 
 On His face, — a frown of deep displeasure for your offence ! 
 In His hand, — a raging storm, relentless, waiting tor you ! Could 
 your case well be worse ? Thus much upon the surface. Thus, 
 to sense and reason. 
 
 But to faith — what? Beneath the surface, while He holds 
 the storm in His left hand, with His right hand " the Lord has 
 prepared " a deliverance. And behind the frown, in the depths 
 of the Lord's heart — what? Protecting, redeeming, life-giving 
 love ! " Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." 
 
 Oh, all ye that fear the Lord ! keep ye judgment at any cost : 
 the Lord hath " prepared " His salvation. " Thus saith the Lord, 
 Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to 
 come. I bring near my righteousness ; and my salvation shall 
 not tarry." 
 
XIV. 
 
 JONAH'S PRAYER: THE CONFLICT OF FAITH 
 
 AND SENSE. 
 
 "Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and 
 said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me ; 
 out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice. For Thou 
 hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas ; and the floods com- 
 passed me about : all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me. Then I 
 said, I am cast out of Thy sight ; yet I will look again toward Thy holy 
 temple. The watp^^s compassed me about, even to the soul : the depth 
 closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went 
 down to the bottoms of the mountains ; the earth with her bars was about 
 me for ever : yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my 
 God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord : and my 
 prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy temple. They that observe lying 
 vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the 
 voice of thanksgiving ; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of 
 the Lord." — Jonah ii. 1-9. 
 
 ' ' Deep calleth v.nto deep Yet the Lord imll command His loving- 
 
 hindness ; . . . . and my prayer shall be unto the God of my life." — Ps. xlii. 7. 8. 
 
 ' ' I had fainted, tmless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the 
 land of the living." — Ps. xxvii. 13. 
 
 THE prayer of Jonah is an illustrious instance of the conflict 
 between sense and faith. And it will give unity to our 
 meditations on it, if we keep this in view, and use this as the key 
 to its interpretation ; namely, that it discloses the action and 
 reaction in the prophet's soul, of sense and faith ; — sense prompt- 
 ing to despair ; faith pleading for hope, and procuring victory. 
 
 To the unawakened soul, that knows nothing of the anxieties 
 and anguish of the spiritual mind, this whole contemplation may 
 be altogether uninviting. At best, it will be to such an one 
 merely a very curious theme ; but one in which he can discover 
 nothing in common with his own heart-history or feelings. 
 
 The poor and contrite, on the other hand, who know something . 
 of the terrors of the Lord, the trials of an awakened spirit, the 
 haunting anxieties of their own disobedience, and the great power 
 
The Conflict of Faith aiid Se7ise. 1 6 1 
 
 of their own sins, will look on this wonderful prayer with lively 
 interest, and find in it much to encourage, to rebuke, and to 
 instruct them. The essential feature of the prayer — as a prayer 
 of faith in circumstances that, save for faith, were altogether 
 desperate — will commend it to every exercised believer, as a 
 prayer to the proper understanding of which he will derive some 
 light from his own experience, and which, when properly under- 
 stood, will in its turn reflect light on his own experience back 
 again, and tend to purify and strengthen that experience too. 
 
 For this prayer of faith, though in unparalleled circumstances, 
 and spiritually noble in a marvellous degree, contains in it nothing 
 but the ordinary principles of all believing prayer ; and though 
 we may not equal it in degree, if our prayers are not the same in 
 kind, they are false. 
 
 Is not this the very trial of faith ; namely, to have circum- 
 stances to contend with which appear to extinguish hope, yea, 
 which viewed in themselves, not only appear to, but actually do 
 shut out all hope whatever ? Take the case of Abraham, and the 
 character and commendation of his faith. And do so, bearing in 
 mind that he is the father of the faithful, and that all believers 
 walk in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham. And what 
 is the brief view given of the nature and action of his faith ? It 
 is as vanquishing and outliving the contradictory influence of 
 sense. "Against hope he believed in hope" (Rom. iv. 18). 
 Appearances were all against him. Sensible realities all contra- 
 dicted, and in themselves alone, destroyed his expectation. Had 
 his hope rested on sense, on reason, on nature, on time, it must 
 have failed and sunk for ever. But he did not rest on nature ; 
 he did not draw upon the region of sense ; he did not lean on the 
 power of reason. He believed. He did not perceive. He did 
 not argue. He believed. "He believed in hope." And so 
 strongly did he believe in hope, that his faith destroyed the 
 hope-destroying power of sense. For sense would have destroyed 
 his hope ; but this hope-destroying power of sense, his faith 
 destroyed. " Against hope he believed in hope." 
 
 This is the true place and action of faith. This is the victory 
 which faith has to achieve. Surrounded by incidents, events, 
 circumstances, influences, powers, all adverse to your deliverance 
 and salvation ; and with your hope, as far as this region of the 
 
 L 
 
1 62 yonak's Prayer 
 
 things seen and temporal is concerned, utterly cut oft'; your faith 
 discovers another region, a realm and kingdom unseen, "the 
 heavenly places," the sphere of " the things that are unseen and 
 eternal." Your faith draws upon themi. Faith finds them all 
 good and true, precious and powerful, suitable and superior. For 
 these unseen things are of God. They are the promises and 
 pledges of God, and of His Word. For their truth, you have 
 no evidence of sense. The evidence of sense is supposed to be 
 all the other way. But you have the evidence of your Creator's 
 word. You receive that as good and sufiicient, as the very highest 
 evidence possible. You receive it as simply true. You prove 
 that you receive it as true, by actually proceeding on it, and 
 perilling precious issues on it. You peril your hope, and happi- 
 ness, and peace upon it. You peril your soul upon it for ever. 
 You believe in hope, when you see no ground of hope. You 
 believe in hope, even when all you see is against your hope. 
 Circumstances, nature, creation, sight, sense, plead for the giving 
 up of all hope : and their pleas are strong ; their statements, in 
 themselves, are true. But over against all these you place, in 
 solitary, unapproachable, surpassing majesty, — God. You say : 
 " The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken." And inclining 
 your ear and hearing Him, you believe Him, in opposition to all. 
 "You hear, and your soul doth live." You outlive — you live 
 down — your despair. " Against hope you believe in hope." 
 
 This common principle of the conflict between sense and faith, 
 Paul states in a series of striking contrasts in a passage with 
 which the believer is familiar. " We are troubled on every side 
 (according to sense) ; yet (by faith) not distressed : (as to sense) 
 we are perplexed ; but (through faith) not in despair ; persecuted ; 
 but not forsaken : cast down ; but not destroyed : always bearing 
 about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also 
 of Jesus may be made manifest in our body. For we which live 
 are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also 
 of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh " (2 Cor. iv. 
 8-11). In another passage, he speaks of the opposition to all hope 
 which sense presents, as designed to compel us to draw on the 
 supports of faith : the region of sense becoming as it were per- 
 fectly intolerable, that the soul may be constrained to flee into 
 the realm of faith, the heavenly places, as its own and only 
 
The Conflict of Faith and Sense. 1 63 
 
 congenial home. " We have the sentence of death in ourselves, 
 that we may not trust in ourselves, but in Him that quickeneth 
 the dead " (2 Cor. i. 9). And if any lesson is to be learnt from 
 the matchless story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, it is this: 
 that God may clothe all circumstances, and all His dispensation 
 towards us, with appearances of opposition and hostility, in order 
 that we may flee to the anchor of His pure and simple Word, and 
 lean on it without any other help, or rather against all adverse 
 power. The Angel of the convenant Himself wrestled with His 
 servant and opposed him. The Lord put forth His strength 
 against Jacob, to refuse him his desire. If Jacob would believe 
 nothing more, nothing different, nothing higher, than he saw and 
 felt, and had experience of, he must have fainted, and failed, and 
 let the Angel go without leaving the blessing behind. He must 
 have succumbed ; been conquered ; been no prevailing prince with 
 Ood. But, like his father Abraham, " against hope he believed 
 in hope." He felt the pain of the Lord's opposition. He saw the 
 resoluteness of the Lord's efforts against him. He felt the blow 
 that struck the hollow of his thigh out of joint; the millions in 
 all future ages would have justified him as having yielded with 
 a good grace indeed, had he at that point resigned the conflict, 
 giving up the palm of victory to his opponent. But Jacob 
 believed. He had ground for believing. He had the covenant 
 promise for the ground and warrant of his faith. That word of 
 God was the authorised exponent and explanation of the mind of 
 God. It had been given him that he might read the heart of God 
 by means of it. Outward events and dispensations are not given 
 for that purpose. The written Word is. By it, therefore, we 
 ought evermore to hold. By the word and covenant Jacob held 
 — the covenant word — " I will bless thee and make thee a bles- 
 singf." Because of that word did he exclaim, "I will not let Thee 
 go except Thou bless me." " And He blessed him there " (Gen. 
 xxxii. 24-29). Thus faith triumphs over sense. This is the 
 victory that overcometh. 
 
 Now, in examining the operation of this in the illustrious case 
 of Jonah, let us first view his position from the side of sense, and, 
 secondly, from the side of faith. 
 
 I. On the side of sense. And was ever a case so fitted to call 
 
1 64 yonaJis Prayer : 
 
 forth utter despair ? The facts are stated so quietly, with such 
 simplicity, and with so little comment, that we are apt to miss 
 the impression which a story so singular should produce. " So 
 they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea. Now the 
 Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah 
 was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." 
 
 But to acquire some deeper sense of his] dreadful condition, 
 let us learn of himself, as he speaks in his marvellous prayer ; 
 and let the three following things be attended to. 
 
 Mark (1.) the case in which he finds himself; (2.) the hand to 
 which he traces it ; and (3.) the immediate effects produced by it 
 on his mind. 
 
 1. Mark the case in which Jonah finds himself. He calls it 
 generally one of afiliction : — " I cried by reason of mine affliction." 
 And then, to specify the affliction, and to indicate its absolute 
 extremity, he uses unparalleled language like this : — " Out of the 
 belly of hell (or of the grave) cried I." Then, entering more 
 minutely on the description of his awful position, he says : — 
 " Thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas ; and 
 the floods compassed me about : all Thy billows and Thy waves 
 passed over me." Nor does he stop at general expressions of the 
 fact that he is submerged in the mighty deep. His descriptions 
 become so particular as almost to fill us with horror, while we 
 read them : — " The waters compassed me about even to the soul ; 
 the depth closed me round about, the sea- weeds were wrapped 
 about my head." Nor hath he rest in his living grave : — " I went 
 down to the bottoms of the mountains." And nowhere in all 
 this matchless monstrous journeying is any path of escape dis- 
 covered : all doors of hope are barred : — " The earth, with her bars, 
 is about me for ever." 
 
 Who can imagine the terrors of this unheard-of grave ? Oh ! 
 if he found courage or composure amidst circumstances like 
 these to address his soul in prayer, and that, too, believing 
 prayer, to the Lord, how great a marvel or miracle of grace must 
 that prayer be ! But it is far more so, if we consider — 
 
 2. In the second place, that the mere circumstances constitute 
 a very small part of the hindrance to the prayer of faith which 
 Jonah now had to overcome. Consider the hand to which he 
 traced his unparalleled calamity. He saw the Lord's hand in 
 
The Conflict of Faith and Sense. 165 
 
 this judgment that was come upon him ; and he felt that, sore 
 and terrifying as his position was, it was a hundredfold more so 
 as assigned to him by an angry God. 
 
 Had his present wretched case befallen him by what is usually 
 called accident, or in the ordinary course of Providence in a world 
 of trial, it would have been sufficiently alarming and staggering. 
 All the dark and dreadful circumstances which imagination finds 
 it so difficult to realise, might still, without much wonder, have 
 produced a shock above which his faith might only with the 
 greatest difficulty have risen. But the matter was far otherwise 
 and far worse. God had clothed Himself towards Jonah in all 
 the insignia of a judge, — an incensed judge. He had followed 
 out, with His erring servant, a solemn judicial process. He had 
 summoned him to His tribunal, and witnessed against him. He 
 had sentenced him to death, and seen to the execution of the 
 sentence. His God was indeed pursuing him as an enemy. And 
 though He had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, the 
 terrified prophet might naturally in the meantime have preferred 
 death itself to the world of horrors of the deep, amidst which 
 he was now tumultuously and helplessly hurried up and down. 
 
 A mere accident, which may fall on a believer with crushing 
 weight, at the very time when his soul is prospering and in health, 
 and while the light of his Father's countenance is upon him, may 
 be borne. But alas ! when terrors like those Jonah now suflPers 
 are inflicted in the following up of an angry controversy on God's 
 part with His servant ! " Thou " hast cast me into the deep : all 
 "Thy" billows and "Thy" waves are gone over me, — it is this that 
 aggravates them unutterably. Terrible in themselves, they are a 
 hundredfold more so, coming as messengers of the Divine anger, 
 — executioners of the sentence of God's displeasure. The soul 
 cannot be alive to its relation to God, without feeling them to be 
 intolerable when regarded as proofs of His indignation. The 
 blow may be very painful in itself ; but as the blow of Thy hand. 
 I am consumed by it. The stroke may be sore: but as Thy 
 stroke — oh ! remove it. If this is come upon me, well may I 
 mourn: but if Thovu didst it, I am dumb. "I was dumb, I 
 opened not my mouth ; because Thou didst it. Remove Thy 
 stroke away from me : I am consumed by the blow of Thy hand " 
 (Ps xxxix. 9, 10). 
 
1 66 Jonalis Prayer 
 
 3. Consider the effect which all this produced in his soul ; the 
 state of spirit into which all this cast him, and above which his 
 faith had to rise superior. The dispiriting influence and effect of 
 his dreadful condition is indicated particularly by two expressions 
 in the fourth and seventh verses : — " I said I am cast out of Thy 
 sight:" "My soul fainteth within me." 
 
 (1.) "I said I am cast out of Thy sight." Such was the im- 
 pression, the despondency, — the almost despair produced in the 
 agitated prophet's soul. My heart was hot within me : while I 
 was musing, the fire burned ; then spake I with my tongue : my 
 anguish overflowed whether I would or no, and I said, " I am cast 
 out of Thy presence." Such is the dictate of the flesh, triumph- 
 ing for a moment in the varying turns of this sore inward conflict. 
 And what feeling could be more dreadful ? To be cast out of 
 God's sight ; to be cast away ; thrust away from Him ; how 
 terrible to a really awakened soul ! To be banished from the 
 light of the sun; shut up in the depths of ocean, among the roots 
 of the everlasting hills ; is terrible beyond description. Yet if 
 God is still propitious, forgiving, favourable, in due time all shall 
 yet be well. But if that can no longer be hoped for ; if God is 
 mine enemy ; if He and I are separated and put asunder ; if He 
 finally has done with me, and has " cast me out of His sight ; " 
 then infinite darkness begins to settle down on my soul — irre- 
 trievable wreck for eternity is befalling me. In Thy presence 
 is fulness of joy ; out of Thy presence, is the second death for 
 evermore. 
 
 Ah ! if you are asleep in sin, you may think it no terrible 
 calamity to have to dwell away from the presence of God ; but 
 if you have aught of the light of life in you, you will feel that 
 to be cast out of God's sight is unutterable and everlasting ruin. 
 Why, it is promised as the only thing that can sustain and support 
 an awakened soul : — " Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no 
 ivise cast out!' 
 
 (2.) But Jonah expresses the extremity of his despondency in 
 other terms. He says, " My soul fainted within me." Literally, 
 "My soul infolded itself in me." Thought rolled on thought. 
 No outward prop, no sign or token for good could I discover. 
 My soul collapsed and fell in upon itself ; and rolling itself up in 
 its sorrow and anxiety, having nothing to look to without, and 
 
The Conflict of Faith and Sense. 167 
 
 nothing to lean on within, — " without were fightings, within 
 were fears," — my soul fainted in me ! 
 
 Such were the circumstances in which Jonah's agitated soul 
 had to fight the good fight of faith. (1.) Outwardly he was 
 begirt with terrors unspeakable. (2.) These were the tokens of 
 the anger of God. (3.) His soul under these calamities was 
 brought to the verge of despair. He had to struggle, first, 
 against horrors in their own nature unparalleled. He had to 
 struggle, secondly, against these, regarded as the messengers of 
 an angry God. And he had to struggle, thirdly, against the 
 faintness, the heart-sick faintness of spirit, which they could not 
 fail to produce. 
 
 II. It was in these circumstances that Jonah's faith rose in 
 its strength and triumph — that "faith, not of himself, but the 
 gift of God." For however tossed and afflicted we may be, even 
 tossed and afflicted inwardly, which is far the worst, we ought 
 still to pray : to pray of course in faith, for there is no other 
 kind of prayer binding on us ; no other kind of prayer allowable ; 
 no other kind of prayer, real prayer. The very verge of destruc- 
 tion is ground for prayer — and that not random exclamation, but 
 believing and assured petition. And it is expressly in such a 
 case that the Hearer of prayer receives the true pure glory due to 
 His name, — the glory due to His omnipotence, His all-sufficiency. 
 His infinite wisdom. His amazing grace, His faithfulness which is 
 in the heavens. 
 
 And indeed, what can stand us in any stead in such an hour, 
 but the prayer of faith ? The case is supposed to be in every 
 light desperate. The circumstances are altogether hopeless. They 
 indicate an angry God. They dry up the soul's springs of strength. 
 There is no entrance of any light, any hope, any relieving influence, 
 except from a new world or region, diflferent from sense, and far 
 transcending it, — yet equally near, or rather nearer. That region 
 is the region of faith. Let it be opened : " Oh ! set ye open unto 
 me the gates of it." Let it be entered. Let its truths, and powers, 
 and promises, and hopes, tell upon the soul. Let the Word of 
 God, in short, come in. Let God by His word. His believed word, 
 command the tempest of the soul ; forbid the destruction threat- 
 ened and feared : and a new power comes to bear upon the case. 
 
1 68 JotiaJis Prayer : 
 
 fitted to carry it almightily through to a happy issue ; fitted in 
 the meantime to sustain the heart, till an issue of peace and of 
 deliverance comes. Such a time is the very crisis for faith. It 
 is of all times the best for making a clear, thorough, unmistakable, 
 experiment in the line and direction of true faith. When every 
 prop is driven out from beneath j^-our feet; when you see not 
 your signs ; when all you know is that God is infinitely holy and 
 you are wholly sinful ; when your marks and tokens of grace 
 seem to have misgiven, and you are left without one single trust- 
 worthy feature in your case to lean upon, or keep company with, 
 or draw hope from till the day should dawn ; when inwardly all 
 strength is gone, and outwardly all things are against you : then 
 is the time for the trial whether God's solitary unsupported word 
 alone be enough ; whether God's unattested word, — certificated 
 or countersigned by no one, by nothing in the world without, 
 and nothing in the world within ; yea, contradicted by trembling 
 conscience within, and by terrific providence without — whether 
 that word of your God be still true and tried, and to be depended 
 on. It was easy for you to believe in Christ's promise when you 
 did not see the evil of sin ; — when you felt not the rigour and 
 righteousness of God's law ; — when you knew not the deceit and 
 wickedness of your own heart ; — when you had no insight into, 
 no experience of, the masterful, unconquerable power of your 
 own corruptions. But now is the time for faith, for the trial of 
 your faith ; and, when assaulted, baffled, overwhelmed by besetting 
 sin ; laden and agitated in conscience, by the guilt of it ; seeing 
 the frown of the Lord's displeasure, because of it; feeling the 
 pursuit of the Lord's anger, in His avenging of it ; and reading 
 its hatefulness in the mirror of God's pure and holy law, of God's 
 pure and holy nature, of God's dear Son's pure and holy character 
 and example — and above all, of that dear Son's cross. Now is 
 the time for the proof of your faith's genuineness, your faith's 
 truth and power. Now is the need for a faith that shall be " not 
 of yourself, but the gift of God." 
 
 It was thus that Jonah's faith was tried, and it stood the test. 
 
 The hinge of this conflict between sense and faith, and of 
 
 faith's triumph in it, is in the fourth verse : " I said, I am cast out 
 
 of Thy sight; yet I will look again towards Thy holy temple." Here 
 
 is the turning point. But let us trace faith's victory step by step. 
 
The Conflict of Faith and Sense. 169 
 
 1. In the first place, then, we see the truth and power of 
 Jonah's faith in this conflict, in that he betook himself to prayer 
 at all. He cried unto the Lord. Not only so ; but " he prayed 
 unto the Lord his God " (ver. 1). He gave not up his covenant 
 interest in God. He still maintained that the Lord was his God. 
 He knew that the Lord hateth putting away. Shall we say, he 
 knew that God, on the contrary, was bringing him back ? This 
 indeed was what the Lord designed by His whole procedure : 
 and this design he was securing. And he said: "I cried by 
 reason of mine affliction unto the Lord ; out of the belly of hell 
 cried I " (ver. 2). 
 
 Yes ! his affliction constrained him to pray. And how often 
 after backsliding or disobedience is the true tone of prayerf ulness 
 restored only through the aid of affliction. For, oh, how griev- 
 ously does known or special sin derange the power of prayer and 
 the principle of faith ! It induces hardness and insensibility of 
 heart. It seals up the heart and lips from God. It tends to pro- 
 duce coldness, artificiality, distance, and enstrangedness of feeling 
 in the believer towards his Father in heaven. There is a sort of 
 proud shame that dislikes to come to the point ; it rather deals 
 in vague generalities. Immediately there is guile in the soul. 
 The eye of the child falters and quails before its Father's eye. 
 There is misunderstanding. Cordiality is gone. Intercourse is 
 constrained : the sweetness and refreshing power of prayer is 
 departed from it. The Spirit of adoption is grieved. Formality 
 takes the place of living, heart-breathing supplication. 
 
 But the stroke of affliction comes. Anguish overflows the 
 spirit. The child cannot, will not, brace up its own strength 
 against a Father's rod. It breaks down rather. Formality now 
 is gone. Necessity constrains truth and earnestness. Necessity 
 impels to seek a near approach ; a full confession ; a free and 
 thorough reconciliation. Prayer again becomes real ; the cry of 
 the poor and needy ; an appeal of exquisite and touching power 
 that always tells on the heart of the God and Father of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Thus it was with Jonah. The adverse and terrific aspect of 
 afiairs ; the too clearly announced anger of his God ; the fainting 
 of his soul within him ; — under all these his spirit at last breaks 
 down at his Father's feet. Oh ! then comes the true prayer of 
 
1 70 JonaJis Prayer 
 
 faith. Out of weakness the child is made strong. Back from 
 unbelief he comes afresh — a believer as before. 
 
 2. Jonah set before himself the certainty of Jehovah's recon- 
 cileableness, His promised forgiveness, His sure accessibility. It 
 is this that is twice indicated by the expressions : — " I will look 
 again towards Thy holy temple ; " " My prayer came in unto 
 Thee, into Thine holy temple " (verses 4 and 7). 
 
 For why this reference to the temple ? Is it in the infantile 
 absurdity of ritualism or formalism, building its churches and 
 saying its prayers — facing to the East ? I trow not. Away 
 with the carnality that ties the mind down to earth and sense, 
 precisely when only by rising to the things that are unseen and 
 eternal can any relief, refreshment, or any re-invigorating power 
 come ! Jonah thought of " the temple ; " and why ? Because God 
 had placed His name there. Because there He gave the symbol 
 of His presence as a God of love, and especially a God of pro- 
 pitiated favour ; a God dwelling between the cherubim, — God on 
 the blood-sprinkled seat of mercy, on the throne of grace. Not 
 as confined to temples made with hands did Jonah think of his 
 God. " I fear the God of heaven, that made the sea and the dry 
 land " (i. 9). But this God everywhere present, Jonah knew, from 
 the revelation of Him in the temple, as a God of grace ; a God 
 waiting to be gracious, exalted to have mercy ; a God of judgment : 
 giving His blessing to all that wait upon him (Isa. xxx. 18). 
 
 And if the symbol of Jehovah's reconcileableness was so 
 precious to Jonah, how ought our faith to rise triumphant over 
 all evil, and amid all affliction, — now that Christ, by the temple 
 of His body, hath effected the perfect reconcilation for ever. In 
 that temple God is now Immanuel, God with us. There is 
 nothing deeper, nothing truer, nothing more abundantly, finally, 
 conclusively proved, than that God is reconcileable, accessible, 
 forgiving ; — gracious to all that will come to Him in the way of 
 His appointment. He has sealed no other truth as He has sealed 
 this. He has proved no other fact as He has proved this. And 
 the proof and seal are permanent. In the midst of the throne 
 there stands " a Lamb as it had been slain." There is " an Advo- 
 cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the pro- 
 pitiation for our sins." While this is true, God's holy temple, 
 the most holy place, is the place of free and open access to a 
 
The Conflict of Faith and Sense. 171 
 
 sinner as a shiner, with all the weight and all the weariness, 
 with all the guilt and shame and pollution, that attach to him. 
 " I said, I am cast out of Thy sight ; yet will I look again towards 
 Thy holy temple." 
 
 Let faith, then, conquer sense : faith, pleading the proved and 
 the eternal. It has a conflict to carry on. But, in the treasury 
 of heaven, it has the true sinews of the war. A few hours of 
 terrific trial ; a few years of weary, vexing care ; a limited 
 amount of light affliction, which is but for a moment ; a tem- 
 porary combination of providences, sorely afflicting my body and 
 my spirit ; — these may be the proof to flesh and sense that God 
 is displeased at mine iniquity, and will by no means clear the 
 guilty. But the permanent abiding of the Lamb in the midst of 
 the throne ; the ever-living and unchangeable priesthood of Him 
 who is at the Father's right hand ; is to my faith the surpassing, 
 all-conquering proof that He forgives iniquity, transgression, and 
 sin. " I said, I am cast out of Thy sight, yet will 1 look again 
 toward Thy holy temple:" "and my prayer came in unto Thee, 
 into Thine holy temple." Let the Holy Spirit only reveal and 
 apply the truth ; and, in the promise of the Father and the right- 
 eousness of the Son, there is enough to be the ground of a faith 
 that shall rise in its unflinching and unbounded triumph above 
 all billows and floods — above the blazing deluge yet to come, the 
 final deluge of fire itself. 
 
 Oh, to be exercised in the holy place within the veil ! Oh, to 
 direct our prayer to God's holy temple ! " For, seeing that we 
 have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus 
 the Son of God," we may well "hold fast our profession. For 
 we have not an High Priest that cannot be touched with the 
 feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as 
 we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the 
 throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help 
 in time of need" (Heb. iv. 14-16). Thus did Jonah. 
 
 8. And, thirdly, he did not do this in vain. For observe how 
 he is answered in the progressive strengthening of his faith, even 
 while his trial lasts. Hear the noble language of faith, while still 
 he remains, to the feeling of sense, in his horrid grave : " Thou 
 hast brought up my life from corruption, Lord my God." I 
 know nothincr more sublime in all the ranfje of recorded human 
 
172 yona/is Prayer 
 
 utterances. What could dictate assured and triumphant language 
 like this, but marvellous, miraculous faith ? His deliverance is 
 not yet come ; yet faith speaks of it as if it were. O noble faith ! 
 it is in thy power to bring in the deliverance that is still future, 
 with the sweetness of that which is already present, and the 
 sureness of that which is already past. Weltering still in anguish 
 unspeakable, in dangers and distresses inconceivable, a soul in 
 which thy power dwells, gives glory to God for deliverance from 
 them all. 
 
 And is not this of the essence of the life of faith ? "0 
 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body 
 of this death ? " Who shall deliver me ? The deliverance is 
 future. It is only on the wa3^ But it is surely on the way. 
 Therefore, though the deliverance is future, my gratitude should 
 be present. Not, I luill : but, I do thank God through Jesus 
 Christ ; — " Who shall deliver me ? " "I thank God through Jesus 
 Christ." " For we are saved — already saved — in hope. But that 
 which is seen is not hope ; for what a man seeth, why doth he 
 yet hope for ? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we 
 with patience wait for it;" — and already do we with joy give 
 thanks for it. 
 
 4. And now this, in fact, is the last step in Jonah's victory of 
 faith : " I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving ; 
 I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord." 
 Thus Jonah, delivered from his guiltiness and evil conscience; 
 reconciled to God in peace ; washed from his sins, and made again 
 a recognised king and priest, and so recognising and presenting 
 himself before God in His holy temple by faith ; offers the sacri- 
 fice of thanksgiving. Shut up still in his darksome grave, in the 
 deep, in the shadow of death, we hear him nevertheless singing 
 marvellously — far more marvellously than Paul and Silas in the 
 prison — singing in his darkness, as if he said : " God is the Lord, 
 who has shown me light : I will bind the sacrifice with cords, 
 unto the horns of the altar" (Ps. cxviii. 27). Light! What light 
 has Jonah ? He has the light of faith ; — the light that shineth in 
 the darkness ; — that lighteth up the shadow of death. And amidst 
 the light, he cometh to God's altar to offer the sacrifice of thanks- 
 giving. He cometh unto God, — unto God, his exceeding joy. 
 
 You will praise God joyfully, downcast and disquieted 
 
The Conflict of Faith and Sense. 1 73 
 
 believer, when once He shall have given you the deliverance you 
 desire ? Your song will begin when God hath done for you all 
 that you ask ? Ah ! your song in that case shall be grounded in 
 sense, not springing from faith. For observe : while your trial 
 still lasts ; while your vexing thorn still goads you ; while your 
 much-loved hope seems plunged in the depths of ocean, and no 
 sensible sign yet appears of its being restored ; while there is need 
 of patience, and still there is need of faith ; if God give you 
 warrant for faith ; even His promise, is that not ground of 
 immediate thanksgiving ? And if this warrant of faith beget 
 faith ; if this promise of deliverance be embraced in faith ; will 
 your gratitude tarry all the time till the promise be fulfilled ? 
 What would that mean ? You will not praise God till the actual 
 accomplishment ? Why ? Would it be cutting before the point ? 
 Would it be giving vent to your feelings of relief too soon ? — 
 dangerously soon ? Ah ! what is that but unbelief ? — unbelief, 
 with its maxim, uttered or unexpressed, — a maxim not known in 
 the kingdom of Christ, — " A bird in the hand is worth two in the 
 bush." Your gratitude and praise would be premature ! You 
 distrust the issue ! Are you not in the snare of unbelief ? 
 
 But, be it that the trial lasts ; and that, to sense and reason, 
 all is dark. Let in the light of faith. Let Jehovah's word be 
 true, and every man a liar. " Who is among you that feareth the 
 Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in 
 darkness and hath no light ? Let him trust in the name of the 
 Lord, and stay upon His God." Let in the light of trust ; of 
 faith ; of God's promise — God's promise all-sufficient, free, eter- 
 nal ; — and ought not praise to spring up immediately ? Will not 
 praise spring up immediately ? Will there not be " peace and joy 
 in believing " ? The man that walks by sense can sing when the 
 deliverance has come. It is faith's prerogative, and faith's 
 peculiarity, to sing before that : — faith's all-distinguishing 
 peculiarity; faith's all surpassing prerogative; faith's all- van- 
 quishing power. most noble grace of faith ! " Thou art not of 
 ourselves ; thou art the gift of God " ! 
 
 And then, according to our faith — our faith proved by our 
 thanksgiving — according to our faith it is done unto us. "And 
 the Lord spake unto the fisb, and it vomited out Jonah upon the 
 dry land." 
 
XV. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES: NO. I, 
 THE TYPE. 
 
 Jonah i, 17 ; ii. 10. 
 
 "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly ; so 
 shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the 
 earth." — Matt. xii. 40. 
 
 " JTe teas delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justifica- 
 tion." — Rom. iv. 25. 
 
 ' ' Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death : that like as CJirist 
 loas raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should 
 ivalk in newness of life." — Rom. vi. 4. 
 
 WE have now the light of New Testament commentary to 
 bring to bear upon the history. And the Lord Himself 
 is the commentator. We will afterwards find that His comments 
 set forth an analogy between Himself and Jonah in three points 
 of view ; in respect to a type — a contrasted parallel — and a 
 sio-n. At present, we confine our attention to the consideration 
 of the type. 
 
 It is evident, then, that our Lord invites a comparison, 
 discovers a resemblance, institutes an analogy between the mar- 
 vellous dealings of God with the prophet, and His own burial and 
 resurrection. And this resemblance or analogy is, as we shall 
 see, of that peculiar kind which we call a type. Now, in com- 
 paring the two — these two great interpositions of Godhead with 
 Jonah and Jesus respectively — it is a matter of indifference which 
 of them, in any particular point, is employed to throw light upon 
 the other. The type, for the most part, will illustrate the anti- 
 type. But there may be points in which our clear knowledge of 
 the antitype may be carried back to illustrate the type. This 
 remark holds good in the case of the very first element of resem- 
 blance which we notice. 
 
The Type. 175 
 
 ■ \ \ ^ 
 
 I. In both cases there is a death and a resurrection. 
 
 The analogy which Christ institutes between His own experi- 
 ence and Jonah's carries this in it : that, substantially, Jonah was, 
 in the judgment, and by the hand of God, put to death and 
 brought to life again. His life was forfeited ; it was cancelled ; 
 and when, after three days and three nights in the whale's belly, 
 he was placed again on dry land, it was a new and fresh life on 
 which he now entered. Substantially, Jonah underwent a 
 death, a burial, and a resurrection. It is very remarkable indeed 
 that Jonah speaks of his burial in the very same terms in which 
 Messiah speaks of His : — " hell " and " corruption " " Hell," — 
 hades, or in other words, the state of the dead ; the unseen world 
 of disembodied souls, — on the one hand ; and " corruption," the 
 pit, the grave, the prison of the untenanted body, on the other : — 
 these are the terrible expressions which Jonah himself employs 
 to describe his condition. For, in the first place, we hear him in 
 the second verse saying : — " I cried by reason of mine affiiction 
 unto the Lord, and he heard me ; out of the belly of Itell cried I, 
 and thou heardst me." And, in the second place, in the sixth 
 verse, where his faith is triumphing in his deliverance as if it were 
 already come : — " The earth with her bars was about me for ever : 
 yet hast Thou brought up my life from corrwption, O Lord my 
 God." Hell and corruption: — these are the terms by which 
 Jonah designates his penalty — his penalty of the three days and 
 three nights in the whale's belly. And in what language does 
 the Son of man speak in the Spirit concerning His endurance of 
 three days and three nights in the heart of the earth ? " Thou 
 wilt not leave my soul in hell ; 'neither wilt Thou suffer Thine 
 Holy One to see corruption " (Ps. xvi. 10). It is the language of 
 burial and resurrection in both cases. Jonah's life, then, was 
 forfeited, cancelled, taken away and restored. It was a new life 
 that Jonah had thereafter ; newness of life. He was a new man ; 
 he was another creature ; he was raised from the dead. 
 
 II. But secondly ; in both cases, the death and burial are /^ 
 judicial processes. 
 
 They are not in the ordinary course of nature : neither are 
 they mere physical miracles ; that is the least of it, in these 
 tremendous movements. Each of them is a special, signal, 
 
176 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 judicial procedure ; carried out by God, acting simply and strictly, 
 as a judge, guarding the demands of justice, seeing to their execu- 
 tion and fulfilment. In one word : each of the processes is an 
 atonement ; an expiation ; a sacrifice ; pacifying the Divine 
 Judge ; satisfying Divine justice ; abolishing guilt ; restoring 
 peace ; effecting reconciliation. 
 
 Now the bringing out of the analogy, in this respect, will be 
 helpful in showing that the death and resurrection of Christ 
 constitute a proper, real, perfect, and proven satisfaction to the 
 justice of God for the sins of His people ; a doctrine, which almost 
 all the theological heresies of the present day are, with more or 
 less subtlety and refinement, labouring to overthrow. 
 
 It is assailed, for instance, by those who, under various cov- 
 erts, deny that the law of God has any penalty, properly so called. 
 
 A penalty is that which is inflicted in satisfaction for a pre- 
 cept broken. Moreover, through the intervention of penalty, 
 responsible beings are left free to obey or disobey ; and the 
 majesty of law, and the claims and supremacy of the Lawgiver, 
 are still maintained, still kept consistent with the moral freedom 
 of the subject, whether he continue in subjection or not. Save 
 for this, — the existence and infliction of penalty, — subjects may 
 preserve the honour of the Lawgiver if they choose to obey : but 
 the Lawgiver cannot preserve it Himself, when they disobey. In 
 the former case, therefore, even, it is to t\iey)i that He is indebted 
 for His sovereignty ; as is proved by the fact, that in the latter 
 case He cannot maintain it. A state of things like this, were the 
 destruction of moral government and the dethronement of the 
 Moral Governor. A result so shocking, which would make all 
 the universe a hell, is prevented through the maintenance of 
 unbending law — law with its alternative of precept on the one 
 hand, and penalty on the other ; law which, ruling inflexibly, 
 says, " Do this, and live " — or, alternatively, " The soul that 
 sinneth shall die." 
 
 The death thus threatened is penalty, not chastisement : 
 designed simply to uphold the law, not to reclaim the rebel ; to 
 satisfy the justice of God, not to correct and purify the sinner. 
 Those we speak of, would make all suffering remedial ; correc- 
 tive ; keeping in view the reclaiming of the offending trans- 
 gressor : not penal ; expiatory ; satisfactory to the justice of the 
 
The Type. 177 
 
 offended Ruler. This doctrine is followed out most naturally, 
 and most consistently, in the desire and the demand for the 
 abolition of capital punishment. For if punishment is to be 
 purely corrective, humbling, alterative, and purifjdng to the crim- 
 inal, then by all means, whatever he has done, spare his life ; 
 place him under discipline ; mitigate the severity of his suffering, 
 as his evil disposition is ameliorated : and having kept him from 
 damaging others, and done your best to benefit him, watch the 
 moment when your process has been so successful that he can 
 be trusted loose again ; watch that moment, and liberate him 
 immediately : — for, if you carry the process one iota further, you 
 as much violate your principle concerning punishment, and inflict 
 that thing which you hate, — a penalty, — as if you had taken 
 away his life. The nature of punishment, as penalty, becomes 
 obvious, in the case of capital punishment, — in the taking away 
 of life ; and this is the reason why it is objected to. Anything 
 short of death may and ought to be inflicted in combination with 
 efforts to benefit the criminal. And so, on account of this com- 
 bination, the element of penalty may be lost sight of. And hence 
 the punishment of crime, in its strict, original, pure, and proper 
 import, is always capable of being misunderstood, where it 
 amounts to something short of death. But death is obvious and 
 simple penalty ; not even professing to promote the good of the 
 criminal, but to preserve the glory of law, and satisfy the justice 
 of the judge. Hence perhaps we may see a reason why all the 
 misery inflicted by God in penal vengeance on sin, is gathered up 
 under the one title, " death ; " — " The wages of sin is death" In 
 that case, there is no escaping the conclusion that the punishment 
 is penal, retributive, satisfactory to justice ; and not remedial, 
 corrective, beneficial to the sinner. 
 
 The doctrine that destroys the very notion of penalty must, 
 of course, subvert the very idea of an atonement ; an atonement 
 properly so called ; a real and proper sacrifice for sin, a true 
 satisfaction to justice. 
 
 The truth and reality of the atonement are equally subverted by 
 those who acknowledge nothing more specific in the nature and 
 design of Christ's death than a striking exhibition of God's hatred of 
 sin, — an expedient by which He can pardon iniquity, without de- 
 triment to His own character, or rather reputation, for holiness. 
 
 M 
 
1 78 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 The death of Christ does indeed strikingly exhibit God's 
 hatred of sin, and very awfully illustrates His character as the 
 Holy One, But it accomplishes these results, only in so far as it 
 is, and just because it is, an atonement — a true and proper inflic- 
 tion of the penalty of the law — a true and proper satisfaction to 
 the justice of the Divine Judge. If God's hatred of sin be held to 
 lie open to doubt or suspicion in connection with the pardon of 
 sin, and if His holiness is supposed to be obscured by His taking 
 sinners into His friendship, it is vain to point to the Cross and 
 say : — No ; behold there, and in the sufferings of His Son, the 
 Divine hatred of iniquity, the Lord's indubitable and unspotted 
 holiness. I say, this is utterly a vain and ineffectual reply, if 
 the Cross is merely an expedient for illustrating God's character 
 and protecting God's reputation for holiness, and not a true 
 satisfaction for sin. Nay, more : if it be no expiation of sin, but 
 a mere scenic representation of holiness ; — a scenic representation 
 of God's hatred of sin, got up to save God from misrepresentation 
 when He abstains from punishing sin ; — a scenic representation, 
 where there is real suffering, but no real satisfaction ; real suffer- 
 ino- inflicted and endured, but no real satisfaction rendered or 
 accepted : — then I say, tliis is fitted to misrepresent the character 
 of God ; to misrepresent it unanswerably, hopelessly, blasphem- 
 ously. For, if the dying Christ, suffering unsearchable woe on 
 the tree, suffers and dies in such circumstances, the character of 
 God, both in respect of righteousness and love, is overthrown. 
 Is it conceivable that He should pursue His dear Son to the dust 
 of death, merely to save His own reputation in the eyes of His 
 creatures, and to wipe away an objection which they had taken 
 to His procedure ? 
 
 For mark this also. If there be no real satisfaction to Divine 
 justice in the Cross, and no such satisfaction necessary; if God 
 may pardon sin without a sacrifice of expiation and atonement ; 
 then the objection to His doing so is false. He does it without 
 detriment to His holiness, or to any element in all His glorious 
 character. In that case the objection against which the Cross is 
 pleaded as a reply is groundless. The objection is based on a 
 mere delusion. And is God's dear Son to agonise in body and in 
 soul on the tree of Calvary, in order to furnish, by His groans 
 and death, an answer to a false and groundless objection ? Is that 
 
The Type. ij() 
 
 a procedure of Divine love ? Is that a dictate of Divine right- 
 eousness ? Is that like the way of the Divine wisdom ? Could 
 not God rather have directly enlightened the blinded minds of 
 the objectors, and shown them the groundlessness and untruth of 
 the objection ? Nay rather ; having the hearts of all men in His 
 keeping, could He not have prevented the objection ever rising to 
 their fancy at all, seeing that (by the supposition) it is false and 
 groundless ? Surely the expedient needful on God's part in such 
 a case is plain enough ; namely, one or other of two very simple 
 alternatives; — a more effectual ruling of men's minds, or a more 
 effectual revelation of His own. In either of these two ways this 
 false objection might have been dealt with, and not only answered 
 but annihilated or prevented. Then, if so ; and if, therefore, the 
 inexpressible agonies of Christ crucified are brought in merely to 
 provide an antidote to a misconstruction and misrepresentation of 
 God's procedure, into which none but the ignorant could be 
 misled, and which they would abandon when properly instructed 
 and enlightened ; are we not compelled to raise now the very 
 objection in resistless force, which, in a form having in it no force 
 at all, the Cross has been needlessly introduced to remove ? — an 
 unanswerable objection to the righteousness of God now, when 
 we see Him punishing the innocent as a stroke of policy merely, 
 and because it is expedient ! 
 
 If the Cross is to be represented as an answer to an objection 
 at all, it is a forestalling answer. It is an answer to an objection 
 which, without the Cross, would be well-grounded and true; — 
 an objection which, instead of needing increase of light to remove 
 it from the minds of the ignorant, the enlightened and the holy 
 would feel the force of, just in proportion to their light and holi- 
 ness. Nothing can so tremendously confirm that objection to the 
 forgiveness of sins as " Broad School " evasions of the propitiatory 
 nature of Christ's death ; and nothing can more gloriously remove 
 it than the old evangelical doctrine of the Cross. The cross of 
 Christ, as a real and proper atoning sacrifice, is not designed to 
 dispel a mere ambiguity about the holiness of God, but primarily 
 and immediately to meet a real claim of His justice, and to 
 constitute a real satisfaction to His justice. It is not merely 
 necessary that God should appear to be just, but that He should 
 he just in pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin. A mere 
 
1 80 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 expedient to save ci'ppearaiices is degrading in Divine transactions; 
 most of all degrading as an explanation of that grandest Divine 
 transaction that lights up the character of God from eternity unto 
 eternity. By the ever-wondrous Cross of the Son of His love, 
 God secures no appearances. He achieves the reality. By that 
 Cross it is not merely represented, but achieved, that God is just 
 in justifying the ungodly who believe. But it is as a true satis- 
 faction for sin that the Cross achieves this glorious result, and 
 confers on Him who died upon it the name of " Jesus " — Saviour. 
 He is not our Saviour, on Broad School principles. On their own 
 showing, He may in some sense be the Saviour of God's reputation, 
 but in no sense the Saviour of men's souls. On their views, man 
 can be saved without Him, and saved too without any detriment 
 to God's character, though God's reputation might suffer in the 
 eyes of some of His [creatures. How shocking ! The Evangel 
 which these men would overthrow makes the Cross of Christ a 
 school of light, overflowing with the knowledge of the glory of 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ. But it does so, by making that 
 Cross a real atonement — a true, and proper, and perfect pro- 
 pitiation. Obliterate this view of the Cross, and we know no 
 instrument so powerful as that very Cross itself by which to 
 bury in eternal darkness both the character of God and the 
 hopes of men. 
 
 Now this feature — this fundamental feature — in the atone- 
 ment, as an infliction of real penalty ; no mere scenic representa- 
 tion of holiness, but a real satisfaction for sin — is well illustrated 
 by the resemblance, the type, which we are now considering. 
 For manifestly Jonah's being cast into the sea — his being " three 
 days and three nights in the whale's belly " — was of the nature 
 and had. the effect of expiation, atonement, sacrifice, satisfaction, 
 in the true and proper meaning of these terms. Jonah's crime 
 offended Divine justice. Justice pursued, afflicted, detected, 
 exposed, demanded the criminal. Every effort of his own to 
 conceal himself, and every effort of others to save him, were 
 useless. Justice had its one simple, unalterable, inflexible de- 
 mand. Justice demanded him. And when the demand was met, 
 justice was satisfied ; " the sea ceased from her raging." Here is 
 the true and proper notion of a sacrifice for sin, an atonement, a 
 satisfaction to Divine justice, a pacification of Divine anger. The 
 
The Type. i8i 
 
 idea of substitution also comes in to complete the resemblance ; 
 for though at first sight it does not seem to hold good, but rather 
 the contrary, — seeing that on the one hand, Jonah was guilty and 
 the crew innocent, and on the other, Jesus was holy and His 
 people guilty, — yet in reality it does hold very exactly, the force 
 of the type being held to begin as it ought to do, after Jesus is 
 supposed to be embarked with us ; united to us ; made sin for us 
 that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. 
 
 But the power of the analogy is not yet fully brought out by 
 any means. And its full strength comes out just at that point 
 where a little more examination might seem to prove that it 
 breaks down. For it may be said, If you make Jonah's sufferings 
 a real atonement and satisfaction, then it seems to follow that he 
 needed no forgiveness for his offence against God in fleeing from 
 His presence ; he needed not to draw upon the Divine mercy, for 
 he satisfied Divine justice ; and bearing the penalty in his own 
 person, he offered a sufficient sacrifice for his own sin. And thus 
 in bringing out the clear resemblance between the type and the 
 antitype, we would place them on a level with each other, and 
 make Christ's own atonement not the only one. But is it not a 
 clear doctrine of Scripture that there is but one sacrifice for sin, 
 and that no other atonement can be accepted ? that no sin can be 
 forgiven save on the ground of that atonement alone ? 
 
 Certainly the one only expiatory, guilt-removing sacrifice of 
 atonement is that of Christ ; and any view of Jonah's sufferings 
 inconsistent with that doctrine must be false. Any discussion, 
 also, of the type which would make it supplemental to the anti- 
 type, and thereby argue the antitype imperfect, must proceed on 
 some grievous error. 
 
 To preserve the perfection of the antitype, shall we then deny 
 the reality of the type ? Shall we say that the type was not a 
 real atonement, but merely a representation of an atonement? 
 With all submission, this would seem the very worst method of 
 illustrating and maintaining the perfection of the antitype. For 
 the perfection of the antitype implies reality in the type ; but a 
 type in which atonement is not real, but only representative and 
 scenic, would be a poor means of exhibiting an atonement that is 
 real and perfect. It was real — not scenic or pictorial — healing ; 
 real healing, though in a lower sphere — the sphere of bodily 
 
1 82 New Testament Co77imentaries : 
 
 disease — that the brazen serpent conveyed. And without this, 
 it would have but poorly conveyed instruction concerning real 
 healing in the higher sphere of moral remedy and spiritual 
 salvation. 
 
 The fact in the case before us is this. Jonah's being " three 
 days and three nights in the whale's belly " was true and real 
 satisfaction to justice and expiation of offence, in a lower sphere ; 
 and thus becomes a true type of real and perfect expiation in the 
 ultimate and highest sphere, the moral government of God ; 
 expiation effected by the sacrifice of the Son of man, and sealed 
 by His being " three days and three nights in the heart of the 
 earth." 
 
 God, be it observed, may carry on one government within 
 another. There may be His universal government, embracing 
 heaven and earth and hell, — all responsible beings. It is the law 
 of this government that we have violated by our apostasy and 
 sin. It is the law of this government which God maintains, 
 consistently with the forgiveness of sin, in His dispensation 
 by Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Through that mediatorial 
 dispensation, the anomalies of the world's history will at the 
 judgment-day be brought into final harmony with the simpler 
 elements of God's universal government, as these are exhibited 
 in heaven, the home of the holy ; in hell, the prison of the wicked. 
 That Saviour, in whose person and work salvation and judgment 
 are stored up, is the head of all principality and power. Person- 
 ally He is God, God manifest in the flesh ; and officially He is 
 head over all things unto the Church, which is His body. And 
 having stood in the room of the body, the Church, made sin for 
 them that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him, 
 He expiated their sin, pacified their offended Judge, satisfied 
 Divine justice, magnified the Divine law, reconciled the Divine 
 Father. Those who acquiesce in this arrangement, and, owning 
 righteous liability to wrath, are content in faith and gratitude to 
 take this expiation and satisfaction for their shield and their 
 glory, stand right with Divine justice and are justified by the 
 Divine Judge freely by His grace, through the redemption that 
 is in Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through 
 faith in His blood. Entitled hereby to the favour and blessing 
 of God, they obtain the Divine Spirit to purify and refine their 
 
The Type. 183 
 
 moral nature into the Divine image, and are ultimately advanced 
 to the Divine fellowship in glory among the principalities and 
 powers of light. Those, on the other hand, who reject the great 
 salvation, and live ungodly and impenitent and unbelieving, have 
 their portion assigned at last in hell among the principalities and 
 powers of darkness. And thereafter the universal moral govern- 
 ment of God — simplified from the elements with which the 
 anomalous estate of the human race as under a dispensation of 
 forbearance at present complicate it — will move forward ; un- 
 mingled love resting on the holy, unabated wrath on the wicked. 
 Meantime, through the atonement of the Cross, the real and pro- 
 per satisfaction for the sins of the elect, God is righteous in pro- 
 longing the probation of an apostate race ; righteous in forbearing 
 with the wicked ; righteous in condemning those who reject the 
 redemption ; and righteous in forgiving and justifying them that 
 believe. And in reference to His universal government ; in rela- 
 tion to Himself as the universal and Eternal Judge, and to His 
 necessary, universal, unchangeable Moral Law; in respect of 
 guilt, in its strict and ultimate and essential nature, as consisting 
 in liability to the wrath of the Eternal Judge and to condem- 
 nation under the penalty of the eternal law ; it is impossible that 
 there can be any atonement besides that of God's Eternal Son in 
 human flesh upon the cross. " By His one offering He hath for 
 ever perfected them that are sanctified" (Heb. x. 14). 
 
 But while, in regard to the universal government of God, 
 against which all sin in its essential nature is committed, there 
 can be but one atonement, that of Christ upon the tree, is it not 
 quite conceivable that there may be minor governments conducted 
 within the universal one, quite consistent with it ; highly fitted 
 to illustrate it ; having laws of their own ; these laws penalties 
 of their own, penalties which may give scope for atonements 
 also ; atonements as real as these penalties, these laws, these 
 governments are ; atonements which, just by being thus real and 
 true and proper inflictions of penalty, satisfactions of law, and in 
 maintenance of government, become, not scenic representations, 
 but typical realities, real types of the true, real, and all-perfect 
 atonement by the death of God's Eternal Son ? On this principle, 
 the whole system of atonements under the Levitical economy 
 is to be explained ; and their illustrative, and especially their 
 
184 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 demonstrative and typical value, brought out. And it is this 
 principle that will show the full force of the type of Jonah. As 
 universal Moral Governor, — Governor of all the universe, of all 
 responsible beings, and among others, the human race, — Jehovah 
 was governor of the children of Israel regarded as men. But 
 besides this, and besides all that in this capacity He revealed of 
 Himself, He condescended to come into another and more specific 
 relation towards them as Israel. He set up among them and 
 over them as Israel, another government, more peculiar. He be- 
 came their local, national King. Their government was a theo- 
 cracy. God was at the head of it. It remained, however, the 
 Jewish government, though God was at the head of it. It was 
 embraced under, but not identical with. His great moral govern- 
 ment over all. That government, local and national, like any 
 other local and national government, — not any less because 
 Jehovah was the national King, — had laws peculiar to itself ; 
 these laws, their penalties. Satisfaction, therefore, might be ren- 
 dered, or sacrifices and atonements brought in, if such were the 
 will of the King ; and these atonements, though they left the 
 element of offence against God as universal Ruler unatoned for, 
 might really atone for offence against the minor government ; 
 and thereby really typify, to spiritual intelligence, a coming 
 atonement satisfactory in relation to the universal government, 
 — and greater, as that government, embracing all the universe 
 and all eternity, is greater than the local and temporary govern- 
 ment over Israel, ranging, as it did, over only a few miles in space 
 and a few years in time. 
 
 And thus indeed it was. Jehovah, besides their governor in 
 the sense in which He is the Moral Governor of all, was the 
 national King of Israel. His throne, and court, and camp were 
 amongst them. And this fact is sufficient to remove the calumny 
 which shallow infidels have often brought against some portions 
 of the Jewish code, as sanguinary and severe. Why should God 
 doom to death, the man in Israel who should have dealings in 
 witchcraft? Simply, because Jehovah was King, special King of 
 the nation ; and to seek knowledge and counsel — knowledge of 
 fact, or counsel and instruction for duty — from other invisible 
 power, was treason ; a crime punished in every kingdom with 
 death. Why should God pursue Achan with death, not turning 
 
The Type. 185 
 
 from the fierceness of His anger, till the offender was stoned, and 
 a heap of stones raised over him ? Because Jehovah was King ; 
 and the King had taken the field ; and His subjects were an 
 army, and were under martial law : and the plain instructions of 
 the King, the Generalissimo, being violated, the summary and 
 brief procedure of martial law was the order of the day, — as in 
 any other army, and under any general maintaining discipline 
 among his troops, it would have been. And why should God 
 pursue Jonah even unto death, for the sin of his fleeing from 
 His presence, and refusing to carry His message to Nineveh ? 
 Because Jehovah was King : and Jonah, His aid-de-cainp under 
 orders, became a vile deserter ; and under any king would have 
 been in like manner, to the utmost of that king's power, pursued, 
 arrested, and subjected to desertion's penalty, which is death. 
 
 It is this very simple, but valuable view of God's Jewish, 
 local, national, temporary government, as within His government 
 universal and eternal, which enables us to see in Jonah's suffer- 
 ings a real and proper expiation of a real offence against a real 
 government and law ; and yet a type — yea, thereby a real and 
 true type — of the one only atonement wdiich satisfies for the 
 breach of the eternal law, and satisfies the demands of eternal 
 justice. Jonah's primary and ultimate guilt against God, as the 
 universal Moral Ruler, could be removed only by the great atone- 
 ment, of which his own sufferings were a type. In the sphere of 
 that government, there is but one atonement ; and it is complete : 
 for in the sphere of that eternal government, the Eternal Son in 
 human flesh, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without 
 spot to God. In the limited and local sphere of the national and 
 temporary rule that God instituted over Israel, the particular and 
 additional element of Jonah's sin being not only an offence against 
 the universal government of God, but against the Jewish theo- 
 cracy, — this might be atoned for, justice in this respect might be 
 satisfied — by Jonah's own anguish in his marvellous burial and 
 baptism of wrath — his marvellous and living grave in the deep. 
 Hence the final argument from the analogy takes this form : — If 
 in the sphere of the limited and temporary theocracy in Israel, 
 three days' and three nights' burial in the deep cleansed an 
 offender from the guilt of his offence against God as Israel's king ; 
 then, in the universal sphere which embraces all worlds, — all 
 
1 86 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 earth, and heaven, and hell, and an eternity, — how much more 
 shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered 
 Himself without spot to God, cleanse our conscience from dead 
 works, to serve the living God ? For as Jonas was three days 
 and three nights in the whale's belly, so was the Son of man 
 three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. For " He 
 was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our 
 justification" (Kom. iv. 25). 
 
 in. The burial and resurrection of Jonah constituted the gate 
 
 / by which the word of Jehovah passed forth from the Jewish to 
 
 the Gentile world. And in like manner in the antitype. The 
 
 death and resurrection of Christ was the breaking down of the 
 
 middle wall of partition. 
 
 In point of fact, it was only by his burial and baptism in the 
 deep that Jonah became a prophet to Nineveh. That work of 
 God, as matters stood, could not be accomplished otherwise. The 
 obstacle to it could be removed only in this particular way. But 
 this was successful. It was the means of carrying forth, from 
 the limited and local Jewish theocracy, the message and revelation 
 of God to a wider sphere. And thus the temporary and national 
 government showed symptoms and capacities of world-wide 
 expansion. But the perfection of this is found in the antitype. 
 For an apostle, speaking of this expansion of the Church, thus 
 testifies to Gentile converts : " Remember that when ye were 
 without Christ ye were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, 
 strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and 
 without God in the world : but now in Christ Jesus ye who some- 
 times were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For 
 He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down 
 the middle wall of partition between us ; having abolished in his 
 flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in 
 ordinances ; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so 
 making peace ; and that He might reconcile both unto God in 
 one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby ; and 
 came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them 
 that were nigh " (Eph. ii. 11-17). 
 
 The carrying forth of the message to the Gentiles is thus 
 attributed to the death of Christ. In a parallel passage in the 
 
The Type. 187 
 
 similar Epistle to the Colossians, Paul refers more distinctly to 
 the burial and resurrection. " Buried with Him in baptism, 
 wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the 
 operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. And 
 you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your 
 flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven 
 you all trespasses : blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that 
 was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the 
 way, nailing it to His cross" (Col. ii. 12-14). 
 
 Always have the Gentiles been indebted for the Divine 
 message to a prophet three days and three nights under the 
 penalty of death : in the case of Jonah, with Nineveh ; in the 
 case of Jesus, with the world. 
 
 IV. The analogy holds further in this respect, that the experi- 
 ences of Jonah and Christ constitute, each in its own sphere, an 
 enforcement of the message which each brings to the Gentiles. 
 Our Lord Himself informs us that Jonas was a sign to the 
 Ninevites. He not merely speaks of the " sign of Jonas " as 
 something which should be ffiven to the oeneration to whom He 
 was then addressing Himself ; an idea for which there might be 
 some apparent ground if we had only Matthew's statements to go 
 upon : " An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; 
 and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet 
 Jonas " (chap. xii. 39 ; xvi. 4). But in the gospel of Luke we 
 have this particular added, namely, that Jonas was a sign to the 
 Ninevites : " For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall 
 also the Son of man be to this generation" (chap. xi. 80). And 
 in what respect was Jonas a sign unto the Ninevites ? Clearly in 
 the analogous respect in which the Son of man was to be a sign 
 to that generation who heard His doctrine, and should hear His 
 future history ; in respect, namely, of His three days' and three 
 night's endurance of the penalty of death. This is the sign of 
 the prophet Jonas, repeated in the case of the Son of man : in 
 this sense he was a sign to the Ninevites. Clearly, therefore, it 
 follows that the Ninevites were informed of the prophet's mar- 
 vellous experience, as condemned and delivered unto death for 
 offending the God, the King of Israel, and raised again in justifi- 
 cation. The prophet himself has left no record of the fact that he 
 
1 88 Neiv Testament Coirwientaries : 
 
 gave them this information : yet the Lord is the best of commen- 
 tators ; and it is argued by " good and necessary inference " from 
 the Lord's method of employing and improving the history of 
 Jonah as his type, that Jonah proclaimed to them the terrible 
 death which he endured, and the blessed resurrection which he 
 experienced ; and these events as transpiring in such intimate 
 connexion with his bringing to them the solemn message of 
 death, — " Forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed." And can 
 we for a moment doubt that while the message spoke of nothing 
 but death, of wrath, of destruction ; and while the prophet would 
 enforce the terrible certainty of retribution by narrating the in- 
 flexible pursuit of himself, even unto death, which this God 
 conducted when he refused obedience ; can we doubt that the 
 mercy and miracle of their prophet's resurrection was at once the 
 ground and the gleam of hope which they caught hold of, as an 
 encouragement to repent and call upon the Lord ? The message, 
 indeed, was all for death ; and the sign alone contained a ground 
 of hope, while a seal of death was in it too. Yet " the men of 
 Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas." 
 
 How is it, now that " a greater than Jonas is here " ? The 
 death and resurrection of Christ are to us the sign and evidence 
 of the truth of His mission, the seal and enforcement of His 
 message. Apostles uniformly grounded their appeals to Jews and 
 Gentiles on the burial and resurrection of the Lord. The hinge 
 of Peter's sermon on Pentecost was this : " Him hath God raised 
 up, having loosed the pains of death." And again : " This Jesus 
 hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses." It is in like 
 manner the burden and the strength of Paul's sermon at Antioch. 
 " God raised Him from the dead." And both Peter to the Jews, 
 and Paul to the Gentiles, quote and comment upon that 16th 
 Psalm, so evidently the experience of Messiah's soul, and expres- 
 sive of Messiah's hope and triumph, while it seems to have 
 afforded Jonah a vocabulary of expression too : — " Thou wilt not 
 leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One 
 to see corruption." Sealed, attested, and enforced by this Divine 
 Prophet's burial and resurrection, there comes a message to us, as 
 there came a message to Nineveh. It is a message not of death, 
 but of life : — " He whom God raised up saw no corruption. Be 
 it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through 
 
The Type. 189 
 
 this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins : and by 
 Him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye 
 could not be justified by the law of Moses." What say you, 
 brethren, to the message, which in the name of the risen Jesus we 
 bring ; which rather the risen Jesus Himself brings by our word 
 and witness-bearing ? If the strait message of death to Nineveh 
 seemed to have one small glimpse of hope faintly gleaming or 
 glimmering upon it from the mercy and the power of God in 
 raising up the witness-bearer from the deep, shall the message of 
 eternal life, sealed by the resurrection from the dead of the Son 
 of man, and irradiated with infinite glory and infinite love, have 
 no weight with you ? Oh, do not you who embrace it glory in 
 it as a message of unmingled and eternal life, because you see all 
 the death already suffered by the Son of man ? And ye who 
 reject it, Oh, do you not see that there can remain nothing but a 
 fearful looking for of vengeance — a vengeance which, though 
 threatened strongly on Nineveh, was loosed by their receiv- 
 ing the risen Jonah ; but which in your case must be sealed eter- 
 nally by your rejection of the risen Christ ? " For the men of 
 Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with the unbelieving 
 ones among you, and shall condemn you : because they repented 
 at the preaching of Jonas ; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is 
 here " (Luke xi. 32). 
 
 V. Jonah's experience was his preparation for new loyalty / 
 and obedience ; and in the kingdom of Christ, Christ's risen life '' 
 is the source, in like manner, of newness of life and service. 
 
 Contemplate Jonah as he stands again on the dry land, on the 
 margin of the deep. He is a new man ; he is another creature. 
 He has a new life ; a new position towards God ; a new career 
 opening up before him. Any obstacle to that new career, any 
 drawback on this new life that might be supposed to arise from 
 the past, is gone ; for the past itself is gone. His old life is en- 
 tirely cancelled ; all its guilt obliterated ; all its sin atoned for ; 
 all its evils, interruptive of Divine fellowship and blessing, 
 abolished — left behind in the depths of the sea. For he is dead 
 to the past : and it has no more hold upon him ; no more dominion 
 over him ; no more evidence against him ; no more wrath in store 
 for him. Oh the blessedness of sacrifice, of atonement ! — a 
 
 ,/• 
 
IQO New Testa^nent Co7nmentaries : 
 
 blessedness depending on atonement being real, proper, and per- 
 fect — the blessedness of satisfaction to justice; the satisfaction 
 that is given in death, accepted and sealed in burial, witnessed 
 and proclaimed by resurrection. Blessed is the man whose sins 
 are covered, to whom the Lord imputeth no iniquity ; in his spirit 
 surely there need be no guile. Freed by perfect death from guilt 
 — " for he that is dead is freed from sin " — the path of life is 
 before him. The pulse of life beats strong within him. A new 
 career opens to him. A charmed life now is his. " Lord, here am 
 I : send me." 
 
 Thus would Jonah feel. Thus did Jonah give himself now 
 to newness of service and in newness of spirit ; — his risen life 
 free from the load of guilt ; lightened of the dread embargo of 
 ■death and condemnation ; elastic, infallible, bounding, free ! What 
 though the city be exceeding great and wicked ? What though 
 the message be mysterious and sad ? Jonah hesitates not, nor 
 halts any more. It is the risen, redeemed, charmed, infallible 
 life of God's reconciled child. " Lord, here am I : send me." 
 
 And is not this, O believer in a risen Christ, is not this the 
 type and fashion of your life of faith ? For as Jonas was three 
 days and three nights in the whale's belly ; so have you in Christ 
 been three days and three nights in the heart of the earth : and 
 your life now is a risen life. There is no new life, no spiritual 
 life, in all the race of Adam, save that which accrues from partici- 
 pation in the risen life of Christ. If you are quickened, it is in 
 Christ. If you are raised up, it is together with Christ. If you 
 sit in heavenly places — in the sphere of the spiritual and re- 
 deemed life — it is in Jesus Christ. 
 
 And in what does the risen life of Christ consist ? and what 
 is its source ? And in what does it differ from His life in the days 
 of His flesh ? In the days of His flesh He rather lived our life 
 than His own. He lived under the law ; in our relation to the 
 law, and under its condemnation ; and he might well have said, 
 " Behold, I die daily." For as He bare the wrath of God ; and 
 just as in His favour is life, so in the wrath of God is death. For 
 us, all the days of His flesh, He was made sin ; and the wages of 
 sin is death. But He died the death to an end — He died it all — 
 He died it out. He died death dead, and done. The Son of man 
 was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth ; but 
 
The Type. 191 
 
 God loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that 
 He should be holden of them ; and as it began to dawn towards 
 the first day of the week, He was raised from the dead by the 
 glory of the Father. And as He rose, no bond of law kept hold 
 upon Him any more ; no condemnation laid its taint upon Him 
 any more ; the glory of His Father's unmingled and eternal 
 favour shone upon Him now for evermore ; and in His Father's 
 favour He had life, His risen and eternal life. poor and con- 
 trite sinner ! that life was for thee, and is thine. That glory of 
 the Father ; that favour which is life ; that loving-kindness 
 which is better than life; are thine. This is thy risen life in 
 Christ. For " we are buried with Him by baptism into death : 
 that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of 
 the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" 
 (Eom. vi. 4). 
 
 Oh ! with what freshness, — as of the morning light of an 
 eternal Sabbath ; and with what force, — as of the eternal power 
 of Messiah's resurrection; may that blessed appeal now break 
 upon our ears : " If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those 
 things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of 
 God " (Col. iii 1). 
 
 Noie. — In a volume like this, it would have been out of place to deal much 
 more fully with the various Broad School evasions of the Atonement. They 
 all embody a denial of its nature and design as a Propitiation. And when 
 that is denied, it is of no consequence what is set up as a substitute for it. 
 All these evasions are thoroughly excluded by the Westminster Confession, 
 chap. viii. , passim, and chap. xi. sec. 3. They destroy all evidence alike of 
 Highteousness and Love in the Divine administration. And, so far as they are 
 embraced, and their legitimate spiritual influence is not counteracted, they 
 render true conviction of sin, gracious contrition of heart, and conscious 
 reconciliation to God, impossible. Their prevalence cannot but move every 
 intelligent reader of Holy Scripture to the deepest grief. 
 
XVI. 
 
 JONAH RESTORED TO OFFICE. 
 
 " And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time." — Jonah 
 iii. 1. 
 
 "J shall not die, but live, and declare the icorks of the Lord. The Lokd 
 hath chastened me sore : but He hath not given me over unto death. Open to me 
 the gates of righteousness." — Ps. cxviii. 17-19. 
 
 RESTORED to the land of the living, the prophet is restored 
 to office also, and furnished anew with the Divine commis- 
 sion to Nineveh. 
 
 It is indeed a signal instance of Divine grace when the rebel- 
 lious servant is not only pardoned — personally restored to favour 
 — but even replaced in office, and allowed again to serve the Lord 
 in special duty in His Kingdom. It would have been a very con- 
 spicuous instance of gracious condescension and forgiving love, 
 had the Lord simply forgiven the penitent prophet his great 
 sin in disobeying the heavenly command and fleeing from the 
 presence of the Lord : and though the intimation of his pardon 
 had been accompanied with an injunction to return to his native 
 land, and abide in the comparatively narrow sphere and seclusion 
 of private life — never henceforth being permitted to aspire to the 
 honour of glorifying God in the prophet's calling — we would 
 have felt that the mercy of the Lord, as extended to the penitent 
 Jonah even in this degree, was very eminently illustrated, and 
 worthy of all celebrations and praise, But the work of the Lord 
 is perfect. And in bringing His erring servant to repentance, 
 and reinstating him in favour, He reinstates him in office also ; 
 sealing to him the assurance of his own personal forgiveness by 
 the restoration of his holy calling. Jonah is to have cause to say, 
 " To me, who am the least of all saints " — " who am not worthy 
 to be called " a prophet, because I fled from the presence of the 
 Lord — " to me is this grace given, that I should preach among 
 the Gentiles " the word and message of God. Thus also, in Peter's 
 
Jonah Restored to Office. 193 
 
 repentance and restoration ; — the crowning seal of the Lord's 
 approbation is affixed when the shepherd's crook is again put 
 into the penitent's hands, and the gracious command given to 
 him : " Feed my sheep." 
 
 How gracious is the Lord ! Yea, our God is merciful. His 
 thoughts are not as our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways. 
 He stints not the liberality of His grace ; He places no limits on 
 what He is willing to bestow, or we warranted to ask. Rather,^ 
 He will do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or 
 think. His design, indeed, is to " show in the ages to come the 
 exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us by 
 Jesus Christ " (Eph. ii. 7). 
 
 Most righteous and unanswerable would His procedure have 
 been, both with Jonah in the Old and Peter in the New Testament 
 times, had He set aside His fallen servants from ever intromitting* 
 with the public work of His kingdom — from ever again putting 
 their hand officially to His cause upon the earth. Forgiving 
 their iniquity personally, yet taking vengeance on their inven- 
 tions by taking from them their office and giving it to another, 
 He might have left upon them a mark of His displeasure under 
 which they would have gone mourning all the days of their lives. 
 
 But He dealt not with them as they had sinned. He wholly 
 obliterated the remembrance of their transgression. He cast it 
 into the depths of the sea. He was perfectly appeased. He was 
 wholly reconciled. He re-admitted His penitent servants and 
 children to His perfect confidence. He placed them again in His 
 counsels. He set them hiofh in His confidence and service as 
 before. He took them near to His person afresh. He had work 
 for them still. He could commit His honour to their keeping 
 once more. He could take them unreservedly again into His 
 confidence, and generously repose confidence again in them. He 
 does not put them to a distance. He does not put them on pro- 
 bation, and require them to purge themselves from all suspicion 
 of insincerity, or do penance for past transgression, by serving in 
 some menial work, and proving themselves to be true, in some 
 humble place. But taking them at their word ; accepting their 
 confession of guilt and their expressions of grief ; — " being very 
 gracious, and owning their sincerity ; "—He looses all their bonds^ 
 He exceeds all their hopes, He sets aside all their fears : and by 
 
 N 
 
1 94 Jonah Restored to Office. 
 
 a full and free forgiveness, a full and free reconciliation, He puts 
 away all their sin wholly, and remembers against them their 
 iniquity no more. They had forsaken His way, and kept not 
 His commandments : and He had visited their transgression with 
 the rod, and their iniquity with stripes : nevertheless, His loving- 
 kindness does He not take from them, nor suffer His faithfulness 
 to fail. And the plenitude and perfection of His manifested 
 favour, in investing them anew with their high and holy function 
 as His prophets, is the seal which His infinitely generous grace 
 bestows in token that He has returned unto them once more, in 
 all the riches of His love. 
 
 The prophet's prayer has been heard. He is delivered from 
 his living death in the deep. "The Lord spake unto the fish, 
 and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land." So far the Lord's 
 wrath is turned away. Jonah breathes forth his gratitude and 
 gladness in a song of thanksgiving. He rejoices in the mercy of 
 God. He glories in his reconciliation to his God anew. 
 
 But is all well ? Is the remembrance of his offence cancelled 
 for ever ? Will it never be mentioned to him any more ? Is all 
 between him and his God again exactly as if this sad offence and 
 its dread penalty had never been ? Or will the Lord keep up 
 the remembrance of his rebellion, and brand him henceforth as 
 not to be trusted in His service ? 
 
 Are these, or such as these, the prophet's fears for a moment ? 
 Does he doubt whether, after sin like his, he can find such favour 
 again in his master's sight as to be trusted once more with the 
 high honours and responsibilities and confidence of his master's 
 service ? Is his anxious heart waiting to be set at rest on this 
 point also ? 
 
 He has not long to wait : — " The word of the Lord came unto 
 
 Jonah the second time, saying. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great 
 
 city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." 
 
 X Now, let us trace the effect of Jonah's late experience in 
 
 [ qualifying him for his coming work. For the Lord had been 
 
 dealing marvellously with him. And his dealings are designed 
 
 as preparations. When the Lord painfully chisels and polishes 
 
 a living stone, it is for some special place in the temple : and it 
 
 will be seen to have acquired under His hand a special fitness 
 
 / for its place. 
 
y onah Restoj'ed to Office. 195 
 
 In the present case, Jonah would resume his commission with 
 a new obedience : with a meekness, a faith, a courage ; to all of 
 which his punishment and pardon had been the signal means of 
 disciplining him. He would resume his work and mission with 
 another spirit : (1.) As a sinful man, whose sin had been emi- 
 nently forgiven ; (2.) As a prayerful man, whose prayer had been 
 eminently answered ; (3.) As an afflicted man, whose affliction 
 had been eminently blessed. 
 
 I. As a sinful man, whose sin had been forgiven, he could not 
 fail to accept, at the hand of the Lord, the mission now assigned 
 him in a spirit of reverence and dutifulness — of gratitude, sub- 
 mission, and obedience. He could be ready to say with the 
 Psalmist, " I will run the way of Thy commandments, for Thou 
 hast enlarged my heart." Subdued, not more by the mighty 
 power of God in pursuing him with punishment, than by the 
 tender kindness of God in abundantly pardoning, he would hold 
 himself in readiness to prove his thanksgiving by prompt and 
 loyal obedience. Rejoicing in the sweetness of a fresh and full 
 reconciliation ; — lightened in spirit by tasting in God a mercy 
 larger than he could ever formerly have thought of ; — cleansed 
 from the darkness that brooded over his soul, and the countless 
 images of terror and of evil which rose up before him while he 
 was fleeing from his God in rebellion, and his God was pur- 
 suing him in wrath ; — enjoying the unutterable blessedness of 
 him who, after griefs and fears unspeakable, has God's own 
 warrant for saying, " Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for 
 the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee ; " — Jonah would 
 not only be prepared, but desirous to be engaged again in his 
 Master's service. 
 
 There are two distinct principles that prompt the forgiven 
 soul to serve the Lord. There is gratitude — one of the finest and 
 most healthful and animating emotions of which the heart of 
 man is susceptible — gratitude for the grace, the generosity, that 
 forgiveth unreasonable offence. And this blessed principle is 
 called into special exercise by forgiveness bestowed on the gospel 
 scheme : " For the love of Christ constraineth us : because we 
 thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that 
 He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live 
 
1 96 Jonah Restored to Office. 
 
 unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose 
 again" (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). 
 
 But there is reverence also. For in forgiving iniquity, trans- 
 gression, and sin, God is not only gracious but sovereign. It is 
 as a sovereign that God forgiveth. It is in all the majesty and 
 glory of the King of kings ; in all the authority of the Lord of 
 lords. It is as the Judge that God dealeth vi'ith sin at all, 
 whether in avenging or in forgiving. Till I see His sovereign 
 glory as the Lawgiver, the Governor, the Judge, I never knov/ 
 my guilt in resisting and rebelling against Him. Till then I 
 never have any adequate idea of my position as a sinner. Till 
 then I never go into God's presence, to deal with Him anent my 
 sin, with any adequate or holy impression of sin's exceeding 
 sinfulness. It is with God as the Sovereign Ruler, the God of 
 infinite authority and infinite majesty, that I must deal, when I 
 seek the remission of sin. It is against the Sovereign Lord of all 
 that 1 have sinned. In that character I must own Him in con- 
 fessing my sin. In that character will He have Himself owned 
 in pardoning it. He will, in the very transaction of my forgive- 
 ness, cause me to see His glory. His right to deal authoritatively 
 anent my sin, His right to remit the penalty of eternal death, 
 implies an infinite glory on His part — the glory of infinite, 
 sovereign, authoritative right to rule — infinite, sovereign, authori- 
 tative right to dispose of me. If I sincerely acknowledge that 
 He has the right to settle eternally my standing before Him ; if 
 it be acknowledged, as sincere confession does acknowledge, that 
 it lies with Him to pronounce me condemned, or acquitted and 
 accepted in His sight ; if, whether in condemning or acquitting. 
 He is seen to act as the Supreme Judge from whose bar, even 
 unto eternity, there can be no appeal : and if, in forgiving my 
 sin and announcing my relation to Him to be that of one right- 
 eous in His sight. He eminently acts in His character of Lord 
 and Sovereign, making known the riches of His glory on a vessel 
 of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory ; — then I cannot 
 intelligently enter into this transaction without having, in the 
 very essence of it, communion with God as my Lord and King. 
 My forgiveness does not merely prepare me for beginning to see 
 that He who has forgiven me is now entitled to be my Lord ; 
 but my forgiveness is my Lord's glorious manifestation of His 
 
Jonah Restored to Office. 197 
 
 Lordship,- — His majestic act of sovereign authority concerning 
 me and over me. There is forgiveness with Him, that He may 
 be feared. And to stretch forth my hand to receive His gift of 
 pardon, is to stretch forth my hand and touch in reverence the 
 sceptre of unHmited, eternal, sovereign, holy government. 
 
 Thus a true reception of the true forgiveness fills the soul, in 
 the very instant, with reverential submission, quickening and call- 
 ing forth a promise and pledge — yea, a longing desire and a loyal 
 endeavour — to obey. 
 
 And this, mino-led with gratitude, constitutes the noblest and 
 most ennobling principle that can animate the sons of men : while, 
 under its lively impulse, the believer breaks forth in the joyful 
 exclamations : " What shall I render unto the Lord for all His 
 benefits ? " "0 Lord, truly I am Thy servant ; I am Thy servant, 
 for Thou hast loosed my bonds." " Lord, what wilt Thou have 
 me to do ? " 
 
 For any service that the Lord may appoint, a deep experience 
 of His forgiving mercy is a necessary and effectual preparation. 
 But especially is it needful, and especially is it eflfective, if the 
 service be that of proclaiming to others the character and will of 
 our God. 
 
 This is strikingly illustrated in the case of David. In the 
 matter of his great guilt, and of God's consequent controversy 
 with him, there seems to have been nothing in which he was 
 more hampered and hindered than the discharge of his duty as a 
 prophet or a teacher of others ; bound, as indeed every believer is, 
 to warn transgressors, and show them the way of life. And 
 there seems to have been nothing which his profound repentance 
 and perfect restoration of Divine favour more abundantly quali- 
 fied him for than this duty of testifying to his fellow-men the 
 will and grace of God, that they might be saved. "Hide thy 
 face from my sin, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me 
 a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not 
 away from Thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me. 
 Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with 
 Thy free Spirit. Then— i/ieii— will I teach transgressors Thy 
 ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee " (Ps. li. 9-13). 
 
 Nor is it superfluous to refer to the instance of Isaiah. 
 Melancholy indeed was the commission assigned to that prophet. 
 
198 Jonah Restored to Office. 
 
 The gospel is a savour of life to some, and death to others. It 
 is so in either case in proportion to the fulness and richness with 
 which it is proclaimed. If deadly, it is more deadly the more 
 truly and plentifully it is preached. Among all the prophets, 
 Isaiah testified most emphatically and abundantly of Christ. He 
 is, by way of eminence, the evangelical prophet. Alas ! the richer 
 his exhibitions of the coming Christ were to be, the harder were 
 the hearts of his countrymen to become under his ministry. The 
 deadly alternative result was to prevail grievously. He was even 
 to be warned that it would be so. A ministry of judgment was 
 thus to be assigned to him. The terrible commission was to be 
 given : " Go and tell this people, Hear ye, indeed, but understand 
 not : and seek ye, indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of 
 this people fat and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes I 
 lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under- 
 stand with their heart, and convert and be healed." A woful 
 mission for a patriot ! a trying, an agonising service to a tender 
 heart ! Little wonder if the prophet, in the hope that such a 
 ministry of judgment might be brief, hastens to inquire, " Lord, 
 how long ? " 
 
 But, oh, the heart-withering answer ! " And he answered, 
 Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses 
 wathout man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have 
 removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the 
 midst of the land." 
 
 How shall the tender spirit of the prophet — for wdth all his 
 terrific energy and force his is a tender spirit still — how shall it be 
 reconciled to go and minister what will thus so extensively, thus 
 so long, prove the savour of death unto death ? It is some comfort 
 to him that his people are not about to be cast awa}' ; that they 
 are not utterly to be exterminated or disowned. The Lord 
 assures him of a remnant that shall be saved : " But yet in it 
 shall be a tenth, and it shall return and shall be eaten : as a teil 
 tree and as an oak whose substance is in them, when they cast 
 their leaves ; so the holy seed shall be substance thereof." Even 
 in the deadly apostasy and deep desolation of " a gainsaying and 
 a disobedient people," there is "a remnant according to the elec- 
 tion of grace." But even with this mitigation of the prophet's 
 deep alarm and anguish for his people, how is he to be reconciled 
 
Jonah Restored to Office. 199 
 
 to undertake the work of ministering to them an influence which 
 the vast majority shall wrest to their own destruction ? 
 
 He received a vision of the Lord — the King — seated on the 
 throne of His glory, high and lifted up. Before Him the seraphim 
 veil their faces and their feet with their wings. Their voices of 
 responsive adoration fill the temple. The posts of the doors 
 shake, and the place is filled with smoke. Prostrate in conscious 
 uncleanness and unfitness for the presence and service of a King- 
 so searchless in His might and glory, Isaiah falls at the throne : 
 — " Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean 
 lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips : for mine eyes 
 have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." What is the remedy ? 
 What is the reviving cordial ? Pardon, pardon ; the purging 
 away of sin : the sealing of the Lord's forgiveness and His favour. 
 "And he laid the coal from the altar on my mouth, and said, Lo, 
 this hath touched thy lips ; and thine iniquity is taken away, 
 and thy sin is purged." Isaiah sees the King, the Lord of hosts ; 
 but intensely terrible as is His glory, intensely sure and perfect 
 is His free forgiveness. His royal and eternal favour. Fear not, 
 trembling child of the dust ! O contrite spirit I conscious 
 deeply of thy sin ; thine iniquity is purged ; purged, even so as 
 satisfies this King of glory, the Lord of hosts ; purged by the 
 power of an altar on which even He shall die, wounded for thy 
 transgressions, bruised for thy iniquity : and now thou mayest 
 stand before Him — His servant. His counseller. His prophet. 
 
 And hark ! There is a work to be done ; there is a servant 
 to be found. Thy redeeming God, in His unsearchable adminis- 
 tration, has mysterious work to do ; work that might shake the 
 loyalty of an experienced, an untried commissioner ; service that 
 may not be performed by a novice, — that may not be performed 
 even by a veteran, save in the adoring acquiescence which believes 
 in the rectitude and goodness of the Lord, even when His way is 
 in the great deep and His procedure past finding out. " Also I 
 heard a voice saying. Who will go for us, and whom shall we 
 send ? " Who will undertake the terrible commission ? Whom 
 can we safely send on this soul-trying service ? " Then said I," 
 — adoring the glory of the Lord, my cup running over with His 
 grace — "Then said I, Here am I; send me." (Isa. vi. 1-13). 
 
 With like feelinos will Jonah now welcome the mission to 
 
200 Jonah Restoi'ed to Office. 
 
 Nineveh, — mission of judgment though it be. Pardoned, and 
 cleansed, and reinstated in the favour of his God, the Lord whom 
 he fears, even the God of heaven, he will be in meek, adoring, 
 loyal readiness now to do Him service — even though the duty be 
 sore to flesh and blood — though it be the work of threatening 
 sore judgment on a great and sinful city. 
 
 II. As a man of prayer whose prayer had been eminently 
 heard and answered, Jonah had a new qualification with his new 
 call to serve the Lord. 
 
 He had obtained singular experience of the faithfulness of 
 God as the hearer of prayer. He had called upon the Lord in 
 circumstances almost fitted to shut out the possibility of hope. 
 He had laid his case before the Lord when it seemed all but 
 desperate. Out of the belly of hell had he cried unto the Lord. 
 Cast out of His presence, he had yet ventured to look again 
 towards His temple. 
 
 If there be a case on record pre-eminently fitted to confirm 
 the declaration, " Men ought always to pray and not to faint," 
 it is the case of Jonah. And if his experience is fitted to encour- 
 age and animate others, how abundantly must it have influenced 
 himself ! Think you that he would not enter with revived ani- 
 mation and vigour on the duty of his calling, from his being able 
 to return to it with the new song in his mouth : " I waited 
 patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my 
 cry ; he brought me out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay ; 
 and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings " ? 
 Would he not resume his post and his office with livelier loyalty 
 and implicit sense of duty, when he could resume it with the 
 blessed protestation : " I love the Lord, because He hath heard 
 the voice of my supplication : because He hath inclined His ear 
 unto me, I will call upon Him as long as I live " ? 
 
 For this blessed experience of prayer heard and answered 
 would brace him for his work in more ways than one. Thus — 
 
 1. In the first place, it was a testimony to him of his own 
 sincerity and integrity. 
 
 Shocked by his own rebellion, the penitent prophet would not 
 lightly or easily be convinced that his heart was again thoroughly 
 guileless and right with God. The strength and subtlety of its 
 
Jonah Restored to Office. 201 
 
 rebelliousness would alarm him. That that rebelliousness was 
 truly subdued he would seek a fresh and satisfactory proof ; 
 — a proof coming from without and not from within ;— a testi- 
 mony not from his own inward consciousness, which might 
 deceive him, but an infallible testimony, in which he could not 
 be deceived. Such a testimony he would find in the fact of his 
 prayer being heard. For God heareth not sinners ; — that is, He 
 heareth not those in whom sin still reigns. He heareth only the 
 righteous, the true-hearted, the sincere. Uprightness of spirit is 
 essential to true prayer — the prayer of faith which the Father 
 heareth alway. Hence, when prayer is truly heard and answered, 
 the answer is peculiarly sweet, as carrying with it a testimony 
 from God to the suppliant's simplicity of spirit and godly 
 sincerity. 
 
 It is thus that the Psalmist, in the GGth Psalm, interprets an 
 answer to his prayers as the witness of God to his integrity. 
 " Come and hear," saith he, " Come and hear all ye that fear God, 
 and I will declare what He hath done for my soul." And what 
 is it that God hath done for His soul, and which He feels impelled 
 to publish unto " all that fear His name ? " It is nothing else 
 than this ; that God had eminently and distinctly heard his 
 prayers, and therein gave him the gratification of knowing that 
 there was no duplicity in his spirit and no evil way within him. 
 " I cried unto Him with my mouth, and He was extolled with 
 my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart ? " — if I cling to 
 any beloved idol, or any besetting sin — " the Lord will not hear 
 me. But verily God hath heard me : He hath attended to the 
 voice of my prayer." He would not have done so, had I been 
 regarding iniquity in my heart. And when He liaili done so, it 
 is His testimony to me, that He who knoweth all things, knoweth 
 that I love Him ; yea, " Blessed be the Lord, which hath not 
 turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me." 
 
 Thus, assuredly, might Jonah also judge that the Lord had 
 graciously attested his returning integrity and uprightness. And 
 how blessed a help would this conviction be in resuming his duty ! 
 To know that verily his soul was right with God ; that verily 
 his heart was supremely set upon the love and service of his 
 Sovereign ; — how would his hands no more hang down, his efforts 
 no more be feeble or fitful ! " 'Tis a point I long to know, do I 
 
202 Jonah Restored to Office. 
 
 love the Lord or no ? " — many an anxious soul is often made to 
 say. Nor among the many reasons that may weigh in leading 
 to an earnest desire for settlement on that all-important point, is 
 this the least ; even that then I may take my Lord's work in 
 hand with the blessed and bounding assurance that there is no 
 danger of His meeting me with the alarming demand : " Who 
 hath required this at your hands ? " or of His repudiating my 
 service with the stern interrogation : " What hast thou to do to 
 declare My statutes, or to take My covenant into thy mouth ? " 
 
 Oh ! art thou anxious to enjoy a perfect and a sure exemption 
 from this danger ? Art thou longing to serve the Lord with the 
 full assurance that verily thou art His servant, and that He Him- 
 self doth seal and certify thee as such ? Go to His throne of 
 grace. Take thy whole case and lay it forth before Him. Thy 
 special burden, difficulty, trial, thorn, fear — that do thou specially 
 deal with thy God concerning. And m deal with Him ; so peril 
 all thy happiness and all thy hope, all thy salvation and all thy 
 desire, upon the graciousness and faithfulness of thy God ; so 
 continue instant in prayer — " I will not let Thee go, until Thou 
 bless me" — and, by faith and patience, so put God upon His 
 word and promise, that He may manifest Himself in thy help, 
 and distinguishingly answer thy prayer. Then shalt thou have 
 God's testimony that He counts thee of a perfect heart, — an 
 Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. Ah ! then His service will 
 to thee be exceeding acceptable. Thou will ask for thy worlc ; 
 " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " And thou wilt do it 
 with love, and fervour, and unselfish diligence. Thou wilt do it 
 in newness of spirit ; with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. 
 Thou wilt be in thine element now, in serving the Lord. 
 
 So would Jonah resume his calling ; eminently heard and 
 answered of the Lord ; the Lord testifying that He was of a pure 
 heart, that he was truly His servant. 
 
 2. But the answer to His prayer would animate him to return 
 to his duty in another way. It would inspire Him with the 
 assurance that he was not returning alone ; that he had One for his 
 " shield and his strength," who would bear him safely through 
 all the danger, and successfully through all the duty, to which 
 he was now summoned. 
 
 He was about to enter, unprotected, a city, whose inhabitants 
 
Jojiah Restored to Office. 203 
 
 were pre-eminently wicked and violent ; and he was to threaten 
 them in the name of the Almighty with speedy and complete 
 destruction. It was as going into the lion's den. Nothing but , 
 an implicit reliance on the presence, the faithfulness, the power,! 
 and the protection of God, could possibly bear him through, in ^ 
 the calmness and courage befitting an ambassador of God. But 
 surely the late amazing interposition of the Lord, in saving him 
 from the deep, in answer to his prayer, was fitted to fill him with 
 the requisite confidence, and with the strength and decision, 
 needed for the discharge of his duty. 
 
 Thus at least did David arm himself against his enemies, 
 feeding or fanning his courage to face them. " Lord, how are 
 they increased that trouble me ! There be many that rise up 
 against me. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me : my glory, 
 and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my 
 voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill." And what were 
 the immediate fruits of this blessed experience of answered 
 prayer ? Calm confidence and calm courage : the calm confidence 
 of a peacefully-sleeping child, — "I laid me down, I slept; I 
 awaked, for the Lord sustained me ; " and the calm courage of a 
 dauntless man, — " I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, 
 that have set themselves against me round about " (Ps. iii. 1-6). 
 
 Yes ! to come forth from the holy place, fresh from an audi- 
 ence of the King, and not an audience only, but an answer ; to 
 come forth an acknowledged and accepted friend ; an answered 
 and successful suppliant ; that is the preparation for whatsoever 
 future of suffering or of service may be opening up before you. 
 " From henceforth let no man trouble me : for I bear in my body 
 the marks of the Lord Jesus " (Gal. vi. 17). Yes ! and let no 
 evil dismay thee, nor over-master thee. " Because thou hast 
 made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy 
 habitation ; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any 
 plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels 
 charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear 
 thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. 
 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder : the young lion and 
 
 the dragon shalt thou trample under feet He shall call 
 
 upon me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble ; 
 I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy 
 
204 JonalL Restored to Office. 
 
 him, and show him my salvation " (Ps. xci. 9-16). Glorious 
 promise ! May you not boldly face even a dark and lowering 
 future ? " Put on the whole armour of God, .... praying 
 always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." So was 
 Jonah armed now. 
 
 Thus a man of prayer, whose prayer had been eminently 
 answered, was Jonah afresh qualified for resuming the prophet's 
 mission. 
 
 III. Once more ; as an afflicted man, whose affliction had been 
 eminently blessed, he was now peculiarly fitted to receive anew 
 his difficult, but Divine commission. 
 
 Before he was afflicted, he went astray ; but now he will keep 
 God's word. Chastened and subdued, — of a meek and quiet 
 spirit, — overwhelmingly convinced that no device of man can 
 prosper against the strong hand of the Most High, he would 
 return with a readiness to render implicit and unquestioning 
 obedience to whatsoever the Divine oracle should enjoin. Know- 
 ing the terrors of the Lord, he could speak of them feelingly, and 
 with reverence. On this theme, he could speak from personal 
 and profound knowledge. Not any less than the royal Psalmist 
 could he say, " I believed, therefore have I spoken ; I was greatly 
 afflicted : " so closely would his speaking for God stand related 
 henceforth to his terrible experience. Or he might address him- 
 self to the work of declaring God's message in words like these : 
 " I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. 
 The Lord hath chastened me sore : but He hath not given me 
 over unto death." And if it be God's terrible work that Jonah 
 must declare — God's strange work of judgment, — still Jonah 
 himself knoweth both the " goodness and severity of God ; " and 
 he knoweth that the Lord's severity is never cruelty — never un- 
 righteous, even should it destroy a city by fire, or a world by a 
 flood. In His own terrible experience, he knows the severity of 
 God ; yet he knows also that the Lord is righteous, yea, that his 
 God is merciful. 
 
 There is scarcely anything more necessary for God's ambas- 
 sador to possess, and scarcely anything more difficult to attain, 
 than thorough ability of spirit to threaten straitly and terribly 
 the enemies of his Lord, and yet to do so with combined feelings 
 
yonah Restored to Office. 205 
 
 of liveliest love and pity for their souls, and a profound acquies- 
 ence in God's righteousness in threatening them. Either it is 
 difficult to love those to whom we carry what we feel to be the 
 Lord's most due and righteous sentence of His eternal wrath ; or 
 it is difficult to justify that terrible doom when called to carry it 
 to those we love. At once to acquiesce in the propriety, the 
 necessity of their threatened eternal ruin ; and to love, and pity, 
 and long after them in the Lord : — to abstain, on the one hand, 
 from quarrelling with the rectitude of that decision of the Most 
 High, which we know must sweep those we love, except they 
 repent, into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels ; and 
 on the other hand, to take a no less loving and lively interest in 
 them, because we justify God in revealing His wrath from heaven 
 against them : — this is the sore trial which God's servant has to 
 undergo. Often he is tempted to be more sparing in setting 
 forth the terrors of the Lord than fidelity both to God and man 
 demands. To sigh after those whom as yet the Lord assigns to 
 eternal perdition, and to side with God in unshrinking loyalty 
 in His doing so ; — this is the painful trial of spirit which thou- 
 sands never think of, but which the pastor who understands his 
 office, and seeks even in some measure to discharge it, has 
 habitually to face. It is questionable whether the high spiritual 
 attainment which it implies and demands, is ever in any measure 
 very decidedly reached save through the furnace of affliction, 
 whether external or spiritual, and more especially the latter. " I 
 believed," said David, " therefore have I spoken ; / was greatly 
 afflicted." And Paul — entering profoundly into the spirit of that 
 brief declaration, and realising the profound connection between 
 speaking for God, on the one hand, and faith combined with 
 affliction, on the other — has this comment upon the Psalmist's 
 experience, appropriating it to himself and to the pastoral office 
 generally ; " But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that 
 the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We 
 are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed,, 
 but not in despair ; persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but 
 not destroyed ; always bearing about in the body the dying of 
 the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made mani- 
 fest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto 
 death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made 
 
2o6 Jonah Restored to Office. 
 
 manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but 
 life in you. We having the same spirit of faith, according as 
 it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken ; we also 
 believe, and therefore speak " (compare Ps. cxvi. and 2 Cor. iv. 
 throughout). 
 
 "Brethren, pray for us;" may the pastors of the Church well 
 say. The office we have to discharge is in no respect an easy 
 one. The anxieties connected with it are manifold. To sit loose 
 to these anxieties, and suffer them to lie lightly on your spirit, is 
 not the way to commend ourselves to Him that sent us, or to be 
 pure from the blood of all men. Especially we have to tell those 
 who are not in Christ that the wrath of Almighty God abideth 
 on them. We have unflinchingly to denounce upon them the 
 speedy and the endless execution of that wrath except they re- 
 pent. We have to tell some, that neither we or any fellow- 
 creature can behold the slightest evidence that his repentance is 
 in their case begun ; and that they are, therefore, to all appear- 
 ance, ripening for eternal perdition. In delivering declarations 
 so terrible as these, it behoves us to speak as those who feel that 
 God will do a righteous thing in consigning such to eternal woe 
 if they repent not, and yet to speak as those who at the same 
 time long after them in the bowels of Christ. In denouncing 
 against them this fierce wrath of the God whom they have 
 abandoned, to whom they have never yet returned — the God 
 whom they have offended and insulted, and to whom they have 
 never seriously sued for forgiveness and for reconciliation — we 
 are not permitted even to announce, as Jonah was, a respite of 
 forty days. We cannot offer you one week, one day, one hour, 
 to count upon. We are required to summon you to repentance 
 and surrender — on the spot. But w^e bless God we have an ex- 
 plicit message of mercy, such as was never put into Jonah's 
 hands; a declaration from the Lord of hosts — whom you have 
 made your enemy, and to whom you have been enemies — that 
 He is prepared to receive you immediately into reconciliation and 
 favour, through a great propitiation, through the sacrifice of 
 Him who was " three days and three nights in the heart of the 
 earth : " and behold ! now is the accepted time ; behold ! now is 
 the day of salvation. Laid hold on in simplicity and truth, with 
 lively and living faith, this word of the Lord shall be the anchor 
 
Jonah Restored to Office. 207 
 
 of your soul, sure and steadfast : neglected and despised, it shall 
 be a swift witness against you. Therefore " let the wicked for- 
 sake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let 
 him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ; 
 and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." 
 
XVII. 
 THE COMMISSION RE-ISSUED— AND ACCEPTED. 
 
 "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 
 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching 
 that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the 
 word of the Lord. (Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' 
 journey.) And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he 
 cried and said. Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." — 
 Jonah iii. 1-4. 
 
 " Wliat ivas I, that I could withstand God?" — Acts xi. 17. 
 
 " jT/ the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the 
 people he not warned : if the sword come and take any person from among them, 
 he is taken away in his iniqtdty ; but his blood will I require at the watchman's 
 hand." — Ezek. xxxiii. 6. 
 
 WE have considered the new spirit of dutiful obedience vv'ith 
 which the prophet, after his marvellous and merciful 
 deliverance, would return to the duties of his holy calling. Let 
 us now consider — (1.) The terms in which his commission was 
 renewed ; (2.) and secondly, the manner in which he executed it. 
 
 I. In the first place, then, we may consider the terms in which 
 his commission was renewed. " And the word of the Lord came 
 unto Jonah the second time, saying. Arise, go unto Nineveh, that 
 great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." 
 And here, — 
 
 1. Notice, first, the expression employed to indicate the fact 
 that a Divine communication was given to the prophet: "The 
 word of the Lord came unto Jonah, saying." 
 
 It is the formula, or phrase, customarily employed to designate 
 the conveyance of Divine communication to a prophet. It first 
 occurs on the occasion of a prophetic announcement being made 
 to Abraham ; and it prefaces that wondrous interview that 
 Jehovah held with His servant beneath the blue vault of the 
 midnight heavens, and beside the slaughtered parts of the victims. 
 
The Commission Re-issited — and Accepted. 209 
 
 or sacrifices, by which He ratified the promise of the land to his 
 seed : " The word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, 
 saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding 
 great reward" (Gen. xv. 1). From that time the phrase occurs 
 in Scripture in common use. May it not indicate, however, not 
 merely the advent of an audible sound, but the presence of a 
 living person ? May it not point out the Revealer, as well as 
 express the fact of a revelation ? The Son of God receives in 
 Scripture the peculiar name of " the Word." " In the beginning 
 was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God" (John i. I). It is He who is the only Prophet and Teacher 
 in the Church. It is exclusively through Him that the com- 
 munications of the Godhead are made to men. No man knoweth 
 anything whatever of the Father's thoughts and purposes, of the 
 Father's mind and will, save the Son, and he to whom the Son 
 shall reveal them. May it not indicate, then, the intervention of 
 the great Angel, Apostle, and Prophet of the Church, — through 
 whom alone Divine communications have in any age been made, 
 — when the singular expression is used, " The word of the Lord 
 came, saying " ? The language is somewhat strange, if the mere 
 phenomenon of an audible sound is indicated. It is singularly 
 appropriate if the advent and utterances of a living person be 
 intended. Moreover, it serves to keep prominently before our 
 minds the fact that Christ has in all ages been the medium 
 through whom the intimations of the Divine will have been 
 given forth, if we understand that His office, and the exercise of 
 His office, as the great Prophet and Revealer, are indicated, when 
 the expression is employed, " The word of the Lord came." 
 
 It is worthy of observation, also, that while there is a special 
 sense in which it may be said that the word of the Lord came to 
 the prophets, inasmuch as they were constituted the public 
 depositaries and heralds of the Divine revelations : there is a 
 sense, also, in which the word of the Lord is come to every one 
 of us. Wherever the Scriptures are read or preached, " The word 
 of the Lord" is come to every one who hears them. And it 
 remains that every such one consider what reception he has 
 given to " the word of the Lord." There is something exceed- 
 ingly alarming in the idea of giving a slighting reception to the 
 word of the Lord — of treating it, when " it comes," as if it were 
 
 o 
 
2IO The Co7nniission Re-issued — and Accepted. 
 
 unwelcome, undesirable, weak, and despicable ; as if it were un- 
 worthy of being honourably received, or incapable of avenging 
 the insult. The whole character of man, in the light of eternity, 
 depends on the reception that he has given to the word of God. 
 The unconverted have rejected and despised it. If it were 
 not so, it would have arrested, alarmed, humbled, and abased 
 them, and made them turn from idols to serve the living God. 
 Believers, on the contrary, have received it " in power, and in the 
 Holy Ghost, and in much assurance ; " — they have " received it 
 not as the word of man, but as it is indeed and in truth, the 
 word of God, which worketh effectually in them that believe." 
 And do not think that this word is ever empty, solitary, and dead. 
 The Spirit of Christ abides always by His word. Where that 
 word is lightly esteemed and not admitted to judge, to rule, and 
 regulate the soul, the Great Prophet, in the person of His Eternal 
 Spirit, and in the exhibition of His own and His Father's will, 
 is despised. 
 
 Are men aware of the guilt that they contract in refusing 
 that reverence, faith, and obedience to the Word of God, which 
 believers in a measure alone truly render to it ? Are they awake 
 to the alarming thought that the King of glory has paid them a 
 visit in the declaration of His Word, and in the strivings of His 
 Holy Spirit ; that they have had an opportunity of receiving and 
 entertaining suitably the eternal Word or Son of the Most High 
 God, or of rejecting, slighting, and despising Him ? Yet this is 
 the alternative when the Word of God has come, even as it has 
 to all of us, " For the word is nigh thee " (Rom. x. 8). 
 
 2, In the commission thus renewed, the word of the Lord 
 distinctly again sets forth to Jonah the greatness of the city : 
 " Go to Nineveh, that great city." 
 
 And I think the obvious design of this was to set prominently 
 before the prophet's mind the great difficulty of the work assigned 
 to him. There is to be no concealing from him the arduousness 
 of the task put into his hands. He is made distinctly aware 
 that a work is given him to do, of extraordinary, yea, super- 
 human magnitude. And the Lord's purpose in thus insisting 
 upon the greatness of the city, and the consequent difficulty of 
 the undertaking, is not hard to discover. He evidently designed 
 to constrain Jonah to despair of his own strength and qualifica- 
 
The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted. 211 
 
 tions, and to shut him up of necessity to the strength of God as 
 his only resource. He would have his service imbued with an 
 overpowerino- sense of the necessity of utterly denying himself; 
 of laying aside all carnal weapons of warfare ; of conferring not 
 with flesh and blood, but casting himself wholly upon his God, 
 that he may be strong in the Lord and the glory of His power. 
 The more the prophet was appalled by the superhuman achieve- 
 ment appointed to him, the more would he feel that he must 
 betake himself to the asylum of the Lord's protection and support ; 
 that he could not possibly go alone ; and that by faith he must 
 secure and lean upon the presence and power of Him whose 
 ambassador he was. 
 
 And the manner in which God thus dealt with Jonah is 
 substantially the manner in which He deals with every believer ; 
 with every one whom He delivers from the power of darkness 
 and transfers into the kingdom of His dear Son. He calls upon 
 them to count the cost. He puts at their disposal the means of 
 doing so. He will have them clearly to understand that the work 
 and warfare on which they are entering are of such a nature that 
 no qualifications of theirs are in any measure adequate to bear 
 them successfully or safely through. 
 
 I do not mean to say that God gives every believer, at the 
 time of his conversion, a view of the whole path of trial by which 
 He means to lead him to the promised land, or sets distinctly in 
 his eye the series of afflictive dealings or painful conjunctures 
 and ever-varying contests through which the true soldier is to be 
 perfected for his rest. Very much the reverse. The effect of 
 any such anticipation at the opening of the Christian life, would, 
 humanly speaking, prevail in many instances to crush the young 
 purpose of believing patience and perservance. It is often well 
 for the believer to be able to look but a little way before him. 
 The conflict which, when once exercised in the school of Christ, 
 he mio;ht be able to bear, miMit altogether overwhelm him at his 
 entrance ; and few have long known the trials to which a faithful 
 attempt to walk with God exposes His people, without taking 
 frequent refuge in the Saviour's precious declaration, " Sufficient 
 for the day is the evil thereof ; " and in that other promise, " As 
 thy day, so shall thy strength be." Nor is it possible to imagine 
 how many believers have been cheered by the remembrance that 
 
ii2 TJie Coniniissioii Re-issiied — and Accepted. 
 
 — "It came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that 
 God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, 
 although that was near ; for God said. Lest peradventure the 
 people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt ; but 
 God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of 
 the Red Sea" (Exod. xiii. 17. 18). 
 
 Still all this is not only consistent with, but illustrative of, 
 the fact that the whole Christian life is supernatural, — an impossi- 
 bility to our own wisdom and strength ; and that we cannot take 
 one step, or achieve one conquest in it, without feeling that it is 
 an undertaking all too high for us. Though God shielded Israel 
 from the depressing influence of immediate war with the Phili- 
 stines, they could be saved from that, and from Egypt both, only 
 by being led " through the Avay of the wilderness of the Red 
 Sea." They are thrown wholly upon Divine protection. Divine 
 power. Divine provision. They are taken most completely off 
 from all self-dependence. They are absolutely shut up to God. 
 To confer with flesh and blood is useless. Unless God be on 
 their side, they must be swallowed up quick. Unless by faith 
 they cast themselves wholly on God, there is neither help nor 
 hope. They are simply shut up. By faith only can they pass 
 through the Red Sea as on drj- ground. By faith only can they 
 live in the wilderness. By faith only can they find a path through 
 the trackless desert. To them, their unseen Leader, Provider, 
 Lawgiver, and Guide, is " all in all." They must count the cost, 
 and see that their only hope must be in this, namely, that " with 
 God all things are possible." 
 
 It is precisely so in all that pertains to our salvation ; our 
 lighting the good fight of faith ; our working out our salvation 
 with fear and trembling ; our abiding faithful unto death. No 
 man knows the tone of mind which is the peculiar essence of 
 all that is truly Christian, who has not seen the superhuman 
 magnitude of an immortal soul's salvation, and of its perfecting 
 in grace and preparation for glory. With man it is impossible. 
 With man it is impossible to recommend his guilty soul to God, 
 or pay a ransom for his sin ; impossible to implant in himself the 
 vital principle of all grace and holiness ; impossible, even when 
 it has been planted, to maintain it in life, health, and vigour ; 
 impossible to conduct to a successful issue the opposition that 
 
The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted. 213 
 
 must be maintained between that vital principle of grace and 
 the remaining suggestions, impulses, temptations, in a word, the 
 lusts, of the flesh. He is wholly cast upon Another for accep- 
 tance with the righteous Judge of all the earth ; even on a 
 Divine Substitute and Surety. He is wholly cast upon the 
 power of Another to renew his nature, and enable him truly to 
 trust in the Lord, and fear, and love, and serve Him ; even on 
 the Divine Spirit, creating a new heart and renewing a right 
 spirit within him. He is wholly cast upon the same grace of 
 God in every duty, in every time of need ; and he never need 
 make one sinfjle effort with the view of " workinsf out his salva- 
 tion," save on the believino- understandings that " God worketh 
 in him to will and to do of His good pleasure." The Bible 
 continually warns you against undertaking the Christian life 
 and warfare in your own strength. It points out the greatness 
 of the work, and shows you that it is too great for you. It shows 
 you the radical and entire change in which the Christian life 
 begins ; the great and arduous contest through which it is main- 
 tained in existence, prosperity, and progress, amidst the wicked- 
 ness that remains in your own nature, the tempting and blunting 
 influences of the world, the insidious, ensnaring, violent, and 
 alarming efforts of Satan : and it distinctly sets forth all the 
 arduousness, perseverance, self-denial requisite, in order that you 
 may not fall into the sad snare of imagining that you can either 
 undertake or carry on this work, except in the confiding and 
 appropriating faith of the Holy Spirit's continual power. So 
 clearly are the sore trials of the faithful Christian depicted ; 
 and the multitude of graces he has to cultivate, — diametrically 
 opposite, each of them, to what is natural to flesh and blood ; and 
 the manifold duties expected of him, if he is to walk worthy of 
 his high callinof of God, who hath called him to His everlasting; 
 glory and kingdom ; — that it is impossible for a man really to 
 understand the case thus depicted, and be infatuated enough to 
 fancy himself adequate to meet it. 
 
 When you read, therefore, in the Divine word, of the great 
 and astonishing expectations that God cherishes concerning you ; 
 and when j'-ou are apt to fall into utter despair of ever being 
 able to realise them ; — when, in your experience, the actual 
 attempt to do so brings you into contact with the continual 
 
214 The Cojmnission Re-issued — and Accepted. 
 
 impossibilities ; — behold and believe the Divine purpose vs^ith 
 regard to you. The gracious purpose which God has in view is 
 to take you off from all refuges of lies, and shut you up in His 
 own faithful promise and almighty power. When you learn this 
 lesson, and present yourself helpless at His throne ; when you 
 appear before Him in your absolute extremity ; when it will no 
 more hide from yourself that your fancied strength is gone, and 
 you hide it from God no more, but resign and renounce all help, 
 all power, save His; — you shall then know that with God all 
 things are possible ; that what is marvellous in your eyes need 
 not be marvellous in His ; that the ruin of your own strength 
 is the beginning of your glorifying His ; that when you are weak, 
 then are you strong, because you have learned now to be strong 
 in the Lord. Be not afraid, then, though evidences multiply to 
 you continually, of the superhuman difficulties in the way of 
 realising steadily your reconciliation with God, and prosecuting 
 steadily the duties of the Christian life, and the cultivation of 
 the graces of the Christian character. You are being taught 
 a lesson without which you will never go from strength to 
 strength. But " wait upon the Lord : be of good courage, and He 
 shall strengthen thine heart : wait, I say, upon the Lord " (Ps. 
 XX vi. 14). 
 
 3. The next thing noticeable in the commission delivered to 
 the prophet is the implicit obedience which is now expected of 
 him. His whole mind and will are now to be in immediate and 
 unreserved subjection to God. And there are perhaps two evi- 
 dences of this. 
 
 For when the Lord says, " Arise, go to Nineveh, and preach 
 unto it the preaching that I bid thee," it may be, as some have 
 supposed, that the Lord did not at this time inform Jonah of the 
 exact message he would have to deliver, but required of him an 
 immediate departure to the scene of his duty, delaying till he 
 had reached it the announcement to him of the specific communi- 
 cation he would have to make. If this be so, then Jonah must 
 have felt himself placed in some respects in a position similar to 
 that of Abraham, when the Lord called him forth from his native 
 land without yet indicating to him the new land of his adoption. 
 " Now the Lord said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, 
 and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land 
 
The Conwiission Re-isstied — a7td Accepted. 2 1 5 
 
 that I will show thee." In either case, there is an immediate 
 duty prescribed; and there is a suspended and delayed com- 
 munication — delayed and suspended till obedience has first been 
 rendered to the commandment delivered. Thus the Lord tries 
 the obedience of His people. His own authority alone in pre- 
 scribing duty is the sufficient obligation on His creatures to 
 obey ; and irrespective of consequences and of future issues, His 
 simple word alone is entitled to reverence and compliance. 
 Present duty is what we ought to seek to know and seek to do ; 
 and when the Lord leads us on in the path of doing it, He will 
 lead us on to larger and more satisfying and more comforting 
 knowledge of His purpose with us. " If any man will do the 
 will of God, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." 
 Abraham is bound to go forth without knowing whither the 
 Lord is leading him ; this is the trial of his faith. Accordingly, 
 it is expressly mentioned as the commendation and proof of his 
 believing confidence : " By faith Abraham, when he was called 
 to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheri- 
 tance, obeyed ; and he went out, not knowing whither he went " 
 (Heb. xi. 8). By faith, in like manner, Jonah must arise and go 
 to Nineveh, to preach there, not yet knowing the preaching, the 
 proclamation, the message that may be put into his mouth. How 
 clearly, in such cases, is faith at once the only instrument of 
 peace, and the only impulse to obedience ! There can come forth, 
 in such cases, nothing but a " work of faith." 
 
 But be this as it may ; whether Jonah was at once put in 
 possession of the preaching that God commanded, or had to wait 
 till he had accomplished his journey and reached the city before 
 he knew what he should be required to address to its wicked 
 inhabitants, this at least is obvious, that Jonah must be simply 
 a minister of the Divine word. He has no discretionary powers. 
 He is to be an ambassador, in the strictest possible sense. He 
 has simply to make known the will and word of God : " Preach 
 unto it the preaching that I bid thee." 
 
 Now this is the law of the prophetic, the pastoral, the minis- 
 terial office : — to preach the preaching that God biddeth. To this 
 law, Christ Himself, the great prophet, was eminently in sub- 
 jection. That He should be so, was announced to Israel of old, 
 when He was promised as a prophet like unto Moses : " I will 
 
2i6 The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted. 
 
 raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto 
 thee ; and I will put my words in His mouth ; and He shall speak 
 unto them all that I shall command Him" (Deut. xviii. 18). In 
 accordance with this, how often, when that Prophet came, did 
 He disclaim the authorship of all that He said, and assign it 
 continually to the Father ! " Jesus answered them and said. My 
 doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me ; the words that I 
 speak unto you, I speak not of Myself." " For I have not spoken 
 of Myself; but the Father, which sent Me, He gave Me a com- 
 mandment what I should say, and what I should speak. And I 
 know that His commandment is life everlastinaf • whatsoever I 
 speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak." 
 Again and again, to this effect, does Jesus continually attribute 
 His word unto the Father as the author of it. Himself personally 
 cognisant of all truth. He acts as the Church's teacher under the 
 responsibility and within the exact limits of His office. Officially 
 ordained the Father's ambassador. He confines Himself to a 
 declaration of the Father's words. He preaches the preaching 
 which the Father has assigned to Him. Exactly as the Father 
 hath said unto Him, so He speaks. 
 
 And the law of the prophetic office, thus exemplified in Christ, 
 is imposed on all His servants. For herein is His own saying 
 concerning them true — "As the Father hath sent Me into the 
 world, so have I sent you into the world." This, indeed, is the 
 source of all their safety, strength, and courage. " The word of 
 the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, Before I formed thee in 
 the belly, I knew thee ; and before thou earnest forth out of the 
 womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the 
 nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! behold, I cannot speak ; 
 for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a 
 child : for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and what- 
 soever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their 
 faces : for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord, Then 
 the Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth : and the 
 Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth " 
 (Jer. i. 4-9). Here, also, is the proof of their fidelity and the 
 origin of their success ; for in proportion as they preach the very 
 words given them of the Lord, even as the Son Himself did, will 
 they have some humble sympathy with the Son in ultimately 
 
The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted. 217 
 
 professing their faithfulness : " I have glorified Thee on the earth : 
 I have manifested Thy name unto Thy people ; I have given 
 them the words that Thou gavest Me : and they have received 
 them, and believed " (John xvii). 
 
 The gospel, then, that is statedly preached to you, if in any 
 measure faithfully preached, is the word of the unseen God, — the 
 thoughts and will of the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible. 
 They come forth through His own Son as the original, the one 
 only authoritative, the perfect Prophet. They are now delivered 
 — the message is handed on and handed round — from Him to the 
 assemblies of His professing, worshipping people, by the lips of 
 men, chosen from among themselves, and chosen by themselves. 
 This is the singular and glorious treasure, that is deposited in 
 earthen vessels ; the word of the only wise God. Unless un- 
 faithful to our office, we preach the preaching that the living 
 God hath bidden us. 
 
 But if this be true, mark the deplorable position in which 
 unbelievers must find themselves placed ; and every one must be 
 called an unbeliever who does not so embrace the message of 
 alarm and of mercy as to flee from the wrath to come, repenting 
 of his iniquity and turning to the Lord in newness of obedience. 
 
 Mark the position in which they are placed. By refusing to 
 believe the preaching that we preach, they are either accusing 
 Almighty God of sending them by our mouth a message utterly 
 useless and trifling ; very solemn and awful in its terms, but 
 very senseless in its import ; not worthy to be allowed to work 
 effectually in them or produce any change upon their purposes or 
 course : or, they are bringing against us the unparalleled accusa- 
 tion of falsifying the commission given us, and not preaching the 
 preaching that God hath bidden : oi-, they are laying themselves 
 open to the accusation of making God a liar; of making His 
 word void, so far as their testimony can go ; and of giving no 
 more weight to a communication from Heaven than to one from 
 some fellow-creature who holds a low place in their esteem, and 
 by whom they would remain unmoved, say to them what he 
 might. Oh ! is it not very obvious that the simple possibility of 
 being capable of treating in this manner a communication of the 
 wisdom and will of the Most High God, indicates a depth and 
 entireness of depravity, such as verifies at once the solemn 
 
2 1 8 The Commission Re-isstied — and Accepted. 
 
 declaration, " Verily, verily, except a man be born again, he can- 
 not see the kingdom of God " ? Were careless and unbelieving 
 hearers of the gospel to rise up in a body, and denounce the 
 exhortations delivered to them by their pastor as a mass of his 
 own self-originated and fraudulent imaginations, there would be 
 infinitely less to w^onder at in their refusal to submit themselves 
 to the moulding influence of the doctrines to which they habit- 
 ually listen. But actually to admit that the sum and substance 
 of the instruction delivered to them is a message of truth coming 
 truly and authoritatively from God, and to live precisely as if 
 such truth were merely fancy, is of all things an exhibition of 
 absurdity and contradiction that exhibits human nature in an 
 aspect most humiliating. But the absurdity and infatuation are 
 equalled by the guilt; for great must be the guilt of men by 
 whom their Lord's word of salvation when it comes to them is 
 rejected and despised. " I am come a light into the world, that 
 whosoever believeth on Me should not walk in darkness. And 
 if any man hear My words and believe not, I judge him not ; for 
 I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that 
 rejecteth Me and receiveth not My words, hath One that judgeth 
 him : the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in 
 the last day. For I have not spoken of Myself ; but the Father 
 which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should say 
 and what I should speak" (John xii. 46-49). 
 
 Nor can we think otherwise of that coming judgment than 
 that it must be so much the more severe as the rejected message 
 from the Father was gracious. For what is that message, that 
 commandment, which the Son delivers from the Father with such 
 exactness and fidelity? Let the Son Himself declare it. "The 
 Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I 
 should say and what I should speak. And I know that His 
 commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak, therefore, 
 even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak " (John xii. 49, 50). 
 blessed mission, on which alike the living Head and faithful 
 pastors of the Church are sent ! O blessed commandment ; to 
 Him and to them alike delivered of the Father ! — for does He 
 not " send them into the world, even as the Father sent Him into 
 the world " ? exalted motto of the most beneficent office ever 
 executed on the earth ! " I know that His commandment is life 
 
The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted. 2i^ 
 
 everlasting: whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father 
 said unto Me, so I speak." 
 
 Yes ! The continual Divine injunction to the preacher is : — 
 " Preach the preaching that I bid thee." May he not well take 
 kindly to his office ; seeing that, however some may put the 
 commandment from them, he nevertheless knoweth thai " the 
 commandment is life everlasting " ? 
 
 II. Let us briefly consider, in the second place, the manner in 
 which Jonah fulfilled his mission. " So Jonah arose, and went 
 unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh 
 was an exceeding great city of three day's journey. And Jonah 
 began to enter into the city a day's journey : and he cried, and 
 said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." 
 
 The great point, or rather the great principle, of interest and 
 instruction here is contained in the declaration that " Jonah arose 
 and went, according to the word of the Lord." Nothing now 
 weighed with Jonah, nothing moved him, but " the word of the 
 Lord." Formerly he had fled from the presence of the Lord 
 according to his own fears; according to the multitude of his 
 thoughts within him. Now he arises, and goes to Nineveh, 
 according to the word of the Lord. He rests his determination 
 on " the word of the Lord." He clothes his soul with " the word 
 of the Lord." He answers every temptation with " the word of 
 the Lord." Everything save " the word of the Lord " is as 
 nothing in his sight ; he looks not to the things that are seen. 
 
 Here is the great principle of the trial of faith. As a believer 
 you profess to assign, in your practical regards, a place of absolute, 
 unquestioned supremacy, to " the word of the Lord." When God 
 hath spoken, it is enough. You are no more faithless, but 
 believing. You are not disobedient to the heavenly message. 
 Difficulties, dangers, fears, anxieties — all must give place where 
 " the word of the Lord " is against them ; where they are against 
 " the word of the Lord." You simply consider them not. You 
 "stagger not at the promise through unbelief." You bid your 
 trembling heart be still and see the salvation of the Lord. Ah 1 
 this is " the shield of faith ; and by it ye shall be able to quench 
 all the fiery darts of the wicked one." You resign your own 
 wisdom. You refuse to be governed by things seen and temporal. 
 
2 20 The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted. 
 
 There is nothing too hard for the Lord ; and the Lord hath passed 
 His word. You " believe that what He hath spoken He is able 
 also to perform ;" — that what you have committed to Him He is 
 also able to keep. You confer not with flesh and blood. The 
 weapons of your warfare are not carnal. You are content with 
 " the word of the Lord." You know that it will stand, and that 
 it will protect you. You believe that it will be unto you even 
 as the Lord hath said. You will venture, peril, trust all on His 
 faithfulness. And blessed are you in doing so ! That word of 
 the Lord is a secret home in which your soul dwells in peace. 
 All fears, alarms, obstacles, now are without — outside the citadel. 
 You look forth upon them in composure. They cannot reach 
 you. You have a safety and a peace quite impregnable. 
 You move about in a charmed atmosphere. Wherever you 
 go, you carry this atmosphere with you. Because of it, the 
 world knoweth you not. Because of it, you are in the world, 
 but not of the world. Your principle and rule of action is 
 " the word of the Lord." 
 
 Did you ever meet affliction thus ? — did j'ou ever face a trial 
 thus ? — did you ever pass through a painful crisis, a sore pro- 
 bation of your patience, faith, or constancy, keeping in view 
 all the while that your purpose and procedure, your temper 
 and policy, should be "according to the word of the Lord"? 
 And did you fail ? No. And you never will fail while the 
 desire of your heart and the doing of your hand are ruled 
 and ordered thus. This is the essence of Christianity — the 
 essence of faith. 
 
 Tranquillity is here — and strength. Fears and alarms shall 
 pass away ; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. Hin- 
 drances to duty shall surrender and give place : but the counsel 
 of the Lord, it shall stand. The multitude of the imaginations 
 of man's heart are vanity ; but what the Lord hath spoken, that 
 is what shall be. To peril all on what hath come forth from the 
 mouth of the Lord is conformable to natural reason ; though it 
 is the attainment of nothing less than spiritual and supernatural 
 faith. " For the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul : 
 the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The 
 statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the command- 
 ment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the 
 
The Commission Re-issued — and Accepted. 221 
 
 Lord is clear, enduring for ever : the judgments of the Lord are 
 true and righteous altogether." " For all flesh is grass, and all 
 the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, 
 the flower thereof falleth away : but the word of the Lord en- 
 dureth for ever " (Ps. xix. 7-9 ; 1 Pet. i. 24, 25). 
 
XVIIL 
 NINEVEH'S REPENTANCE : ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE. 
 
 "So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put 
 
 on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them 
 
 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce 
 iinger, that we perish not ?" — Jonah iii. 5, 9. 
 
 " Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance.'^ — Acts xi. 18. 
 
 THE repentance of Nineveh is one of the most singular events 
 in history. A great and proud city suddenly smitten into 
 the most profound humiliation, from the greatest of its inhabi- 
 tants unto the least of them, — from the king on the throne to 
 the meanest citizen, — is a spectacle to which, I suppose, history 
 affords no parallel. Cities, and countries, and communities have 
 oftentimes, with not a little unanimity, given themselves to humi- 
 liation and fasting. But there is no event on record that can at 
 all be compared with the fast and the repentance of Nineveh. 
 
 The repentance of Nineveh may be considered, first, in its 
 essentials ; and, secondly, in its circumstantials. We confine our 
 attention at present to the essentials. And here, the origin and 
 NATURE of the repentance will call for our consideration. 
 
 I. The origin of Nineveh's repentance. It arose, in the first 
 place, from their faith of the terrible destruction threatened ; and, 
 in the second place, in their hope of escaping it. 
 
 1. First ; this repentance was prompted by faith. " So the 
 people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast." All 
 originated in their faith. They heard the message of the prophet 
 with astonishment ; but not with incredulity. They received 
 him as an anient commissioned of heaven to declare their cominsf 
 doom. They believed him to be a messenger from God ; and they 
 believed his messao-e. 
 
 Doubtless, the hand of God is to be traced in this, and His 
 power and gracious influence on their hearts. And a very won- 
 drous work it is of the grace of God, that a city such as Nineveh, 
 
Nineveh's Repentance. 223 
 
 — great, and violent, and proud, and of a haughty spirit, — should 
 have been so greatly, so suddenly humbled to believe the message 
 of God. Surely God's Holy Spirit was with God's holy word 
 among them : and very powerful, though secret, were His opera- 
 tions. It is impossible to account for their faith, without attri- 
 buting it to the operation of God upon their hearts, and the 
 sovereign mercy of God towards them. Who could have expected 
 that Jonah should meet with any such reception from a heathen, 
 violent, profligate, enormous community like that of Nineveh ? 
 What could have been looked for, but that they should either 
 treat him as a senseless dreamer — congregating in multitudes to 
 laugh at him as he sped through the town with his ominous and 
 unvarying cry about the coming calamity; or, irritated by his 
 pertinacity, take steps to avenge the insult speedily ? What 
 wonder though they had for a time amused themselves with the 
 solemn aspect of the frenzied foreigner ; and then — when they 
 could no more maintain even to themselves the charge against 
 him of being beside himself ; when the persevering discharge 
 of his sad commission, and the wise, and calm, and holy aspect 
 of the man, forbade to mock him any longer — passed from laughter 
 to wrath, and subjected him to some one or other of the deaths 
 of torture which, alas ! the sculptures of the Assyrian capital, 
 now exhumed, prove to have been but too common outlets for 
 their cruelty ? Assuredly, at least, it is very marvellous that 
 they did not unanimously treat the prophet, as Lot was treated 
 by his sons-in-law. When the angels had announced to that 
 patriarch the dreadful visitation of Divine wrath under which 
 the city of his habitation was to be obliterated, they said unto 
 him, " Hast thou here any besides ? sons-in-law, and thy sons, 
 and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring 
 them out of this place : for we will destroy this place, because 
 the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord ; and 
 the Lord hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out, and 
 spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and 
 said. Up, get out of this place ; for the Lord will destroy this 
 city" (Gen. xix. 12-14). You remember the reception which his 
 mission of mercy met with. " He seemed unto them as one that 
 mocked." They regarded him as beside himself. Destroy this 
 place ! what likelihood, what symptom of that ? Or what pre- 
 
2 24 NiiieveJis Repent arte e : 
 
 paration ? The plain of Jordan is fertile ; well-watered, even as 
 the garden of the Lord, the paradise of peace ; or as Egypt, the 
 paragon of plenty, the granary of the world. The sky is serene ; 
 the fields are rich and beautiful ; the river wends peacefully be- 
 tween its banks as ever ; not a breath of storm stirs ; nature 
 smiles in quietness and promise ; and what should bring destruc- 
 tion on the morrow ? 
 
 Is it not very remarkable that Jonah did not, in like manner, 
 seem unto the men of Nineveh " as one that mocked " ? Judgino: 
 by sense, what forces were in action, or in preparation, to destroy 
 them in forty days ? From what quarter should the unexplained 
 blow descend ? And with a threat hung over them so utterly 
 indefinite — indicating nothing of the source or nature of the 
 coming ruin — what wonder if, like Lot's sons-in-law, they had 
 heard the threat with unmingled incredulity ? But in perfect 
 contrast with the state of mind which these infatuated relatives 
 of the holy patriarch exhibited, and which not even all the know- 
 ledge they must have had of Lot's staid, and wise, and holy 
 character could overcome, an utter stranger to the men of 
 Nineveh meets with credit at their hands though he delivers a 
 message as stern and terrible. Surely this was of the Lord. 
 Surely His Spirit was striving powerfully and successfully with 
 the Ninevites, else Jonah had appeared to them as one that 
 mocked. When the Ninevites believed God, was not this a faith 
 which was " not of themselves " ? Was it not " the gift of God." 
 
 Let us observe how their faith wrought. For " faith worketh." 
 Faith is a most energetic principle. It leads a man to work. 
 Saving faith — that particular, distinguishing faith which receives 
 the saving love of God in Christ and Him crucified — saving faith 
 " worketh by love!' For it embraces an infinite, sovereign, un- 
 deserved, most tender and eternal love on the Saviour's part ; 
 and it works by gratitude, admiration, and love in return. 
 Generally, faith worketh ; and it worketh according to the nature 
 of that which is believed. If that which is believed be something 
 dreadful and alarming, it worketh by /ear ; and if any possibility of 
 escape seem left, it prompts to the embracing of whatever means 
 may realise it. Of faith operating in this manner, namely, by fear, 
 and prompting to what steps are needful to the secure deliver- 
 ance from dreaded evil, Noah is an eminent instance. " By faith 
 
Its Origin and Nature. 225 
 
 Noab, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with 
 fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house " (Heb. xi. 7). 
 What Noah believed was in its nature dreadful. He had no 
 evidence of its truth, but the alone word of God, The " things " 
 of which he was warned were " not seen as yet." But he took 
 the word of God for truth. And " faith," or the word of God 
 apprehended by faith, " is the evidence of things not seen." To 
 Noah, therefore, as in every case, his faith was, as it were, a new 
 sense ; giving him an undoubting preception of things not other- 
 wise perceptible : and accordingly, perceiving the advent of 
 dreadful evil, he was moved with fear ; and, being moved with 
 the fear of evil, he took means to avert it. He built an ark. By 
 faith Noah built an ark. It was his work of faith. 
 
 And precisely thus did faith work in the case of the men of 
 Nineveh. sThey believed God, speaking to them by His messenger. 
 " Warned of God of things not seen as yet " — of a destruction of 
 which no sign nor symptom of any kind appeared — for which 
 they had no evidence whatever, but simply the message of the 
 prophet, which they received as the word of God — they believed 
 God ; and their faith wrought in a manner suitable to the posi- 
 tion in which they now found themselves placed. " They pro- 
 claimed a fast." 
 
 It is to be observed that faith operates differently according 
 to the matter believed. When faith looks to the love of Christ, 
 the redeeming love of Christ, faith worketh by love : — " We love 
 Him who first loved us." When faith looks to the infinite wrath 
 of God — to the inexpressible and eternal ruin of lost souls — faith 
 worketh by fear ; and we " flee for refuge to the hope set before 
 us ; " like the manslayer speeding to the refuge city because he 
 sees the revenger of blood dogo^ing his heels. When faith looks 
 at Christ bearing in His love the wrath from which He calls us 
 to flee, faith worketh by grief \ and " looking on Him whom we 
 have pierced, we mourn." And all these operations of faith — 
 love, fear, grief, — enter into that repentance unto salvation which 
 true faith produces. 
 
 The element of fear was the great and leading element in the 
 repentance of the Ninevites. " Who can tell if God will turn 
 and repent, and turn away from His jierce anger, that we jperish 
 not ? " The dread ' of " perishing ; " the dread of the " fierce 
 
 P 
 
2 26 NineveJis Repentance : 
 
 anger " of the Lord ; operated powerfully. They were filled 
 with fear. They were " moved with fear." 
 
 This is the least noble of the elements that enter into true 
 repentance, or produce it. Saving repentance, — repentance unto 
 life, — certainly has constituent principles in it more exalted 
 more pure, more generous : lively grief for offending against God, 
 our Creator, Preserver, Saviour ; — ingenious shame in contem- 
 plating the moral loathsomeness of sin ; — inexpressible gratitude 
 and admiration in beholding the rich grace of God in the gift of 
 His dear Son as our sacrifice and intercessor ; — generous and self- 
 forgetting ascriptions of glory, and praise, and righteousness to 
 Him against whom we have unreasonably rebelled. But in 
 exalting the more generous and noble features of repentance, let 
 not the commonplace principle of fear be overlooked. While we 
 call upon you to be grieved and mourn for your provocations 
 against God, we are by no means to omit calling to you to be 
 alarmed at the danger of being overtaken by His wrath. The 
 principle of self-preservation — the combined desire of happiness 
 and dread of evil — is a principle to which Scripture frequently 
 appeals, which it seeks to awaken and to enlist. The rightness 
 and reasonableness of repentance are to be preached ; but the 
 plainer and more commonplace theme is also to be preached ; 
 namely, the danger to yourselves in continuing impenitent. The 
 high spirituality which would press only the loftier and purer 
 class of motives, omitting all reference to those that seem allied 
 to self-love, is not countenanced in Scripture. In dealing with 
 the impenitent, the Lord speaks copiously of the bearing of their 
 impenitence upon themselves ; and seeks to awaken and alarm 
 by the threats of terrible destruction from the presence of the 
 Lord. " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise 'perish." " Turn 
 ye, turn ye, why will ye die ? " " Fear Him that is able to 
 destroy both body and soul in hell." A slavish fear of God, or 
 a mere physical terror or dread of evil, have little in them to 
 evidence a state of grace. But in the first awakenings of the 
 careless transgressor, they may oftentimes serve no small bene- 
 ficial purpose. Anything is better than the listlessness, the 
 indifference, the deep slumber, in which multitudes of sinners 
 are steeped. Insensible to the finer motives which might lead 
 them to be ashamed of their ingratitude to God, it were well if 
 
Its Origin and Nature. 227 
 
 the threatenings of God's wrath would stini^ them out of their 
 unfeeling and hardened condition. " Can thine hands be strong, 
 can thine heart endure, in the day that I will deal with thee, 
 saith the Lord ? " " If I whet my glittering sword, and mine 
 hand take hold on judgment ; I will render vengeance to Mine 
 enemies, and reward them that hate Me." 
 
 What is it that can account for the careless sinner living 
 unmoved under threatenings and warnings such as these ? It is 
 a very sad conclusion to come to, but it is inevitable. He does 
 not believe God. He does not give God and God's word the 
 credit which he would give to a fellow-creature and liis word. 
 Practically, he treats the threatenings of God as if there were no 
 meaning, no truth, no reality in them. He doth not know ; he 
 doth not consider ; he doth not believe, God has threatened to 
 cast him into hell-fire, prepared for the devil and his angels ; to 
 laugh at his calamity, and mock when his fear cometh ; to aban- 
 don him throughout all eternity to the unmitigated effects of his 
 wickedness, and to his own depraved desires, to the companion- 
 ship of those who have ruined themselves along with him, and 
 to the retribution of His wrath and curse without relief and 
 without end. God hath further assured him that as the tree 
 falls so it must lie ; and that He may, at any moment, without 
 warning, call him to His judgment-seat, and assign him his 
 portion of intolerable and unending ruin. And yet, in the face 
 of all this, the careless sinner can eat, drink, and be merry ; can 
 buy and sell and get gain ; can pursue his worldly objects of 
 ambition and desire, with the whole unbroken strength and 
 vigour of his mind. Can it then be thouo[ht that he believes the 
 Lord ? Impossible. However sad the conclusion, it is obvious 
 that the negligent and prayerless sinner is, to all practical ends, 
 an atheist ; he is practically living in a state of infidelity and 
 atheism ; and however much he may revolt from admitting this, 
 it is impossible for him by an appeal to his conduct to refute it. 
 So thorough and intense is the depravii3y of human nature ! 
 And so true is the inspired declaration that we are by nature 
 " without God in the world " ! 
 
 It is the quickening and wakening up of a new sense, or 
 feeling, or sensibility, when the sinner begins to take the word of 
 God, concerning his .state and danger, for real and true ; and acts 
 
228 Ninevelis Repentance : 
 
 upon the supposition of its truth, exactly as he would act on the sup- 
 position of the truth of some statement affecting his temporal affairs. 
 Apply to your eternal concerns and to what affects them — we might 
 say to him, — apply to therw the same line of thought and action 
 that you apply to temporal interests ; and, on the supposition that 
 what God says to you is true, and is by you dealt with as true, you 
 will become altogether another creature. If the prospect of a tem- 
 poral calamity bestirs you to escape it, you will not fold your hands 
 in the prospect of eternal perdition. If the displeasure of a supe- 
 rior troubles you, you will not sit at ease under the wrath of the 
 Supreme. Believing the truth as to your condition and prospects 
 will work a mighty change in your feelings and procedure. What 
 will you then give in exchange for your soul ? 
 
 Can anything more clearl}^ prove the necessity of our being 
 born again, than this amazing infatuation that leads us to deal 
 with God's words as if they were empty wind ? Must we not be 
 corrupt in the whole man, in very truth spiritually dead, ere we 
 could be capable of anything so marvellously wicked ? The 
 Ninevites will rise in judgment against us, for " they believed 
 God " and " repented at the preaching of Jonah." 
 
 2. We are not, however, to imagine that a belief and appre- 
 hension of terrible evil denounced upon them was the only 
 impelling motive to the repentance of the city. Certainly an 
 element of hope mingled, to bestir them to exertion. A slender 
 hope it must have been at the best ; yet still most valuable. The 
 absence of hope excludes the possibility of repentance. Despair 
 seals and quickens the sinner's enmity and hatred to God. And 
 it would have done so eminently in the case of the Ninevites. 
 Had they viewed their doom as utterly inevitable, they would 
 have been either paralysed or infuriated. They would have been 
 still more estranged from God. But some hope, evidently, in 
 their apprehension, still remained. The word among them was : 
 " Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from 
 His fierce anger, and we perish not ? " 
 
 Now what room was there, in their case, for entertaining this 
 hope ? Did not the strait threatening, — unconditional, unqualified, 
 — run in these terms, "Forty days, and Nineveh shall be de- 
 stroyed " ? And how did this leave room or scope for any hope 
 of mercy ? 
 
Its OriHn and Nature. 229 
 
 '^> 
 
 There were two things from which the Ninevites might 
 gather hope : — 
 
 (1.) There was the general consideration that all threatenings 
 are warnings ; that they are uttered, in order, if possible, that 
 they may not be executed. Had it been the purpose of God, 
 finally and irrevocably fixed, to overwhelm the city with destruc- 
 tion, it would have been unnecessary and superfluous to give 
 them intimation. The announcement was given, clearly, if pos- 
 sible, that the evil might be averted. Manifestly, in the very 
 sending of a herald to give them warning, there was mercy 
 towards them. Throus^h the streets of Sodom and Gomorrah no 
 awakening ambassador wended his mournful way, foretelling the 
 doom that was decreed. To Lot's sons-in-law, tidings were 
 carried by Lot himself; the angels of the Lord commanding him 
 to do so. And to them, the commission bore evidence that they 
 were not so consigned to judgment, but that their faith and 
 flight would assuredly have saved them. But on the other 
 dwellers in the doomed cities of the plain, destruction fell without 
 a warning; for God had determined it without any door of hope. 
 The very mission, however, of Jonah to Nineveh carried in it 
 some intimation on God's part of a lingering mercy towards them, 
 a mercy that would warn them how soon justice must take its 
 course. The Ninevites themselves seem to have judged thus. 
 Eeason taught them that if God abstained from suddenly and 
 instantaneously pouring out His wrath upon them, and gave 
 them forty days' notice, it must be because there was some space 
 given for repentance, some room for hope. Thus, under a dis- 
 pensation of forbearance, threatenings are employed, not to shut 
 the door of hope, but to awaken the insensible and compel them 
 towards the gates of repentance. 
 
 (2.) But secondly : the hope of the Ninevites may have arisen 
 from another cause, or been prompted by another consideration. 
 Our Lord in the days of His flesh was solicited by the unbelieving 
 Jews to show them a sign, and He answered — '"An evil and 
 adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign 
 be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas : For as Jonas 
 was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the 
 Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the 
 earth." And asfain — "As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, 
 
230 Nineveh's Repentance. 
 
 so shall also the Son of Man be to this generation." Now 
 it seems very clear, from these sayings of our Lord, that 
 the respect in which Jonah was a sign, was in his being 
 three days and three nights in the whale's belly; that in this 
 respect he was a sign to the Ninevites; and, therefore, that the 
 Ninevites must have been made aware of his history — the history 
 of his original commission, his disobedience, his flight, his pursuit, 
 his punishment, and forgiveness. Without their knowledge of 
 his history, he could not have been to them in respect of that 
 history, a sign. But the very stor}" of what had befallen the 
 very messenger whom God had sent them could not fail to impress 
 them, not only with a deep sense of the terrors of God's wrath, 
 but with a lively perception also of His mercy. The fact, also, 
 that the Lord interposed to deliver His servant from the dreadful 
 misery in which he was shut up, could hardly have been imparted 
 to them without some intimation of the place which the prophet's 
 lowly prayers held in the matter. And they could, therefore, 
 scarcely u^'oid seeing that there is some influence which prayer 
 and penitence exert in averting the threatened wrath of the 
 Almighty ; and hence, perhaps, their wise and humble question, 
 — " Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away 
 from His fierce anger, that we perish not ? " 
 
 Such, then, was the origin of the Ninevites' repentance. It 
 originated in faith, as indeed every good thing does. And their 
 faith wrought by fear and hope combined. Their fear predomi- 
 nated ; but hope was not altogether wanting. The evil dreaded 
 was sufficient to break and humble all their pride ; to prepare 
 them to abase themselves to anything that might affbrd any 
 prospect of escape. And the hope they entertained was sufficient 
 to prevent them from being paralysed out of the efforts to which 
 their fear might reasonably prompt them. 
 
 The combination of appeals to these two principles of fear 
 and hope which Scripture makes, in addressing us on the part of 
 God, when it calls us to repentance, is most complete. The evil, 
 by the terror whereof it seeks to arouse us, is terrible beyond 
 conception, and irrevocably certain and sealed on impenitence. 
 On the other hand, the glorious inheritance, by the hope of which 
 it labours to allure us, is equally great beyond conception, and 
 assured even by the oath of God to all who repent and turn 
 
Its Origin and Nature. 231 
 
 unto the Lord. By the terrors of the Lord, therefore, we ought 
 to be persuaded ; and by the mercies of the Lord we may well 
 be overcome. If these terrors and mercies both be believed in 
 and dealt with as realities, they will indeed compel and constrain 
 us to turn from all our evil ways, — to turn unto the Lord that 
 we may live. 
 
 II. But let us consider the NATUKE as well as the orie-in of 
 their repentance. " They cried mightily to God, and turned every 
 one from his evil way, and from the violence that was in their 
 hands." The city underwent a sudden and striking reformation. 
 " God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way." 
 Their haughtiness and pride were abased ; their contempt of 
 God was abandoned ; their luxury, cruelty, violence, and unright- 
 eousness were given up. And God looked on with approbation. 
 " Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? saith the Lord : to loose 
 the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let 
 the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? Is it not 
 to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor 
 that are cast out to thy house ? When thou seeest the naked, 
 that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine 
 own flesh ? " Such is the fast that the Lord calleth for ; not a 
 formal, ceremonious, outward solemnity ; but a spiritual and 
 moral reformation, outwardly evidenced and certified by new 
 obedience. 
 
 The principle is this : true repentance is a change of mind, of 
 heart, of disposition : it is the making of a new heart and of a 
 right spirit. It originates in regeneration ; in our being born 
 again ; in our obtaining a new nature and becoming new creatures 
 in Christ by the Spirit. And it flows forth, in unmistakeable 
 manifestations, in a new course of conduct ; in a reformed life ; 
 a life aiming at new ends, conducted under a new rule, and 
 aspiring to attain to a new standard. Repentance, springing from 
 a true fear of God and a true sight of sin, manifests itself in a 
 dutiful obedience to God's law and a jealous abstinence from sin. 
 True and saving repentance is not a mere shaking ofl" the evil 
 fruit from the tree, and tying on fruit of a better appearance. 
 It is the changing of the tree's very nature ; and good fruit is 
 then naturally brought forth, and not artificially appended. The 
 
232 NineveJi s Repentance : 
 
 penitent exclaims, " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew 
 a right spirit within nie." Thus much for the healing of the tree. 
 He obeys the command, " Cease to do evil, learn to do well." 
 Thus much for the new, good fruit. " Make the tree good, and 
 his fruit good " (Matt. xii. 83). 
 
 Shall we say that the repentance of Nineveh was tho- 
 roughly spiritual and saving in the light of eternity ? Alas ! 
 there is no evidence to show that thoroujxh conversion to God 
 was effected, at least in the city generally. True, spiritual, 
 living religion does not seem even to have taken hold on Nine- 
 veh. Idolatry continued to be practised ; and the ultimate 
 fate of the city may be read in the prophecies of Nahum 
 — prophecies that have minutely been fulfilled, and their 
 detailed accuracy verified before the whole world, in the dis- 
 interment within these days of the buried capital, and the bring- 
 ing to the light of day, after more than two millenniums, of its 
 ancient sculptors and records. 
 
 It may be inquired, then, why God should have set the seal 
 of His approbation on their repentance, as we shall afterwards 
 find He did, if it fell so far short of thorough regeneration and 
 conversion ? And the answer is, that God's procedure in sparing 
 them is not to be taken as the pronouncing of His opinion upon 
 the goodness, thoroughness, or spiritual nature of their repent- 
 ance. God is carrying on towards individuals and communities 
 a dispensation of forbearance, subordinately to a dispensation of 
 saving mercy, and with a view ultimately to a final dispensation 
 of judgment. The exigencies of such a procedure imply a large 
 amount of Divine patience. Occasionally, as in the instance of 
 the flood, the cities of the plain, — and of Nineveh, had repentance 
 not intervened, — God puts a limit to His long-suffering ; and, 
 being provoked by flagrant wickedness, sweeps the evil suddenly 
 from the earth which it pollutes. His not interfering to do so 
 with a community, does not, by any means, imply the presence 
 and the power among them, to any great extent, of His true and 
 holy fear. They may be far enough as a wliole from that, and 
 yet not be given over to the flagrant iniquity which usually 
 provokes the special judgment of Heaven. And we can easily 
 conceive of a community on the very verge of the limit of God's 
 patience, but, under salutary, and, so far, religious alarm, turning 
 
Its Origin and Nature. 233 
 
 and retreating to safer ground, — repenting in a sense, and turn- 
 ing from their evil ways, — without going over to the ground of 
 true, spiritual, vital godliness, or being savingly, and for eternity, 
 converted. They may take up ground comparatively safe from 
 special and dreadful judgments, without becoming truly living 
 Christians. For, were God inunediately to smite with His wrath 
 for the usual ungodliness of unconverted men. He would be con- 
 tinually doing so; and works of judgment would be the ordinary 
 features of His administration. On the contrary, judgment is 
 His strange work ; and forbearance is the great leading feature 
 of His present dispensation. And hence we might warrantably 
 enough expect that a repentance, exhibiting a great reformation 
 of manners, without going so far as vital conversion, would secure 
 the favourable interposition of God, and the removal of His 
 threatened exterminating indignation. The Ninevites, though 
 few of them probably were savingly converted, were sincerely 
 alarmed ; they were convinced of their wickedness, and they 
 turned from the evil of their doings. Their daring neglect and 
 contempt of God were abandoned, and they cried mightily to 
 Him. Their unrighteous and unjust actions towards man 
 also were abandoned, and they began to deal in I'ectitude 
 among themselves. They laid aside, in short, the eminence 
 and distinction in wickedness to which they had attained. 
 And the features of their case that had provoked the Divine 
 indignation being gone, the Divine pity, as we shall see, 
 returned, and a forbearing Providence flowed towards them 
 again in its wonted channels. 
 
 But what an evidence does this afford of the unspeakable 
 goodness of God ! If even their very imperfect repentance — 
 their turning from their evil ways, though alas! it fell short of 
 turning truly to the Lord — was, nevertheless, regarded by the 
 Lord, how open must His ear ever be to the poor, afflicted soul 
 that turns truly to Himself ! We have an instance of God's 
 extreme readiness to be reconciled to us on our repentance in the 
 merciful manner in which He dealt with Ahab. We are told 
 concerning that wicked monarch that " there was none like unto 
 Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of 
 the Lord." Yet when Elijah was sent to denounce the most 
 dreadful judgments on his house, the wretched king, stung with 
 
234 Ninevetis Repentance : 
 
 alarm and remorse, " rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his 
 flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly." There 
 is not the slightest evidence, but the contrary, that this was a 
 vital change of heart. But there was in it true regret ; a sincere 
 owning of God's power, and hand, and righteousness; a justi- 
 fication, in so far, of the justice of God's threatening ; and a public 
 testimony to the supremacy and government of God. And though 
 not accompanied by a renewal of nature and a repentance unto 
 life, it was pleasing in the sight of God in so far as it went. 
 " And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 
 Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before Me ? Because he 
 humbleth himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days ; 
 but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house " 
 (1 Kings xxi. 25-29). He procured a delay of the threatened 
 temporal judgment all the days of his own life. So decided was 
 the regard which the Lord had to Ahab's meek and humble 
 reception of His awful word. 
 
 And how very great is the encouragement which this holds 
 out to sinners to repent and return unto the Lord with all their 
 heart and with all their soul ! A repentance arising only from a 
 regret, however valuable, but without a change of heart, will 
 assuredly avail but little. God may not count it utterly of no 
 value in the light or on the platform of time. But in the light 
 of eternity and of the spiritual world, it can profit you nothing. 
 We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. And 
 anticipating that most awful event, it is ours to rend our hearts 
 and not our garments — to seek grace that the tree may be made 
 good — that we may be actually renewed in the spirit of our minds, 
 transformed in the renewing of our minds, renouncing ourselves, 
 and putting on Christ Jesus, and living in the Spirit. But how 
 great is the encouragement to turn to God and seek the grace 
 which a risen Saviour is exalted to bestow, and which He proves 
 His readiness to give by the record of His merciful and pitiful 
 procedure even to those who fell far short of sorrowing after a 
 godly sort ! Be persuaded, then, to lay deeply to heart, on the 
 one hand, the terrible wrath of Almighty God against the uncon- 
 verted, and the terrible ruin of an unsaved soul. And lay equally 
 to heart, on the other, the great and sure mercy and acceptance 
 in Christ open to all who turn from their evil ways and come 
 
Its Origin and Nature. 235 
 
 unto God by Him, And seeing that God, who at sundry times 
 and in divers manners, spake of old by the prophets, hath in 
 these last days spoken to us by His Son, let us bear in mind that 
 if we are not found among God's penitent, believing, renewed, and 
 redeemed children, the men of Nineveh will rise against us in 
 the judgment; "For they repented at the preaching of Jonas; 
 and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." 
 
XIX. 
 
 NINEVEH'S KEPENTANCE :— ITS NATIONALITY; 
 ITS EXPRESSIONS; ITS EFFICACY. 
 
 "For word came unto the king of Nineveh ; and he arose from his throne, 
 and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in 
 ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh, 
 by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, 
 herd nor flock, taste anything ; let them not feed, nor drink water ; but let 
 man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God ; yea, 
 let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in 
 
 their hands And God saw their works, that they turned from their 
 
 evil way ; and God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do 
 unto them ; and He did it not." — Jonah iii, 6-8, 10. 
 
 '''And Jehoshaphat feared, a^id set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed 
 a fast throughout all Judah 
 
 "And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their loives, and 
 their children." — 2 Chron. xx. 3, 13. 
 
 C'iER.TAIN circumstances connected with the repentance of 
 J Nineveh are worthy of particular notice by themselves. 
 We may notice first, the nationcditi/ of it ; and secondly, the 
 
 outward indications. 
 
 I. First, then, we may notice the nationality of this repent- 
 ance. It was a public, general, royal fast. The king himself set 
 the example. " For word came unto the king, and he rose from 
 his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with 
 sackcloth, and sat in ashes." And he did not merely counten- 
 ance the proposal of a fast by his example ; or counsel it by his 
 advice. He commanded it by his authority. " He caused it to 
 be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by decree of the 
 king and his nobles." 
 
 Of such fasts we have many examples in Scripture. When 
 the children of Moab and the children of Ammon, reinforced by 
 a heterogeneous multitude of the enemies of Judah, came against 
 Jehoshaphat, we are told that on w^ord being brought to him, 
 
Ninevelis Repentance. 237 
 
 the "king feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and pro- 
 claimed a fast throughout all Judah " (2 Chron. xx. 3). In like 
 manner, in the days of Joel, we find the Lord calling for repent- 
 ance, and enjoining a public fast : " Blow the trumpet in Zion, 
 sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, 
 sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the chil- 
 dren, and those that suck the breasts : let the bridegroom go 
 forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the 
 priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and 
 the altar, and let them say. Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give 
 not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over 
 them : wherefore should they say among the people. Where is 
 their God?" (Joel ii. 15-17). And the regard which the Lord 
 mercifully has to connect with them : — " Then will the Lord be 
 jealous for His land, and pity His people And I will re- 
 move far off from you the northern army, and will drive him 
 into a land barren and desolate." 
 
 There are many such instances in Scripture history of great 
 national fasts called by royal decree, and observed by general 
 consent. In our own land, and in our own day, there have been 
 not a few instances of a practice so laudable and impressive — 
 a whole nation at the monarch's call humbling itself before God, 
 confessing provocations, and deprecating His wrath. 
 
 Some, indeed, would object to national recognitions of religion, 
 and such royal calls and injunctions to observe its duties. Civil 
 magistracy, they tell us, is a civil, temporal, earthly institution, 
 having under its regulation the affairs of time and the world, 
 and having nothing to do with religion ; — and the civil magi- 
 strate, or chief ruler, they would accordingly prevent from in 
 any way intromitting with religious matters — matters belonging, 
 not to time, but eternity, not to this world, but the world to come. 
 
 There are a number of grievous errors wrapt up here in one. 
 It seems to imply that the affairs of this world imay and ought 
 to be carried on apart from the affairs and obligations of religious 
 truth and duty ; — thus shutting up religion to a territory of its 
 own, beyond which it must not be suffered to trespass. But 
 apart from this ; how can religious obligation lie upon the sepa- 
 rate individuals of a nation, and yet the nation as a nation be 
 exempt from it ? It is certain that nations as a whole may please 
 
238 NineveJis Repentance 
 
 or provoke God; just as a family may do; just as an individual 
 may do. God deals with a community as a whole, just as He 
 deals with a household as a whole. And as when God is angry 
 with a family, He deals with them in His wrath for their family 
 provocations, so He deals with communities and kingdoms. If a 
 family, therefore, ought to be religious ; — in the sense that not 
 only are its individuals to be religious, but unitedly, and as in 
 their mutual relations, they are to observe the duties of family 
 relio-ion ; — it ought to be the same in a kingdom. The father of a 
 family is not only to be a pious man himself, but he is to see that 
 in the united worship of his household, and in religious principles 
 beino- brouo-ht to bear on all its movements, there be a household 
 piety — a family recognition of God. For true religion is not a 
 thing to be kept secret between a man's own conscience and God. 
 N doubt the springs of it are deep seated in the inmost soul ; 
 and the Christian life is a hidden life. But for that very reason, 
 — by reason of the inmost secrecy, and therefore irrepressible 
 power of its principles, — it will assert and vindicate its influence 
 in all circumstances, and over all the relations in which men 
 stand towards one another. It will, therefore, guide those in 
 whom it dwells, not merely in their own private relation to God, 
 and in their worship and more immediate duty towards Him, 
 but in the whole influence they can exert over their fellow- 
 creatures, — in all their relations, whether as superiors, inferiors, 
 or equals. But especially as superiors, — where authority belongs 
 to them, — where they have it in their power to " command their 
 households after them," — they will arrange that in all the on- 
 o-oings of these households God shall be recognised, and His 
 authority and will obeyed. The}^ will say with Joshua, " As for 
 me and my house, we will serve the Lord." 
 
 It is this element, however, of command, of authority, against 
 the introduction of which in religious observances not a few- 
 reclaim. I would advise with my household, or any irreligious 
 and wayward member of it ; I would advise ; I would exhort ; I 
 would instruct and entreat : but I can go no farther. I can't 
 make them religious, and I won't command or compel them. 
 But all this sophistry is utterly laughed to scorn by the simple 
 perusal of the fourth commandment : — " The seventh day is the 
 Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work 
 
Its Nationality. 239 
 
 thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy 
 maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy 
 gates : " — by the which terms thou art held of God guilty of 
 Sabbath desecration all the same, whether it be " thou, or thy 
 son, or thy daughter, or thy manservant, or thy maidservant, or 
 thy stranger that is within thy gates." Thou wilt not be held 
 guiltless on the plea that thou didst instruct, didst entreat, didst 
 plead. Didst thou command ? Didst thou bring out, for secur- 
 ing obedience to God, all the authority with which thou art 
 endowed as head of thy household, and which thou dost not 
 scruple, if need be, to bring forth for securing obedience to thine 
 own will ? To "the stranger that is within thy gates," thou art 
 bound, — when advice, entreaty, exhortation fail, — to give forth 
 thy command ; backed by the penalty that, if it be not obeyed, 
 he can be " within thy gates " no longer. With " thy manservant, 
 and thy maidservant," thou art to deal, if need be, in like manner 
 also. Yea, "thy son and thy daughter" are not to abide "within 
 thy gates " and despise the commandments of God. Thon art to 
 command them ; and, failing obedience, then thou art to disown 
 them, to cast them off, and cast them out. Eli, alas ! acted on 
 the principle that a parent may advise the religious things, but 
 may not imperatively command and threaten. And his house 
 and his name were blotted out for ever. 
 
 Have you any influence, any power, any authority over 
 children and dependents which you may use in your own service 
 and work, but which you would refrain from bringing forth on 
 the side of God ? What were this, but selfishly to surround the 
 accomplishment of your own will with securities, which you 
 refuse to adopt to secure observance in your household to God's 
 will ? And can it be that in such a case you really honour God ? 
 Nay : it is not whole-hearted, sincere, thorough-going, and true 
 honouring of God where your government of your household 
 does not call into exercise, when needful, on the side of God, 
 every influence which you can ever rightly use on your own side. 
 If there be a principle of authority — an element of command — 
 vested anywhere in a family at all, religion lays it under con- 
 tribution to the cause of the Most High — under call to uphold 
 and promote the observance of His will. 
 
 And the same principle holds in a nation. So far forth as 
 
240 NineveJis Repentance : 
 
 a monarch's authority goes, it gues all the length of entitling 
 him to enjoin a fast and a solemn assembly — a public, universal, 
 national recognition of God — the God who is dealinor with the 
 nation as a whole, and summoning the nation as a whole to ac- 
 knowledge him. Nature itself teaches this truth. It rises up to 
 view in its own native reasonableness in the hour of solemn 
 thoughtfulness, the hour of sad national calamity. All sophi- 
 stical objections about the impossibility of making men religious 
 by Act of Parliament then disappear. The truth comes obviously 
 to light, and commends itself to reason and conscience. Well 
 was it for Nineveh that its king was not embued with certain 
 modern notions about magistrates and kings having nothing to 
 do with religion. The city's doom had been sealed by them ! 
 
 Can anything be more plain than the duty of kings and all 
 in authority to promote among their subjects the advancement 
 of true religion and the glory of God, as that duty is enjoined 
 in the second Psalm : — " Be wise now therefore, O ye kings ; be 
 instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, 
 and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, 
 and ye perish from the way." So that is not merely a dictate 
 and a duty of natural religion, but a revealed command, that 
 monarchs should reign for the glory of God; — yea, that His 
 revealed religion — His holy word, as it declares the religion of 
 Christ, the Son of God — should be honoured by them ; that they 
 should " Kiss the Son." For the Father hath set the Son on the 
 holy hill of Zion — made him " the Prince of the kings of the 
 earth." 
 
 This duty does not, of course, permit them to invade the 
 liberties of Christ's Church as a divinely -organised and divinely- 
 ordered society, free to obey Christ as her only Head. On the 
 contrary, it is the doctrine we are now maintaining, — the duty 
 of kings to glorify Christ, to consult His word, and consult for 
 His honour, — it is this that will alone ever effectually prevent 
 them interfering with the prerogatives of His Headship or the 
 liberties of His people. When we maintain, therefore, as the 
 Church to which I have the honour to belong maintains, that 
 the civil magistrate has no jurisdiction within or over the Church ; 
 God forbid we should set it on the ground that he has nothing 
 to do with religion or the Church of Christ at all. Poor founda- 
 
Its Nationality. 241 
 
 tion, indeed, would that be for the principle maintained ! He 
 has so much to do with religion, and is so bound in his public 
 capacity to act under religious obligation and duty to Christ, 
 that he is bound to know and recognise Christ's Church ; and 
 then to leave her free to serve Christ in all spiritual things. He 
 is bound to know the truth of Christ ; to protect those who 
 maintain the truth of Christ ; and to promote by every means in 
 his power their labour to circulate and extend it. He is bound 
 to suppress blasphemy, perjury. Sabbath desecration, and all that 
 necessarily tends to the dishonouring of God and the demoralising 
 of the people. He cannot command or compel man to be religious. 
 No commandment can make man religious — not even God's com- 
 mandment can do it. The gospel of the grace of God, rendered 
 effectual by the free and sovereign Spirit of God, can alone re- 
 new the heart of man or make him sincerely religious. Spiritual 
 obedience to God neither magistrate nor parent can secure. But 
 is no authority, on that account, to be exercised ? Is no obliga- 
 tion, on that account, to be enforced ? Does God's own authority 
 cease ? Is the obligation to obey God's commandment at an end ? 
 H%8 commandment, even, will never make men religious. Is it, 
 therefore, set aside ? No, verily. The assertion of law, obligation, 
 and authority, does not rest upon consequences : whether owned 
 or not, the obligation is the same. And be it remembered, that 
 while God uses His own authority and gives forth His own com- 
 mands as means with which He often sends the accompanying 
 grace and power to obey ; so a parent or superior may not only 
 use his entreaty, example, persuasion, and exhortation in the 
 hope that God will accompany thew. with His blessing ; but may 
 specially put forth his authority and peremptory command in 
 the same hope that God will bless iher)i likewise, and secure a 
 true obedience — secure the good and righteous end designed. 
 Let parents, masters, and all in authority make the 101st Psalm 
 the rubric of their household or public procedure. " I will sing 
 of mercy and judgment: unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing. I will 
 behave myself wisely in a perfect way. when wilt Thou come 
 unto me ? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. 
 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes : I hate the work of 
 them that turn aside ; it shall not cleave to me. A fro ward 
 heart shall depart from me : I will not know a wicked person. 
 
 Q 
 
242 Nineveh's Repentance : 
 
 . . . . Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they 
 may dwell with me : he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall 
 serve me. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my 
 house : he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." "I know 
 Abraham, that he will command his children and his household 
 after him ; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice 
 and judgment ; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that 
 which He hath spoken of him." 
 
 It is an evil and a dangerous principle that would exempt 
 the rulers of a kingdom from being in subjection, in their public 
 capacity, to the Word of Christ, and from being under obhgation 
 in their government to rule for the promotion of His kingdom. 
 It strikes at the root of all family as well as national religion ; 
 and while it would confine Christ to the separate consciences of 
 individual men, it would refuse Him the right to govern the 
 households and communities into which, in Providence, they are 
 combined. Its universal and perpetual prevalence would prevent 
 the fulfilment of the promise that "the kingdoms of the world 
 shall become the kingdoms of Jehovah and His anointed One ; " 
 and would subject all nations to the threatening: "The kingdom 
 and nation that will not serve the Church shall perish ; yea, 
 those nations shall be utterly wasted" (Isa. Ix. 12). Again, we 
 repeat, it was fortunate and good for Nineveh that no such notion 
 prevailed there. Theirs was a national fast, decreed by royal 
 authority. 
 
 II. The second noticeable circumstance is, that it was accom- 
 panied with many solemn and affecting external expressions. 
 In these the king himself led the way and showed the example. 
 " He arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and 
 covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes." And he de- 
 creed that the whole city should follow this example. The edict 
 which, with counsel and consent of his nobles, he proclaimed, 
 was to this effect : " Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, 
 taste anything : let them not feed, nor drink water : but let man 
 and beast be covered with sackcloth." 
 
 How marvellous, sudden, and extreme the change that has 
 passed on the violent and bloody city ! Severe and singular is 
 the royal decree. Yet extreme dangers call for extreme remedies; 
 
Its Formal Expressions. 243 
 
 and in the light of coming destruction, unseen yet credited, even 
 this procedure itself is that of staid wisdom and sobriety. In the 
 East, indeed, the manners and customs went, and still go, to 
 authorise and beget a lai'ger and more vivid expression outwardly 
 of inward feeling than in these colder climes we are wont to 
 adopt. The use of sackcloth and ashes, for instance, in a day of 
 grief, or in acknowledgment of guilt, was common. Thus when 
 Mordecai learnt that a decree had gone forth from Ahasuerus for 
 the exterminating of his countrymen, he "rent his clothes, and 
 put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the 
 city, and cried with a loud and bitter cry ; and came even before 
 the king's gate : for none mijjht enter into the kino-'s gate clothed 
 with sackcloth" (Esther iv. 1, 2). And the same course was 
 adopted wherever that bloody edict was announced. " In every 
 province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree 
 came, there was OTeat mourninsf amonof the Jews, and fasting, 
 and weeping, and wailing ; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes " 
 (v. 3). And so usual were these striking accompaniments of 
 humiliation in ancient times, and in oriental lands, that Jesus 
 speaks of them as if they formed unfailing and integral parts of 
 such exercises of grief, and sorrow, and confession : " Woe unto 
 thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the mighty 
 works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, 
 they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes " 
 (Matt. xi. 21). But it is not necessary to multiply instances. 
 Every one familiar with his Bible will call to remembrance 
 many of them ; and it is the principle of them which is worthy 
 of notice. Of course, as substitutes for repentance, fastings with 
 sackcloth and ashes would be only a hateful hypocrisy, increasing 
 and provoking the wrath of God. As indicating externally 
 nothing more than was truly felt, they were fit accompaniments 
 of solemn moral and spiritual exercises. In reference to the 
 spiritual reality, and guarding against the mere external form, 
 the command is very speaking and impressive : " Rend your 
 hearts and not your garments." And where this is not attended 
 to, but a mere round of empty forms and shows is paraded before 
 a heart-searching God, nothing could be more utterly Pharisaical 
 and worthy of reprobation. To this degeneracy Israel, in the 
 days of Isaiah, had too clearly reached, when the Lord could 
 
244 NiiieveJis Repentance : 
 
 address them in such terms as these : " Bring no more vain 
 oblations ; incense is an abomination unto Me ; the new moons 
 and sabbaths, the calHng of assemblies, I cannot away with ; it is 
 iniquity, even the solemn meeting" (Isa. i. 13). The form alone, 
 while the inner spirit in its persistent wickedness belied the pro- 
 fession, God could endure no longer. God is a spirit, and must 
 be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Yet this does not hinder, 
 but where He is thus worshipped in spirit and in truth, the 
 the spirit and truth — the spiritual truth, the true spirituality — 
 may be conjoined with and expressed by actions suitable. To 
 some extent it must be so, and always is so. Though we profess 
 to w^orship God with our hearts, yet we lift up our hands ; we 
 look reverently upwards ; or we stand, or kneel. We assume 
 attitudes or postures which in themselves, it may be said, are of 
 no use or value; but which, nevertheless, nature teaches us to 
 feel are suitable to the state of mind ; nor could that state of 
 mind be real without prompting these outward manifestations. 
 "The publican, standing afar off", would not lift up so much as 
 his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be 
 merciful to me a sinner." 
 
 The chief feature in these outward indications of humiliation 
 is this : — they are employed as expressions of guilt, and not 
 merely of a sense of danger. They are all designed to own that 
 the dreaded judgment is righteous ; that it is deserved ; that we 
 are worthy in justice of nothing else at the hands of the Lord. 
 This is what is implied in these tokens and badges of abasement. 
 They are acknowledgments that all excellence, or beauty, or 
 comeliness, morally and spiritually, have been lost by us ; that 
 we have stript ourselves of everything that could recommend us 
 to God ; that we are not only in a pitiable condition, but criminal 
 in that we have reduced ourselves to it ; and that we own and 
 admit that we are so. This confession the Lord imperatively 
 demands as an indispensable preliminary to the administration of 
 forgiveness ; for He will have His forgiveness understood and 
 acknowledged to be what it is — a gracious, free, and sovereign 
 pardon. Till this is admitted, the Lord knows not what to do 
 with His erring people. It is His own declaration that He does 
 not. " Put off" thine ornaments from thee," — said Jehovah to his 
 people Israel, when they had sinned a great sin before him in 
 
Its Formal Expressions. 245 
 
 making the golden calf and provoking the Lord to jealousy, — 
 ^' Ye are a stiffnecked people : I will come up into thee in a 
 moment, and consume thee : therefore now put off thine orna- 
 ments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee." Nor 
 should it be forgotten that the lowly and deplorable appearance 
 of an individual, or a people, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, is 
 designed to serve as an appeal to the Divine commiseration ; on 
 the same principle on which Jehoshaphat, when the hearths 
 and homes of Judah were imperilled, arranged, in his fast and 
 humiliation-prayer, the artless and touching scene of which we 
 read : " And all Judah stood before the Lord imfh their little 
 ones, their wives, and their children" (2 Chron. xx. 13). 
 
 It may be inquired, however, why the insensate brute creation 
 should have been involved in the roja] edict, or what good 
 purpose could be served by their being made to share in the 
 austerities and severities of a time of fasting ? " Let man and 
 beast be covered with sackcloth ; " " let neither man nor beast 
 taste anything." To this it may be replied that although the 
 animals are not responsible and guilty with man, yet such, in 
 God's estimation, is the exceeding evil of sin, that because of it 
 the animals suffer for man's sake. Nor can God's judgments, in 
 general, take effect on a community without involving in that 
 sweeping stroke the brute creation. Can there be famine in a 
 land without the animals being very chief sufferers ? "What 
 saith Joel ? " The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners 
 are laid desolate, the barns are broken down ; for the corn is 
 withered. How do the beasts groan ! the herds of cattle are per- 
 plexed, because they have no pasture ; yea, the flocks of sheep 
 are made desolate. Lord, to thee will I cry : for the fire hath 
 devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath 
 burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry 
 also unto thee ; for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the 
 fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness " (Joel i. 17-20). 
 It was thus in the beginning ; when man's fall brought much 
 misery, — yea, death, — qn the unoffending animals. Nineveh's 
 destruction would have embraced them also. Generally, too, 
 " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain," 
 waiting for the removal of that subjection to vanity which the 
 introduction of sin hath riveted (Rom. viii. 22). It is not there- 
 
246 NineveJis Repentance : 
 
 fore to be wondered at that even the dumb brutes should have 
 been arrayed in sackcloth in the days of Nineveh's dreaded ruin 
 and deep repentance. The warrior's steed, in sable plumes and 
 mournful trappings, follows his master's body to the grave ; nor, 
 if outward signs of sorrow be at all allowable, will any feeling 
 mind, that hath witnessed that one, deny its deep and touching 
 pathos. And if any farther vindication of the Ninevites in 
 clothing the beasts of the field with sackcloth, and conjoining 
 them in the deep humiliation and the fast, is needed, let us pass 
 at once beyond all arguments, and call to mind the fact, that the 
 appeal implied in the aspect of the desolate and fasting cattle 
 went home to the heart of God himself ; and in vindicating His 
 procedure in sparing the city, He gave in His reason for doing 
 so no less a place to the interests and claims of these dumb 
 animals than the Ninevites had assigned to them in the fast ;. 
 " Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are six 
 score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right 
 hand and their left hand ; and also much cattle ? " 
 
 It remains that we consider the efficacy of Nineveh's repent- 
 ance. " And God saw their works, that they turned from their 
 evil way, and God repented of the evil that He had said that He 
 would do unto them ; and He did it not." In other words, their 
 repentance prevailed to turn aside the judgment threatened. God 
 repented of the evil which He had said that He would do. 
 
 Here, some would say, behold the falseness of the doctrine 
 that God hath ordained all things by a sure, eternal, and un- 
 changeable decree. Nay, we reply ; behold, rather, the infinite 
 condescension of God in consenting to speak of His own procedure 
 in terms suitable to the weak capacities of man. " Known unto 
 God are all his works from the beginnino; of the world." Yet 
 the revelation of His secret decree is one thing, and the declara- 
 tion of His will for our duty is another. Were God always to 
 reveal His sure eternal purpose. He could not carry on a moral 
 government at all. And in carrying on His moral government. 
 He alters His procedure as circumstances alter; yet He changes 
 not thereby His eternal purpose : for both the alteration of the 
 circumstances and the alteration of His procedure are alike 
 decreed by Him — decreed and brought to pass both. Especially 
 
Its Efficacy. 247 
 
 He repeatedly speaks of Himself as " repenting." Thus, at the 
 era of the Flood, — to indicate His deep displeasure and dis- 
 appointment with the sons of men, whom not even the promise 
 of a Saviour, the seed of the woman, to bruise the serpent's head, 
 could restrain from ungodliness and violence, — the Lord, on 
 beholding the moral desolation of a corrupt, wicked race, ex- 
 claims : " It repenteth me that I have made man on the earth ; 
 and it grieved Him at His heart " (Gen. iv. 6). Another instance 
 of the use of this language occurs in the case of the prophet 
 Amos, to whom the Lord threatened to destroy Israel, first 
 slowly and as by a quiet, resistless consumption, under the em- 
 blem of the action of grasshoppers or gnawing worms, and then 
 violently and by fire. In each case, Amos interposed with his 
 earnest intercession, and the Lord is said once and again to have 
 " repented." " Thus hath the Lord God showed 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. And it came to pass, that when they had 
 made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, Lord 
 God, forgive, I beseech thee : by whom shall Jacob arise ? for he 
 is small. The Lord repented for this : this also shall not be, 
 saith the Lord of hosts " (Amos vii. 1-6). Magnificent and re- 
 doubled instance of the truth that " the eflfectual, fervent prayer 
 of a righteous man availeth much " ! while it is a double instance 
 also of the Lord repenting and turning away from the evil which 
 He thought to do. But perhaps the passage of Scripture bearing 
 most closely on this feature of the Lord's procedure, is that in 
 Jeremiah, where it is distinctly and implicitly aiinounced as being 
 at the foundation of all His moral government by threats and 
 promises, rewards and punishments : — " At what instant I shall 
 speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck 
 up, and to pull down, and to destroy it ; if that nation, against 
 whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of 
 the evil that I thought to do unto them." And the same holds 
 good on the other side also. " And at what instant I shall speak 
 concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to 
 plant it ; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not ray voice, then 
 I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them " 
 (Jer. xviii. 7-10). 
 
248 Nineveli s Repentance : 
 
 It was precisely this general principle which came in for 
 the salvation of Nineveh. "They turned from their evil way, 
 and God repented of the evil that He said He would do unto 
 them." And was there any changeableness in God, indicated by 
 this change in His procedure ? Nay ; this change in His pro- 
 cedure was needful to avert the charge of change in His character, 
 and in the ijrinciples of His procedure. It was wicked, violent, 
 unrighteous, atheistical, proud, and luxurious Nineveh which 
 God had threatened to destroy. A city sitting in sackcloth and 
 ashes, humbled in the depths of self-abasement, and appealing as 
 lowly suppliants to His commiseration — a Nineveh like that — 
 that Nineveh, He had never threatened. That Nineveh He 
 visited not with ruin. He had never said He would. The 
 Nineveh which God threatened to destroy passed away ; it 
 became totally another city — far more so, in virtue of this change 
 in moral state, than if it had been translated from its olden 
 geographical position, and wholly transformed in its architectural 
 appearance. Surely its great moral change has made it more 
 truly another place — a kind of new creature, old things having 
 passed away, and all things become new — than any alteration in 
 its physical aspect could have done. It really, in God's estima- 
 tion, is not the Nineveh He threatened at all. The terrific 
 threatening does not apply now. " God saw their works ; " — their 
 fruits mtet for repentance, namely, " that they turned from their 
 evil way ; — and God repented of the evil that He said that He 
 would do unto them : and He did it not." 
 
 Of course, it is after the manner of men that the Spirit speaks, 
 when He attributes to God at any time repentance or a change of 
 mind at all. And doubtless He speaks of God after the manner 
 of men continually, For there has been far too much said in the 
 way of accounting for, and explaining, and justifying such an 
 expression as this : " the Lord repented that He had made man ; " 
 or "repented of the evil He thought to do;" far too much on the 
 idea, or as countenancing the idea, that this expression needs a 
 vindication peculiar to itself. It is not so. It needs no more to 
 be vindicated than a thousand expressions in which God, putting 
 on the person of a man, speaks to us as from the position, and as 
 with the feelings of a man, in order to make His own mind and 
 heart intelligible to us. We are ever to guard against assigning 
 
Its Efficacy. 249 
 
 human imperfection to God. But we are equally to guard against 
 assigning to Him such a character or nature as would render 
 living, intelligible, friendly intercourse between Him and His 
 people impossible. But impossible utterly, all such intercourse 
 must be, if I may not speak to God in the same forms, and 
 phrases, and feelings in which I would offer a request, or state 
 my case to a fellow-man, though of course with unreserved 
 submission and unlimited adoration of the Almighty and Holy 
 One of Irsael. My adoration unbounded ; — my surrender of 
 myself to God unreservedly ; — these are tributes to the searchless 
 glory of His Godhead which I may not withhold, and j^et profess 
 to worship Him. Nevertheless, with these. I must be allowed, in 
 condescension to my weakness, to ask God to be " attentive to 
 the voice of my supplication ; " to " behold and visit me ; " to 
 "stretchout His hand " for my help ; to "shine upon me with 
 the light of His countenance; " to "awake ;" to "arise;" to "draw 
 near;" to "come and dwell with me." All these expressions and 
 requests are after the manner of man. I must be allowed to 
 spread out my sorrow and my trial before Him, precisely as if 
 my design and expectation were to work upon His feelings, and 
 move and induce Him in His pity to deliver me. I must be 
 allowed, with Hezekiah, to spread out the threatening letter 
 before Him, as if the very sight of it, held before the throne in 
 my hand, were to make a deep impression on God's heart, as it 
 implies an artless and sincere expression of the helpless anguish 
 of my heart. I must be allowed to "fill my mouth with argu- 
 ments," and make every appeal to God to move in my cause 
 which its urgent and clamant case suggests. And all the while, 
 believing that His counsel is formed from everlasting — that His 
 counsel shall stand, and He shall do all His pleasure — that He is 
 of one mind, and none can turn Him — believing this, and adoring, 
 I am not to concern myself about how this can consist with my 
 weakness, which cannot rise beyond finite forms of expression, 
 and desire, and address, and expectation. Rather I must in this 
 matter lay aside things too great for me, and seek to have my 
 heart as a weaned child. 
 
 For it lies at the foundation of all intercourse between God 
 and man that God should Himself address us, and permit us to 
 address Him, in expressions suited to our weak capacities and 
 
250 NineveJi s Repenta7ice : 
 
 conceptions, rather than dictated by what were suitable to His 
 infinite glory and searchless being. Does it then follow that in 
 thus condescending unto the weakness of our nature, He does 
 injustice to His own, — or misrepresents it ? That does not follow. 
 God can speak of Himself after the manner of man, and what 
 He thus speaks may yet be worthy of God. And when the proof 
 of this is sought, let it be found in the glorious fact, that God 
 made man in His own image ; and in the fact, still more glorious, 
 that One who was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery 
 to be equal with God, was found in form and fashion as a man. 
 Did Godhead and humanity in the one person of Emmanuel 
 jostle, disagree, hamper or misrepresent each other ? God forbid. 
 The man Christ Jesus is the brightness of the Father's glory. 
 His tears over Jerusalem, while as God He had eternally decreed 
 and foreseen its destruction, were no misrepresentation of the 
 very love wherewith the Godhead is affected in even handing 
 over the impenitent to everlasting hell. The surprise, astonish- 
 ment, and grief with which the man Christ Jesus listened to 
 Peter denying Him, — and which He expressed in His ever- 
 memorable " look," — w^ere no contradiction to the fact that the 
 same one person, the eternal Son of God, knew from everlasting 
 that Peter would deny Him. And so, if we would behold the 
 endless and searchless glories that seem to withdraw the eternal 
 Godhead for ever from our knowledge, or be convinced that, in 
 ever-blessed perfect harmony with these, there are in the same 
 Divine Being affections of grace, and tenderness, and condescen- 
 sion, admitting us more nearly and profoundly to His love and 
 friendship, than the capacities of any human friend for love and 
 intercourse ever could admit us, let us betake ourselves evermore 
 to Him who is " God manifest " — God most manifest — " in the 
 flesh." He " showeth us the Father, and it sufficeth us." thou 
 that didst " command the light to shine out of darkness, shine in 
 our hearts, and give us the light of the knowledge of the glory 
 of God in the face of Jesus Christ " ! (2 Cor. iv. 6). 
 
XX. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES: NO. II. 
 THE PARALLEL. 
 
 Jonah iii. 10. 
 
 " The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation^, 
 and shall condemn it : for they repented at the preaching of Jonas ; and, 
 behold, a greater than Jonas is here." — Luke xi. 32. 
 
 " Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips."^ 
 Ps. xlv. 2. 
 
 SUCH is the practical application which the Saviour Himself 
 made of the singular incidents that have been engaging our 
 attention. And it forms a striking instance of the duty of 
 thoughtfully applying to our own case those things which were 
 written of old, and which an apostle declares were " written for 
 our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come " 
 (1 Cor. X. 11). But it constitutes a still more imposing allusion 
 to the great day of universal judgment, and reminds us how, not 
 only all generations of men shall stand there face to face with 
 God, but the character and doings of different generations, sepa- 
 rated by wide gulfs in time, may have mutual bearings on each 
 other, most intimate, and wonderful, and unexpected. 
 
 That the men of Nineveh, who had all disappeared from 
 among the living more than eight hundred years before the 
 day of Christ, should confront the very generation to whom the 
 Saviour personally ministered in the days of His flesh, and should 
 reflect light upon the character and destiny of that sinful genera- 
 tion, is surely a very extraordinary and solemnising thought; 
 and a thought that is fltted to lead to many a train of singular 
 and impressive meditation. When we shall all stand in that 
 most solemn assemblage ; — when the whole race of man, from 
 Adam to the youngest of the latest generation, shall appear in 
 one vast body before the judgment-seat of Christ; — oh, what 
 mutual relations will be found subsisting: between individuals 
 
252 Nezo Testament Commentaries : 
 
 or communities that had never even seen each other in the flesh ! 
 Even among those who may have been contemporaneous, what 
 strange bearings on each other's spiritual interests and eternal 
 destinies will be disclosed ! How terrible a thought is it, for 
 instance, that Christ's redeemed people may there meet with 
 some on the left hand of the Judge, to whose impenitence and 
 consequent perdition they may have been instrumental in minis- 
 tering by their negligence, supineness, infirmities, or more easily 
 besetting sins ! Alas ! ■ how many have been confirmed in their 
 hatred to religion by the more obvious defects and blemishes in 
 the character and conduct of religion's true friends ! And what 
 child of God can ever contemplate that judgment-seat without 
 the agonising fear, that there may be present there, as heirs of 
 wrath, some with whom he companied in the days of his ungodli- 
 ness, and whom he contributed thereby in no small degree to 
 harden, — and some whom, in the subsequent years of a true walk 
 with God, he may have, even then also, done not a little by levity 
 of intercourse or worldliness of spirit, or even by his falls or 
 backsliding, to confirm in their dislike of Christianity. Oh. 
 what disclosures must then be made as to the bearing of our 
 lives and conduct upon the eternal interests and destinies of our 
 fellowmen, — and of theirs on ours ! If generations so far apart 
 as those two of which the text speaks are seen on that day 
 coming into a relation so singular, as that the " men of Nineveh 
 shall rise up " with the men of Christ's day "and condemn them," 
 how much more complicated and amazing must many of those 
 relations be in which individuals and communities much more 
 closely interconnected shall stand one towards another ! How 
 glorious will the one entire process of the world's moral govern- 
 ment and history then appear ! How replete with evidence of 
 God's glorious attributes ! And if the brilliant shining of the 
 sun at noon-day is a demonstration of our Creator's mighty 
 power, how unspeakably more fully will that dispensation of 
 judgment — that final disclosure and reckoning, that consum- 
 mation of all things — bear on the face of it the vindication of 
 the perfect rectitude, and profound wisdom, and magnificent 
 unity with which the moral administration of this strange world's 
 history had from first to last been conducted ! It will be from 
 the concurrence of overwhelinins: evidence that the saints will 
 
The Parallel. 253 
 
 then enter into the exclamations of adoring wonder : — " Oh the 
 depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! 
 how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding 
 out ! " " And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, 
 and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy 
 works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are Thy ways, thou 
 King of saints. Who shall not fear Thee, Lord, and glorify 
 Thy name ? for Thou only art holy : for all nations shall come 
 and worship before Thee ; for Thy judgments are made manifest " 
 (Rom. xi. 33 ; Rev. xv. 3, 4). 
 
 But to return. On that great and awful day, amidst the 
 irresistible blaze of light that shall reveal the secrets of all hearts, 
 among millions of amazing disclosures, tliis, our Lord tells us, 
 shall be a very patent and simple one : — " The men of Nineveh 
 shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn 
 it : because they repented at the preaching of Jonas ; and behold, 
 a greater than Jonas is here." 
 
 I. Jesus is greater than Jonah in the greatness of His Person ; 
 and this consideration attaches a weight to His ministry incalcul- 
 ably greater than any belonging to Jonah. 
 
 The occasion which God took to call the men of Nineveh to 
 repentance was one of those " sundry times," and the singular 
 commission given to Jonah, one of " divers ways," in which " God 
 spake " of old to the ancient world " by the prophets." But He 
 " hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He 
 hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the 
 worlds " (Heb. i. 1). These are the well remembered expressions 
 by which Paul commences that marvellous Epistle to the Heb- 
 rews, in which the transition from the Old to the New Testament 
 economy is so specially explained, authorised, and vindicated ; 
 and in which he lays the foundation of his argument for the 
 superiority and perfection of the new economy, by referring to 
 the fact that it was initiated by the eternal Son of God in person, 
 and had thereby an honour conferred upon it incalculably tran- 
 scending all that had gone before. In the course of his argu- 
 ment, and in his second chapter, he makes special practical use 
 in enforcing duty, of the fact that these things " at the first 
 
2 54 New Testament Coimnentaries : 
 
 began to be spoken by the Lord ; " and, in the third chapter, he 
 expressly institutes a comparison between Moses, the head, under 
 God, of the Old Dispensation, and Christ the Eternal Son, — also 
 under God, who is all in all, — the head of the new. It is pre- 
 cisely in substance and in spirit the argument of our text. That 
 argument implies, of course, that both Jonah and Jesus were 
 commissioned of God. Without that, there could indeed be no 
 comparison. It was in both cases God's call that was delivered ; 
 God's message that was proclaimed ; the very preaching which 
 God commanded these very preachers to preach. They were 
 both acting under authority ; and in that respect the words 
 uttered by Jonah Avere as much Divine, and of Divine authority 
 and infallibility, as the words that were uttered by Jesus. But 
 in the one case the Godhead sent as its ambassador and envoy a 
 mere man ; — in the other, one of the three adorable, co-equal 
 persons of the Godhead. How glorious, therefore, is the prophet 
 of the new dispensation ! Hear how His loyal and loving fore- 
 runner spake of Him : " He must increase, but I must decrease. 
 He that cometh from above is above all ; he that is of the earth 
 is earthly, and speaketh of the earth : He that cometh from 
 heaven is above all. And what He hath seen and heard, that He 
 testiiieth" (John iii. 80, 31). Oh! we shall never fathom the 
 riches of love and glory, implied in God's giving His Son as his 
 ambassador to reveal His will, and call his strayed and alienated 
 children back to mercy and salvation. Most blessed qualification 
 for His office ! He is " the Only-begotten which is in the bosom 
 of the Father." Habakkuk would get him to his post, his watch- 
 tower, his high look-out, and wait for the message and the vision : 
 " I will stand upon my watch, and set me on the tower, and will 
 watch to see what He will say unto me." But Christ's watch- 
 tower, — Christ's post of observation for learning the Father's 
 will, — was the Father's very bosom ! And what He hath seen 
 and heard there, thai He testifieth. Yes ! the Father's bosom ! 
 There He hath ever dwelt without intermission. He was in the 
 bosom of the Father, — enjoying His unlimited, absolutely un- 
 limited confidence, — even while speaking with men on the earth. 
 Oh, how near Christ's hearers are to the bosom of the Father ! 
 How clearly open, in its infinite purity, and bliss, and love, the 
 Father's bosom is, when the lips of Jesus speak ! " Thou art 
 
The Parallel. 255 
 
 fairer than the children of men ; grace is poured into Thy lips," 
 — grace unalloyed, undeteriorated, straight from the Father's 
 bosom ; — " therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever " (Ps. xlv. 2). 
 And when such a one speaks on earth personally by human 
 lips, or by a written word, or bj^ a preached gospel, not without 
 the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ; — when such a one 
 speaks on earth, — speaking forth from " the Father's bosom," — 
 and asks and entreats the long-alienated child to return and em- 
 brace the love, and joy, and protection, and purity of " the 
 Father's bosom ; " to leave behind all that he cannot bring with 
 him into " the Father's bosom," — all the darkness which he can- 
 not bring into the Father's light; — in a word, when such a one 
 calls us to repentance, with what overwhelming urgency does the 
 call come, and how great the guilt of rejecting it ! If, at the 
 preaching of a mere human being, the men of Nineveh re- 
 pented, shall they not rise up in judgment against us, if we put 
 away from us the preaching of Him who speaketh from " the 
 Father's bosom " ? 
 
 II. Christ is greater in Office than Jonah. The office, indeed, 
 is in each case the same. But in the case of Jesus it is in the 
 highest, the infinite degree. 
 
 All the prophets called unto repentance. It formed a leading 
 portion of their duty. They denounced the anger of God upon 
 the impenitent. In God's name they straightly commanded the 
 people to repent ; and they declared His readiness to forgive, as 
 the greatest encouragement to repentance. But the commission 
 which a prophet such as Jonah had, was but a very limited 
 one. It was but a small number of his fellow-men that he could 
 address, and a very much smaller number that he could expect 
 to aflfect for good ; it was but a small fragment of the truth of 
 God he could be instrumental in disclosing ; it was but a sectional, 
 limited portion of the Church or world to which he could pro- 
 phesy; and it was during but a very brief day that he could 
 exercise his office. Christ, in His office, is the way, the truth, 
 and the life ; disclosing all the truth of God ; officiating on behalf 
 of the ivliole Church in all climes and ages, being from beginning 
 to end the one only authoritative Teacher, — head of all other 
 teachers, and source of all their illumination and knowledge. In 
 
256 Nezv Testament Covnncntaries : 
 
 Jonah, or in any mere human prophet, a portion of Divine wisdom 
 and a measure of Divine words might dwell ; but Jesus was the 
 Wisdom of God and the Word of God. It was only on a very small 
 portion of this world's ongoings that Jonah's preaching could 
 directly exert any influence; but the whole history of the race, 
 as aff"ected by a revelation from heaven, is moulded by the pro- 
 phetic office as wielded by Christ. Jonah and others, as servants 
 in the house, brought now and then a fragmentary message from 
 the Master of the Lord. Christ, as a Son over His own house, 
 brought with Him the entire and exact transcript of all the 
 Father's will. Yea, and He thus makes His people like Himself, 
 not servants, but sons, not servants, but friends : — " Henceforth 
 I call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth not what his 
 Lord doeth : but I have called you friends ; for all things that I 
 have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John. 
 XV. 15). In Him are laid all the treasures of wisdom and know- 
 ledge. With Him is the most perfect knowledge of the Father's 
 affections, of every thought and purpose of the Father's heart. 
 It is in rivulets of truth from His intinite intellect, as the very 
 counterpart of the Father's intellect, that all com-munications to 
 mere human prophets have flowed, as from an ocean full and 
 overflowiner as before. When He himself, therefore, deals with 
 us ; when, disdaining neither the nature nor the office of those 
 by whom at sundry times and divers ways God spake unto the 
 fathers, He comes forth Himself exercising the very original, the 
 fulness, the transcendent perfection of the prophetic office ; — 
 surely the call which He delivers is infinitely urgent. And if 
 the same call to repent has been delivered by a mere fellow- 
 creature, and been respected and obeyed by the wicked com- 
 munity to whom it was addressed, shall not these men of Nineveh 
 rise in the judgment against the men of gospel times, because 
 they repented at the preaching of Jonah ; and, behold, a greater 
 than Jonah is among us ? 
 
 III. But Christ is also greater than Jonah in respect of His 
 discharge of the office. The Old Testament made men prophets 
 which had infirmity; but the gospel age is inaugurated, and its 
 ministrations carried forward by a Prophet who is infinitely 
 perfect, infallible, unchangeable ; in whom is light and no dark- 
 
The Parallel. 257 
 
 ness at all ; in whom is infinite store of truth and grace. For 
 " the Word was made flesh, and we beheld His glory ; the glory 
 as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 
 Other prophets were liable to err, and did err. Elias was a man 
 of like passions with ourselves. Behold of this Jonah ; how 
 grievously he erred ! He fled from the presence of the Lord, 
 refusing His commission to Nineveh. The " greater than Jonah " 
 says, " Lo, I come ; in the volume of the book it is written of Me, 
 I dehght to do thy will, my God." When the Lord spared 
 Nineveh it displeased Jonah. Did ever any of the Father's 
 doings displease Jesus ? When the Father assigned to Him a 
 houseless, homeless life; — when for the birds of the air the 
 Father appointed nests, and resting-places for the foxes ; but 
 appointed for His own Son that He should not have where to lay 
 His head ; — did it displease Jesus ? When His weary pilgrimage 
 drew towards a close, and instead of His prospects clearing like 
 the path of the just, shining more and more unto the perfect day, 
 they darkened more and more as the Just One suffered for the 
 unjust, till, in the end, all accumulations of evil fell upon Him, 
 saving and alone the one evil that never was but infinitely far 
 from Him, — personal sin ; — when His Father withdrew from 
 Him the comfortable light of His favour, and put on towards 
 Him all the aspect of an angry judge armed with Almighty wrath 
 to avenge the controversy which Jesus intervened to clear away, 
 and to exact the ransom which Jesus undertook to pay, and 
 uphold the offended justice which Jesus interposed to appease ; — 
 when He had to exclaim in amazement and anguish, " My God, 
 why hast Thou forsaken me ? " — did this on His Father's part 
 displease Jesus ? And oh ! when His Father's mercy takes effect, 
 and threatened wrath is removed from any miserable soul ; when 
 that soul, in its deep penitence, — the singular and blissful element 
 of heaven's sweetest joy being poured into the cup of godly 
 sorrow, — exclaims, " I will praise Thee, O Lord, for, though Thou 
 wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away ; " — is Jesus tUen, 
 like Jonah, displeased, disappointed, angry unto death ? What an- 
 swer need we give ? Oh ! if even in the travail of His soul and 
 His exceeding sorrow He was not displeased ; how when "He seeth 
 of the travail of His soul and is satisfied"? Displeased ? Displea- 
 sure ? Nay, " the 'pleasure of the Lord doth prosper in His hand." 
 
 R 
 
258 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 Were it not well that we sometimes meditated with delight 
 on the fact that Christ's discharge of office is stained with no 
 blemish ; invalidated by no imperfection ; incapable of any 
 deduction from its infinite excellence ; standing alone in match- 
 less, and incomparable, and unsullied glory ? There is no want ; 
 there is no excess ; there is no defect ; there is no spot nor wrinkle, 
 nor any such thing in this " greater than Jonah," who now calls 
 us to repentance. And if we turn a deaf ear to him, how 
 powerful must be the condemnation which the men of Nineveh 
 shall rise up to pronounce upon us in the judgment ! 
 
 IV. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that He has, in one sense, 
 a greater rigid to call us to repentance. There is a sense in which 
 the right of Jonah and of Jesus were the same ; grounded alike 
 on the communications given them respectively by the Lord to 
 deliver. But personally, on His own account, Jesus has a claim 
 upon us, and a personal right to summon us peremptorily to 
 repent. As representing the Godhead, Himself very God, He may 
 say unto us : " Against me, me only, have ye sinned, and done 
 evil in my sight, that I might be just in judging and clear in 
 speaking." It is against me that all j'^our enmity and rebellion 
 have been directed. Against the Godhead, in my person, have 
 ye lifted up the hand. As very God, and as God's ambassador, 
 alike in my own and in my Father's name, I charge you with the 
 guilt of rebellion : and I summon you now to repent, and return, 
 and surrender to God, — to me, to my Father by me. Jonah had 
 no personal quarrel with the Ninevites, and no personal claim 
 upon them. He might say of them as Paul said of his Galatian 
 converts: "Ye have not injured me at all." But in this respect 
 a greater than Jonah is here ; — greater in the relation in which 
 He stands to us as entitled to all our service, gratitude, love, and 
 admiration ; and entitled to complain when these in any measure 
 are withheld, or given Him in less than absolute perfection ; and 
 to call for satisfaction and redress. His has all the urgency and 
 force of a personal, a directly and intensely personal matter. He 
 is Himself the representative of the offended Godhead. He is 
 Himself possessor of the nature and substance of that offended 
 Godhead. When He calls to repentance, there cannot be a 
 greater. With infinite authority, and not as the scribes, must 
 
The Parallel. 259 
 
 He speak. We cannot adjourn the matter from Him, or appeal 
 it to another more closely implicated in it. To Himself we are 
 responsible ; and the case cannot be more accurately or more 
 powerfully put to us than by Him. If His call to repent is 
 refused, our last prospect or possibility is thrown away. It is 
 amazincj that Godhead should have delegated to none less than 
 God, in the person of the Son, the office of being a herald and 
 ambassador to proclaim peace, and thereon to insist upon re- 
 pentance. And it is altogether beyond eternal admiration that 
 when God in His absolute glory could hold converse with no 
 rebelling creature, and yet it was desired to send to rebels an 
 embassy of reconciliation and a call to repent. Godhead should 
 still have been sent — the Only-begotten, dwelling in the bosom 
 of the Father — to press and secure the rights of His Father, 
 which in the unity of the Godhead are also His own. There is 
 no lowering, by transmission to a stranger, of the authority with 
 which the embassy and call are clothed. There is no deteriorating 
 of the majesty and claims of the offended Sovereign by another 
 party foreign to the offence, and not affected by it, being called 
 in to fulfil the service of demandino^ or achievinof redress. All 
 men shall honour the Son even as they honour the Father : I 
 have set My King upon My holy hill of Zion : kiss the Son, lest 
 He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when once His w^rath 
 is kindled but a little. With Him we have to do. There is none 
 higher with whom we can have to do. Assuredly, in this respect, 
 "■ a greater than Jonas is here ; " — in respect, namely, of His 
 greater right to call to repentance. 
 
 V. While in His Godhead He is equal with the Father, and 
 therefore supreme in authority, He is, as man, greater than 
 Jonah, in that He has an experience of His own with which to 
 enforce His message, greater, unspeakably, than Jonah had. " As 
 Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so 
 was the Son of man three days and three nights in the heart of 
 the earth." Beyond question, Jonah informed the Ninevites of 
 his own terrible experience to the anger of God. In that experi- 
 ence, — in that altogether matchless history, — Jonah was a sign 
 unto the Ninevites. He could enforce the certainty of judgment 
 on transgression, by quoting the things that had befallen himself ; 
 and the greatness of that calamity, and the manifest evidence 
 
26o Nezv Testament Cominoitaries : 
 
 of the immediate hand of God in it, could not fail to strike terror 
 into the hearts of the men of Nineveh, and convince them that 
 the message of such a God would be executed relentlessly and to 
 the full. They would, in fact, argue that if these things were 
 done to a prophet of His own for one act of disobedience, what 
 would befall those who lived in perpetual and perfect rebellion ? 
 They would argue on the principle, " If these things be done in 
 the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? If judgment begin 
 at the house of God, what shall the end be of them that obey not 
 God at all ? " (Luke, xxiii. 31 ; 1 Pet. iv. 17). Jonah, escaped 
 from the deep and from the jaws of death, was to the men of 
 Nineveh a sign of the certainty and terrors of the Lord's ven- 
 geance on sin. 
 
 Behold, a greater than Jonah is here ! Jesus was three days 
 and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jonah died and rose 
 again in a hgure, a metaphor ; a figure carrying in it terrible 
 reality, but stopping short of actual death. Jesus died and rose 
 again. He suffered, the just for the unjust. In the room of 
 transgressors He stood ; in the name, and as bearing the persons, 
 of transgressors He was judged, condemned, avenged upon in all 
 the completeness and terrors of the wages of sin which is death, 
 the wrath and curse of the Lord God Almighty. The arrows of 
 Jehovah pierced Him: the curse of the Eternal Ruler's broken 
 law descended on Him : He tasted the bitterness, yea, the sting, 
 of death : His soul was exceeding sorrowful : He poured out His 
 soul unto death. He " knoweth the power of God's wrath " unto 
 the uttermost. And if the experience of Jonah was a sign and 
 an enforcement conjoined with his message — oh, with what over- 
 whelming urgency may Jesus refer to His experience ! My 
 reader, when Jesus counsels you to repent and flee from the wrath 
 to come, the exhortation comes from One — if we may reverently 
 use, as we may with intense truth use, the saying — comes from 
 One who knows what He is speaking of. Yes: He knoweth 
 that wrath. The tears He sheds over lost souls are prompted, in 
 part, by personal knowledge of the wrath whereunto they are 
 plunging themselves. The melting calls, " Turn ye, turn ye, why 
 will ye die " — oh ! they come from One who knoweth what the 
 cursed death is from which He labours to win and woo you to 
 His own love and salvation. Greater in experience of the evils 
 
The Parallel. 261 
 
 from which He desires to save you, there is none than this 
 Saviour himself. Of all terrors and agonies, saving that alone of 
 a self-accusing conscience, Jesus had, of all beings in the universe 
 the deepest and most dread experience. Great as was the anguish 
 of Jonah, — as in the very " belly of hell," " cast out of God's sight " 
 — behold, a greater than Jonah is here ; — greater in respect of 
 the same endurances in infinitely higher degree, as pursued by 
 the angry justice of God, avenged upon for God's quarrel with 
 transgression. Study the psalms that open up to us the exercises 
 of our Saviour's aofonised soul in sufFerino- for sins not His own. 
 Bear in mind continually, it is this Sufferer that pleads with you 
 to flee from the strokes of that sword of justice whose burning 
 edge pierced keen to the dividing of His soul and spirit, and of 
 the joints and marrow. It is He who bore the mighty load, that 
 implores you not to rest an hour under the weight of your 
 Creator's curse. It is He who drank the cup of trembling and 
 of death to the dregs, that implores you to prefer the cup of 
 blessing and salvation. Let your soul be quiet at His call. Let 
 your ear incline at His voice ; and sweetly and mournfully and 
 most imploringly trembling through all its accents, you shall 
 hear an element of tenderest feeling, sighing after you lovingly 
 and sorrowfully, — as of One who remembers the wormwood and 
 the gall, the furnace and the sword, the clouded face of Jehovah, 
 and the unspeakable sting of death, and fain would save you from 
 them all, would you only give Him true belief, and turn even 
 now, that you may live. 
 
 VI. A greater than Jonah is here, in that He hath greater 
 power than Jonah. Jonah may denounce wrath ; but Jesus can 
 give repentance. He hath the hearts of all in His keeping. He 
 hath the fulness of the Spirit. He is exalted a Prince and a 
 Saviour to give repentance to Israel and the remission of sins. 
 Jonah may denounce the vengeance due to sin ; but the Son of 
 man hath power on earth to forgive sin. How unspeakably 
 greater, then, is Jesus as a herald and ambassador to call men to 
 repentance ! How unspeakably more worthy of our believing 
 and obedient reception ! It may be a grace hard to flesh and 
 blood, a grace altogether supernatural, to which He summons us, 
 when He calls us to repent : to renounce our old nature, and put 
 
262 N'ew Testament Commentaries : 
 
 on another and a new one. But however difficult, however 
 contrary to nature and above nature it may be, we are summoned 
 to it by One greater than Jonah ; by One so great by nature as 
 to be able to give, and so great by office as to be commissioned 
 and appointed to give, the very grace which He requires us to 
 exercise. If you tell me merely that a Divine messenger summons 
 me to lay aside all my old motives and principles of action, and 
 aims and objects in life, and to begin and act truly and simply on 
 the singular principles of really doing everything to promote the 
 glory of God, and of consulting in everything the will of God, 
 and framing my life not at all on my wishes, but on God's will ', 
 you assign me a work perfectly hopeless, so far as any strength 
 of mine for accomplishing it is concerned. I either do not see 
 the greatness of this moral change — so great that greater could 
 not be ; — or in seeing it, I at once despair of achieving it myself. 
 " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? " But tell me 
 that " the Son," who summons me to be renewed in the spirit of 
 my mind, " quickeneth whom He will ; " hath the hearts of all in 
 His keeping ; and is only acting in His office when He giveth 
 repentance and remission of sins ; — tell me that He is calling me 
 to receive these very gifts from Himself, and assuring me that if 
 I only knew His nature and His love, I would not hesitate to ask, 
 and asking would receive ; even as He said, " If thou knewest the 
 gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee. Give me to drink^ 
 thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee 
 living water ; " — tell me this : and combining the knowledge of 
 my powerlessness with some insight into His power to work 
 repentance in my heart, I am directed, urged, hemmed in, and 
 shut up to Christ as my Royal Priest — effectually conferring on 
 me the gracious and perfect forgiveness of sins, and the sin-hating 
 mourning, contrite, believing heart to receive all this mercy freely. 
 Yes : a greater, verily, than Jonah is here. Paul may plant and 
 ApoUos may water ; but God only giveth the increase. The 
 treasure is in earthen vessels ; but the excellency of the power is 
 of God. And this " greater than Jonas " is " God — manifest in 
 the flesh," and the Surety of an irrefragable covenant, — a cove- 
 nant is which " grace reigns," and in which all that law demands 
 is by grace supplied. 
 
 Had Nineveh rejected Jonah, they might still have said, It is 
 
The Parallel. 263 
 
 merely a crier of danger that we put away from us. But he that 
 rejecteth Jesus, rejecteth One who can give repentance and 
 forgiveness of sins, and that can say : — " They shall look on Me 
 whom they have pierced, and shall mourn;" — "Come unto Me, 
 all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" 
 — " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink : out of 
 His belly shall flow rivers of living water." 
 
 Thou art the King of glory, Christ ! Grace is poured 
 into Thy lips ! 
 
XXI. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES: NO. Ill, 
 THE SIGN. 
 
 Jonah i. 17 ; iii. 10. 
 (Matt. xvi. 1-4; Luke xi. 14-36; Matt. xii. 38-41.) 
 
 ' ' This is an evil generation : they seek a sign ; and there shall no sign be 
 given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet." — Luke xi. 29. 
 
 ' ' And this shall be a sign unto you : Ye shall find the babe wrapped in 
 swaddling-clothes, lying in a manger." — Luke ii. 12. 
 
 " What sign shoivest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things? 
 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I vnll 
 raise it up. " — John ii. 18, 19. 
 
 * ' As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the Son of man be to this 
 generation." — Luke xi. 30. 
 
 '^^ For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we 
 preach Christ crucified .... the power of God, and the wisdom of God." — 
 1 Cor. i. 22, 24. 
 
 IN the days of His flesh, and in the course of His personal 
 ministry, our Lord was pleased to make repeated comments 
 on the history of Jonah. Nor is it unworthy of the King of 
 Zion to assume towards the Church the position of a Commen- 
 tator on Holy Scripture. He is but commenting on the record 
 of His own earlier administration : — the record His own also, 
 not less than the administration is. In virtue of the Plenary 
 Inspiration of Scripture, it is — the Author, Commentator on 
 Himself.* 
 
 In the present instance, with the Great Teacher himself for 
 our Commentator, we find that the history of Jonah, when 
 brought into juxtaposition with that of Jesus, affords a three- 
 fold topic. First, it presents for our consideration a type ; 
 
 * For an argument, in this line of thought, on behalf of Inspiration, I 
 may be permitted to refer to " Christ's Presence in the Gospel History," 
 pp. 124-146. 
 
New Testametit Commentaries : the Sign. 265 
 
 secondly, a parallel; thirdly, a sign. And these three lines of 
 thought exhaust our Lord's observations on the subject. 
 
 These three views of the same topic are apt to be indiscrimi- 
 nately massed up in one. The distinct ideas suggested by each 
 are then lost sight of; the type, the parallel, the sign, are all 
 blended into one va^ue and indeterminate notion of some mere 
 resemblance ; and even that resemblance is found to fade away 
 into the shallow little element of the time being the same in 
 both — the three days and the three nights. In order to avoid 
 this, we have been careful to call attention in former chapters, 
 first, to the consideration of the type, as set forth in the saying, 
 — " As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's 
 belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in 
 the heart of the earth ; " and secondly, to the consideration of 
 the parallel or comparison, turning as it does so unspeakably in 
 favour of Jesus, — " The men of Nineveh repented at the preach- 
 ing of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." To 
 complete our examination of what Christ's commentary suggests, 
 we have now, in the third place, to consider Jonah as a sign. 
 
 That these are three distinct ideas, fitly designated by the 
 expressions we have used, — the type, the parallel, the sign, — 
 will be evident from considering the specific diflferences among 
 the three passages from the Gospels which embody these Divine 
 commentaries. For, very singularly, one of them presents the 
 relation between Jonah and Jesus solely with reference to the 
 sign ; another presents it with reference to the sign and the 
 parallel ; the third brings into view all the three aspects — first 
 the sign, then the parallel, and then the type. 
 
 1. Thus, to take them in the order indicated. In the sixteenth 
 chapter of Matthew, at the beginning, we have the subject set 
 before us in its briefest form. To the hypocritical demand for a 
 sign, Jesus has nothing to say except in this curt, and, by itself 
 alone, somewhat oracular and mysterious answer — "A wicked 
 and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and there shall 
 no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And 
 He left them and departed." 
 
 Here Jesus draws no parallel between Jonah and Himself. 
 He gives no hint that Jonah was a type of Himself. He con- 
 fines Himself rigorously to the solitary thought of Jonah as a 
 
266 New Testatnent Coin^nentaries : 
 
 sign ; and that without even indicating how this sign would be 
 repeated, or how He Himself would resemble Jonah sufficiently 
 to be to them a repetition of the sign. Nay ; He institutes, so 
 far as this discourse goes, — and it must be held to have an intelli- 
 gible and complete meaning by itself, — He really institutes no 
 resemblance at all between Himself and Jonah ; neither the more 
 general resemblance of parallelism, nor the more specific and 
 peculiar resemblance of type. He holds out no resemblance 
 whatever. It is simply and solely the idea of the sign, what- 
 ever that may be, which in this passage the Saviour fastens on 
 and confines Himself to. " There shall no sign be given to it, 
 but the sign of the prophet Jonas." This is the whole statement ; 
 and having made it, " He left them and departed." 
 
 2. The passage in Luke is more full and explicit. Starting 
 with the idea of the sign, as they all do, — for all Christ's allusions 
 to Jonah are in reference to the demand for a sign, — it introduces 
 the parallel also : — " And when the people were gathered thick 
 together, He began to say. This is an evil generation : they seek 
 a sign ; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas 
 the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so 
 
 shall also the Son of man be to this generation The men 
 
 of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, 
 and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of 
 Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." Manifestly 
 this gives a fuller insight into Christ's views of His relation to 
 Jonah. We have here one or two particulars in addition to those 
 afforded by the former passage. For, first of all, we have it 
 distinctly stated that the sign of the prophet Jonah which was to 
 be given to that generation was a repetition in the person of 
 Jesus of what had been given to the Ninevites in the person of 
 Jonah. Suppose the only utterance Christ had ever made on 
 this subject were the brief, mysterious one in the sixteenth 
 chapter of Matthew, — " There shall no sign be given them, but 
 the sign of the prophet Jonas ; " — we must have been left com- 
 paratively in the dark as to what that sign, in the case of the 
 Jews, could mean, or how it could be given to them. In this 
 second passage, however, by introducing the parallel, Jesus ex- 
 plains the mystery. He tells us that He Himself will be to that 
 generation precisely such a sign as Jonas was to the Ninevites ; 
 
The Sign. i6*j 
 
 that there shall be between Himself and this prophet of the 
 olden dispensation such a resemblance or analogy, that in Him, 
 and in His relation to that generation, the sign of Jonah shall 
 be substantially transacted over again, — with this difference, that 
 the repetition shall be something far more complete and wonder- 
 ful than the old orioinal, insomuch that " the men of Nineveh 
 shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall con- 
 demn it : for they repented at the preaching of Jonas ; and, 
 behold, a greater than Jonas is here." 
 
 3. But we have the most complete view of the matter in the 
 twelfth chapter of Matthew, from the 38th verse. Here, as in 
 the former passages, the idea of the sign is prominent : — Verse 
 89th : " An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; 
 and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet 
 Jonas." In verse 41st the parallel is introduced as before : — 
 "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this genera- 
 tion, and shall condemn it : because they repented at the preach- 
 ing of Jonas ; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." But in 
 verse 40th, the particular line of parallelism, in respect of which 
 Jonah was a type of Jesus, is specified : " For as Jonas was three 
 days and three nights in the whale's belly : so shall the Son of 
 man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." 
 Hence the three are bound together in the singular relation 
 which is expressed in the following proposition : The prophet 
 Jonah is a sign, in virtue of that particular element in the 
 'parallel which constitutes the tij'pe. 
 
 There is a parallel ; there is a type ; there is a sign. A 
 certain particular in the parellel is more than a parallel : it is a 
 type. And in virtue of that particular, Jonah is a sign. So 
 closely are the three connected. 
 
 Yet they are distinct. A type is something more specific 
 than a parallel. Many circumstances in the life of every believer 
 are parallel to corresponding circumstances in the life of every 
 other believer ; yet the one series are not types of the other. A 
 type is an event or ordinance in one sphere, analogous to a corres- 
 ponding event or ordinance in a higher sphere ; as, for instance, 
 the ordinance of the brazen serpent, — an instrument or institution 
 of healing in the lower sphere of bodily disease, typical of Christ 
 crucified, God's ordinance in the sphere of the spiritual and 
 
268 Nezu Testament Commentaries 
 
 eternal for healing the disease of sin. Thus the consignment of 
 Jonah to death, and his subsequent deliverance, constitute a type 
 of atonement by death and of justification in risen life ; a type, 
 in short, of Christ's death and resurrection. It is not a mere 
 parallel or resemblance that is pointed out between two facts in 
 history; it is a type, — a typical illustration and confirming seal 
 of certain divine truths and doctrines, — when it is said, "As 
 Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so 
 was the Son of man three days and nights in the heart of the 
 earth." A type is far more than a parallel. 
 A sign, again, is distinct from both. 
 
 TAB.T FIBST. 
 
 The Sign; — The General Principle. 
 
 " Wlmt sign shoivcst thou ^into ^^s, seeing thou doest these things! Jesus 
 answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise 
 it up. " — John ii. 18, 19. 
 
 A SIGN is an evidence. It is a reason, or call, or ground for 
 faith, — for believing. Thus the Apostle says : — " Tongues are 
 for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe 
 not." As a sign, they are unnecessary and superfluous to those 
 who believe already : it is to unbelievers that they are capable 
 of being a sign ; warranting them to believe ; requiring them to 
 believe. 
 
 There are two frames of mind in which a sign may be de- 
 manded or desiderated. It may be demanded as a reason for 
 believing ; or the demand may be made as a pretext to avoid 
 belief. You may ask for a sign, as a help to faith. You may 
 ask a sign, to get an excuse for unbelief. 
 
 The two frames of mind thus indicated are wide as the poles 
 asunder; and they might be contrasted very sharply on many 
 other points than the one of asking a sign. But let us confine 
 our attention to this one. 
 
 The Scribes and Pharisees pressed on Jesus to give them a 
 sign. That they did not wish to believe on Him, but to plead 
 
The Sign. 269 
 
 that they were excusable in not believing, is evident. They had 
 signs enough already to have constrained them, in the humble 
 spirit of Nicodemus, to say : — " Rabbi, we know that thou art a 
 teacher come from God : for no man can do these miracles that 
 thou doest, except God were with him." But, disliking the 
 righteousness of His character, and the holy, reformatory power 
 of His doctrine and ministry, their desire was, not to acknow- 
 ledge, but to stave off the conviction and acknowledgment of His 
 Messiahship. Hence, they pretended to suspend their faith on 
 evidences which they still desiderated and craved ; and they 
 made demands which, had they been granted, they would have 
 treated precisely as they had treated those they had got already ; 
 while, on the other hand, the refusal of them they were pre- 
 resolved to point to, as justifying their continued unbelief. Now 
 God can, with infinitely perfect accuracy and righteousness, 
 deal with this perverse frame of mind ; and in doing so He can 
 illustrate that solemn two-edged word of the Spirit : — " With an 
 upright man thou wilt show thyself upright ; with the froward, 
 thou wilt show thyself froward ." He can bring to bear upon 
 men's minds a style of dispensation which, on the supposition 
 of their uprightness of purpose, shall carry in it nothing but 
 what is beneficial and comfortable, but which, on the supposition 
 of their obliquity and dishonesty, shall at once unmask and 
 punish them. So did Jesus deal with the deceitful demand for 
 a sign. 
 
 Consider, for instance, how this comes out on the earliest 
 occasion on which the demand was made (John ii. 14). As one 
 having authority, Jesus had dealt with the Temple as His 
 Father's house ; asserted His right to reform and purify it ; 
 driven out the money-changers, and overthrown their tables. 
 Immediately the Jews demanded a proof of His right — an evi- 
 dence of his having this authority. " Then answered the Jews and 
 said unto him. What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou 
 doest these things ? " Mark our Lord's singular answer. " Jesus 
 answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three 
 days I will raise it up." We know that He spake of the temple 
 of his body ; — that body in which, being His own body, the ful- 
 ness of the Godhead dwelt personally ; — that body of which the 
 tabernacle or the temple was a symbol or type ; — that body which 
 
2 yo Nezu Testament Coiunientaries : 
 
 the Holy Ghost, speaking expressly, hath called " a greater and 
 more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands" (Heb. ix. 2), We 
 know also that the temple on Mount Moriah and the temple of 
 our Lord's body stood so related to each other — the type and 
 antitype, the sign and thing signified — that the Jews could not 
 destroy the one without destroying the other also; that when 
 they destroyed — that is, put to death — the temple of His body, 
 they in point of fact signed the warrant for the destruction of 
 their own temple and all its associated polity. For in rending 
 the veil of the one temple, that is to say, His flesh, they tore the 
 veil of their own temple from top to bottom ; and, because of 
 their iniquity in crucifying the Lord of glory, the time came 
 swiftly when not one stone of that building was left upon another. 
 Farther : we know that the temple of Christ's body was raised 
 up again in three days ; and we also know that, by another bond 
 between type and antitype in this matter, — namely, that subsist- 
 ing between the temple of old and the spiritual Church of God, 
 which is the temple of the Spirit, — the resurrection of Christ's 
 body was the resurrection virtually in New Testament form of 
 that very temple, spiritually and typically considered, whose 
 doom the death of Christ's body sealed. All giving most singular 
 depth of meaning to His utterance : " Destroy this temple, and in 
 three days I will raise it up." For, as it refers necessarily, by 
 reason of the typical bond, to the literal temple of Jerusalem, 
 virtually informing the Jews, if they were able to hear it, that 
 their destroying of His body would overthrow their own temple 
 and the whole ritual and polity which had their seat and centre 
 there ; so, by another typical bond, it equally informed them that 
 by His resurrection their temple and polity would be raised from 
 the dead, — " I will raise up again the tabernacle of David, which 
 is fallen down," — though it would rise anew in more glorious 
 form, in more spiritual aspect, in fact, in the superior grandeur of 
 resurrection : for here one may almost apply the principle, 
 " There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body," the resur- 
 rection body, namely ; so there is a natural temple, and there is 
 a spiritual temple and Gospel Church — even a resurrection one, 
 the tabernacle of David, fallen down when David's Lord was 
 slain, but raised in resurrection-spirituality when David's son 
 rose from the dead. All this, at least, is embraced in our Lord's 
 
TJie Sign. 271 
 
 most wonderful and enigmatic, but not misleading, answer to the 
 demand for a sign. And all this depth and variety of meaning 
 in it tended to make it ultimately, to the upright and pure- 
 hearted disciples, an evidence most largely instructive — a sign 
 most powerfully confirmatory. 
 
 But mark how it acted on the froward, and unmasked their 
 frowardness, — how it brought to light their hypocrisy and hollow- 
 ness. They had asked a sign — a convincing token and proof of 
 the Divine authority of this great Reformer. They of course 
 desiderated a miraculous one, — one transcending man's power to 
 give, and thereby proving God's presence when given. Such a 
 feature must be an essential in the kind of sign which they have 
 professed their anxiety to obtain. Whatever other features may 
 belong to it, this at least must not be wanting. This is the one 
 indispensable characteristic of what they have expressed their 
 desire to be furnished with, and which they have thereby declared 
 themselves prepared to welcome. Could their utter falseness be 
 made more glaring, if this be found to be the first, and indeed the 
 only, feature in the proffered sign which, instead of welcoming, 
 they quarrel with ? Yet even to this extent they are snared in 
 meshes of their own hypocrisy. " Then said they, Forty and six 
 years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in 
 three days ? " This is what they take offence at in the sign 
 proposed : " Wilt thou rear up, in three days, what took forty and 
 six years to build ? " Had He professed nothing more than 
 power to raise it up again in forty and six years, as at the first, 
 the point of their scoffing answer is gone — their objection taken 
 away. But then where were the value of such a sign ? The 
 very force of the sign — even in their own view of it — consisted 
 in the brevity of the time ; in the element of miracle ; in the 
 in-bringing of the Divine hand; — the very thing which they 
 professed to desire ; the solitary thing also they object to, when 
 they get it. So remorselessly, by Christ's wise dealing with them, 
 are they compelled to disclose their frowardness ! 
 
 They acted in the same spirit, and were dealt with in the 
 same manner, when, on repeating their demand at subsequent 
 periods of His ministry, Jesus uniformly remitted them to 
 substantially the self-same sign — " the sign of the prophet Jonah." 
 
272 Neiv Testament Commentaries : 
 
 PABT SECOND. 
 The Sign — Of the Prophet Jonah. 
 
 " As Jonas ivas a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man he to 
 this generation." — Luke xi. 30. 
 
 What may " the sign of the prophet Jonah " import ? 
 
 I. Let us take it, first of all, as set forth in its most enig- 
 matical form in the discourse recorded in the sixteenth chapter 
 of Matthew. Here Jesus draws no parallel between Himself 
 and Jonah ; and makes no allusion to the ty2^& of the burial and 
 resurrection. Isolated, therefore, from all parallelism and from 
 all typical idea, the sign must have in it meaning and force 
 considered as by itself alone. We are bound to investigate its 
 import, in the first instance, apart from the light thrown upon it 
 by subsequent and additional illustration. Resigning, then, in 
 the meantime, the aid of Christ's fuller explanations ; what 
 design and force may we perceive, in His thus nakedly pro- 
 pounding on this occasion the sign of the prophet Jonah ? 
 
 We may see that it rebukes the spirit in which a sign 
 was demanded. 
 
 Ye seek a proof of my claims. But ye do so, not in order 
 that ye may intelligently, honestly yield to them, but that ye 
 may, if possible, escape from doing so. Ye seek a sign, ye crave 
 an evidence ; not in the spirit of true humility ; not even in the 
 spirit of honourable science ; not on the footstool of lowly inquiry; 
 not even on the seat of manly wisdom ; — but as sitting proudly, 
 and sneering, on the judge's bench. Ye bring my claims before 
 you, — to your bar ; as if they must be greatly dependent on your 
 decision ; as if they and I were humble suitors for your valuable 
 esteem, your indispensable support. And, while seated thus on 
 the bench of judgment, you demand a sign. I give you — 
 
 (1.) A sign that drives 5^ou from the judgment-bench ; that 
 strips you of the affected dignity of judges, and panels you as 
 miserable criminals at the bar. I give you " the sign of the 
 prophet Jonah," — the strict and terrible denunciator, the unwilling 
 but enforced denunciator of the wrath of God. I give you the 
 
The Sign. 273 
 
 sign of him who cried — " Forty days, and Nineveh shall be 
 destroyed : — and besides this he cried nothing more. Ye forget 
 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all 
 unrighteousness of men ; and that ye are yourselves perishing in 
 your iniquities beneath the anger of the Most High. Ye dally 
 and tamper with my claims and protestations as a Saviour, as 
 if ye yourselves did not need to be saved ; as if ye were not lost 
 souls yourselves, but sitting with as much ease as if ye were in 
 heaven, while sneering with as much scorn as if ye were from hell. 
 Ye deal with my pretensions as conceited critics, not as criminals 
 condemned ; and ye ask a sign. Be it so. I give you the sign 
 of the one only minister of God into whose mouth was put 
 nothing but the language of wrath ; and I do so if by any means 
 I may startle j^ou into a better spirit, — the only spirit in which 
 you could be capable of understanding the salvation of heaven. 
 I give you, — ye proud, ye self-righteous hypocrites, — I give you 
 a sign that may well scatter your lofty thoughts of yourselves, 
 and bring down your high looks. I give you the sign of him 
 whose preaching clothed proud Nineveh in sackcloth, and brought 
 its hicfh-minded kingf from his throne to the dust. And I tell 
 you that no sign but this is suitable for you. Nay, more : — 
 
 (2.) It is more suitable to you than it was to them. " Ye are 
 an evil and adulterous generation;" — an evil generation, as 
 Nineveh was : but an adulterous, as Nineveh could not be. Ye 
 were a people to your God, — bound to Him in a marriage covenant, 
 and the God of Israel, your Maker, was your Husband. Ye have 
 violated the marriage bond — the covenant of your God. Ye have 
 gone and served your Husband's foes, and thwarted your Hus- 
 band's will. Yet ye have greatly vaunted your union with Him. 
 Ye have claimed it, when it served your purpose ; and renounced 
 it, when that pleased your pleasure. Ye have proudly claimed 
 the name of Israel, and proudly scorned the heathen. But alike 
 in that proud claim and in that proud scorn, ye have proved that 
 ye are not Israelites indeed ; nay, that ye are an adulterous 
 people ; that ye are aliens from the true commonwealth of Israel 
 — aliens, outcasts, enemies, heathen in your hearts. I give you a 
 sign at your demand ; but I give you the sign of the only prophet 
 to the aliens, the outcasts, the uncircumcised, whom ye hate. It 
 is tliat that makes it so intensely suitable to you. I give you the 
 
 s 
 
274 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 sign of the prophet Jonah, — God's ambassador to heathendom : 
 for yours, even in Emmanuel's land, is the spirit of heathendom ; 
 yea, a spirit worse than that of the uncircumcised and the 
 unclean. And, — 
 
 (3.) Say not, — you dare not say, — that in this I am "your 
 enemy, because I tell you the truth." In vain will you charge 
 me herein with hatred to my own countrymen, — with malice or 
 malignity towards you. It is a small thing that I be judged of 
 your judgment; and my heart ye are incapable of reading. But 
 what I thus do, in giving you the sign of Jonah — the denunciator 
 of wrath to the heathen, — can pain you, can cut you to the quick, 
 can injure you, o^\ly if ye are the proud, the evil and adulterous 
 generation that I say. And then, rigorous and relentless as my 
 word, — my sign, — to you in that case must be, it will, for that 
 very reason, in that same proportion, be righteous and brightly 
 unobjectionable, as in a flood of resistless light. 
 
 But is there one soul among you startled by the sign of the 
 prophet Jonah ; startled as Nineveh was ; humbled ; descending 
 from the throne to the dust, — from the proud seat of judge or 
 critic on the bench to the bar of self-condemnation, and of the 
 criminal confessed ? heavy laden one ! I give to thee the 
 sign of the prophet Jonah ; the sign of him under whose ministry 
 
 NO SOUL IN REPENTING NiNEVEH PERISHED : NEITHER ASSUREDLY 
 SHALL THINE ! " HbI THAT COMETH TO Me I WILL IN NO WISE 
 CAST OUT." 
 
 So gloriously triumphant in its righteousness, throned high 
 above all objection ; yea, so gloriously triumphant in its gracious- 
 ness, when rightly read, is the sign given by Jesus : merciful 
 unto the merciful ; f reward only to the froward. 
 
 II. Taking now the passage in Luke xi. 29, we have the same 
 general statement : — " There shall no sign be fjiven them, but the 
 sign of the prophet Jonas." But an explanation is now added : — 
 " For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the Son of 
 man be to this a:eneration." What additional liorht does this 
 throw on the theme in hand, on the import of the sign of the 
 prophet Jonah ? Doubtless, when we draw for greater informa- 
 tion on our third, and final, and fullest passage, we shall see that 
 it is chiefly in respect of His being three days and three nights 
 
The Sign. 275 
 
 in the heart of the earth, that the Son of man resembles the son 
 of Amittai in being a sign. That particular consideration, how- 
 ever, is not introduced here. And it is again to be observed 
 that the statement as given in Luke must be intelligible by itself 
 — capable of being interpreted and expounded without drawing 
 on information afforded by another evangelist. What meaning 
 would the readers of this one gospel — those who had no access 
 to that of Matthew — attach, and be warranted in attaching, to 
 the simple statement, " As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, 
 so shall the Son of man be to this generation " ? 
 
 The answer is not difficult. They would, at least, regard in 
 its affirming that the Son of man Himself is the sign spoken of : 
 not something He might do ; some miracle He might work ; some 
 isolated part of His ministry or labours; — but Himself; His 
 person. You seek a sign ; the Son of man shall be a sign unto 
 this generation. I am myself the sign. Ye shall have no other 
 from me, — none beyond and besides myself. 
 
 There is a great and precious truth here. You seek a proof 
 and evidence of Christianity ? You desiderate convincing demon- 
 stration for the truth of the Christian religion 1 The great lead- 
 ing sign or proof of Christianity is Christ. To the demand for 
 a sign, a sign of the gospel and glad tidings which are to all 
 people, we give the angelic song in reply : " This shall be the 
 sign : you shall find the babe in swaddling bands, and lying in a 
 manger." 
 
 Surely Christ's own person may be taken as the strongest 
 proof of His pretensions. His sinlessness, His absolute faultless- 
 ness, — enemies being judges: His whole bearing, so lofty and 
 majestic, yet so meek and mild : His compauionableness with 
 men, so intense ; yet His distinctness from all men, and His 
 separation, so complete ! His righteousness so rigorous, yet never 
 verging on the ascetic : His loving-kindness so wonderful, yet 
 never tinged with weakness or facility : His entire uniqueness : 
 His divine singularity : His authority and power of command ; 
 in calm supremacy throned high over all men, while yet He 
 mino-led with all ; the servant of all ; not ministered unto but 
 come to minister : — Oh ! can this generation avoid feeling that 
 a greater than Jonah is here ? If you want higher proof than 
 He Himself constitutes, must ye not be blind ? It is not light 
 
276 Neiv Testament Commentaries : 
 
 you need, but eyes ; not a new medium of proof, but vision ; not 
 an outward sign, but inward spiritual conception. " An evil 
 generation " verily it must be, that in the presence of the Son of 
 man, " seeketh a sign." They proclaim thereby that they are 
 evil. Tliey prove thereby that they are blind. 
 
 Ye Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, — demanding a sign ! 
 Ye be blind leaders of the blind. The Son of man Himself is 
 the clearest of signs ; the brightest of lights : and yet ye perceive 
 it not. I am come a light into the world, and he that followeth 
 me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life : yet ye 
 seek an evidence ; a sign ; a light, whereby you may perceive me ! 
 When darkness hath covered the earth and gross darkness the 
 people, I am come, the Bright and Morning Star, — yea, the Sun 
 of Righteousness, with healing in His wings ; — and ye seek the 
 kindling of a taper whereby ye may perceive me ! It is not 
 evidence you need; but vision: — not a sign to prove the light; 
 but eyes to see it. Know, therefore, that for judgment am I 
 come into this world ; that they which see not might see, and 
 they w^hich see might be made blind. True, you may sneer still, 
 and reply, "Are we blind also?" My answer is, "If ye w'ere 
 blind, ye should have no sin ; but now ye say, We see ; therefore 
 your sin remaineth." 
 
 Thus again, " to the f reward He shows Himself froward." 
 Yet herein He is " upright unto the upright ; pure unto the pure." 
 This sign is a judgment on the evil generation ; but is it not 
 mere}', and love unbounded, to the humble ? Your God wall give 
 you no meaner sign and proof of your salvation than the Son of 
 His love, your own Divine Saviour himself. He sends the Son 
 of man to be a light unto you : and He thereby gives you a light 
 so great, so good, so brilliant, so suitable to your capacity and so 
 sufficient for your need, that light greater or better, a sign more 
 convincing and irresistible, it is impossible to bestow. He giveth 
 you a Prophet in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge ; Himself, in His own person, the light of lights ; the 
 sign of signs ; the miracle of miracles ; the pledge of love and the 
 fulness of blessings ; the eternal Son of the Father of Lights, the 
 brightness of the Father's glory. No lesser sign does He give 
 you : the true light that lighteth all dark places of the universe ; 
 the proof of all that is true ; the sign of all that is good ; the 
 
The Si en, 277 
 
 '<^ 
 
 way, and the truth, and the life. Shall not He Himself be to 
 you the best attestation of His own and His Father's grace and 
 glory ? And when unbelievers seek a sign, will ye not answer 
 them and say : — This has been the sign ; we have found the babe 
 in swaddling bands, and lying in a manger. Will ye not wel- 
 come, as love and blessing boundless to you, what through their 
 own frowardness alone could be a judgment to the froward, the 
 Saviour's own declaration that the Son of man shall be a sign to 
 this generation ? 
 
 That we have correctly indicated our Lord's own special idea 
 in the discourse as given by Luke, is rendered very strikingly 
 plain by the train of thought with which he closes the theme. 
 It is profoundly applicable as a continuation and conclusion of 
 the subject, though at first sight it appears to be alien from it. 
 The preceding remarks will show the continuity of idea; for 
 Jesus now substantially tells them that they need not more light, 
 but a better eye : "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, put- 
 teth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candle- 
 stick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of 
 the body is the eye : therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole 
 body also is full of light ; but when thine eye is evil, thy whole 
 body also is full of darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the light 
 which is in thee be not darkness " (verses 33-35). 
 
 IIL We now pass to the discourse in Matt. xii. 38-40, where 
 Jesus completes the theme of "the sign of the prophet Jonah," 
 by introducing the crowning idea of the death and resurrection. 
 We have interpreted the former passages, each in a manner con- 
 sistent with itself, without drawing for information on the others. 
 The closing and completing idea is now to be found here: — "As 
 Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so 
 shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart 
 of the earth." And therein shall he be a sign to this generation : 
 therein shall they receive, in its completeness, the full sign of the 
 prophet Jonah. 
 
 We may remark, in passing, that this is identically the sign 
 which Jesus gave from the beginning ; identically the same 
 which He gave in answer to the very first of this long series of 
 tempting, dishonest demands, — a reference of His questioners for 
 
2/8 NczL' Testament Commentaries : 
 
 satisfaction to His own death and resurrection, — " Destroy this 
 temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 
 
 The question, then, is ; How was Jonah a sign unto the Nine- 
 vites in respect of his having been three days and three nights 
 in the whale's belly ? How did that render him a sign ? And 
 correspondingly, How is the Son of man a sign in respect of His 
 death and resurrection ? 
 
 Evidently, as we have already seen, Jonah's terrible experi- 
 ence was a sign, a testimony, a confirmation of His message, in 
 that it witnessed by a fact in his own history — his own immediate 
 history as the connnissioned messenger from God — both to the 
 certainty of God's wrath and the riches of His grace. Jonah 
 could point to his own experience in connection with his very 
 mission to Nineveh, and tell that God is not slack concerning 
 judgment, as some men count slackness ; not prone merely to lift 
 His hand in threatening, and too facile and tender ever to bring 
 it down in vengeance. His very messenger of wrath had himself 
 been in " the belly of hell." And yet even from thence there was 
 salvation. Who, then, can tell but God may turn and repent 
 even concerning Nineveh ? 
 
 Similarly, Christ's death and resurrection are a conjoint sign 
 and seal of His mission from the Father. It is, indeed, in this 
 respect that the Son of man becomes truly that overpowering 
 sign which either blinds and dooms the unbelieving, or finally 
 convinces and illuminates the humble in heart. His person, even 
 after all, would not, without His work — His work of atoning 
 death and justifj'ing resurrection — be such a sign as we have 
 affirmed. His person truly is the sign; but it is so, and that 
 conclusively, because the Son of man was three days and three 
 nights in the heart of the earth. It was, even from the first, in 
 the view of His sufferings and victory, that any light shone 
 in the promised Deliverer. Save for this, — save for the light 
 thrown forward from His coming Cross and resurrection-Sabbath, 
 — even the divineness of His person and the stainlessness of His 
 character would have been no real light in a world covered with 
 gross darkness ; no light into God's purpose of mercy towards it, 
 God's special moral administration in it. It is in the Cross and 
 empty grave that we truly, and for the first time, see light. It 
 is there we see light into our state and case as the simple subjects 
 
The Sign. 279 
 
 of a holy God, the guilty criminals before a righteous Judge, the 
 trembling anticipants of death and eternity. It is there we see 
 light into the malignity and odiousness of sin ; into what it 
 deserves at God's hand, and what He is resolved to inflict. It is 
 there we see light into the infinite saving love of God, and into 
 the greatest, deepest problem of eternal ages — how He can really 
 and righteously forgive the guilty, and reclaim and renew His 
 enemies. It is there we see heaven opened and a fathomless 
 eternity waiting for us, bright with a loving welcome, and 
 lighted up with a joy that is full of glory. Yes ; it is in this 
 respect — in that He was three days and three nights in the heart 
 of the earth ; it is in this respect that the Son of man was dead, 
 and is alive again ; that He has become the clearest of all signs, 
 the sweetest and brio-htest of lights. 
 
 No miracle so great as this ; no sign so convincing ; no evi- 
 dence so conclusive ; no light in earth or heaven so clear. 
 
 When the man of science desires to entrance his audience, he 
 takes a portion of the humblest of circumstances, the base and 
 blackened charcoal, a splinter of a brand from the burning ; and 
 manipulating with his tiny wires the force which roars in the 
 thunder and flashes in the lightning, he makes to play on that 
 valueless, unsightly substance two streams of influence from 
 opposing poles of the hidden power; till soon a silvery gleam 
 gathers on its humble surface, and gradually the brightest light 
 that philosophy and art can generate shines out with dazzling 
 splendour, paling the ineffectual fires of the lamps that until 
 now had irradiated, the assembly. You would not ask the aid 
 of one of those depreciated and paler lamps to show you that the 
 more brilliant light was there. 
 
 When the living God, in a dark world rushing on to outer 
 darkness, resolved to give a " bright and morning star," — a " Sun. 
 of Righteousness," — the strongest and the sweetest light that 
 men or angels could see. He took the base, dishonourable tree ot 
 Cavalry ; and on the humble person of His Beloved, there made 
 sin for us, He caused to meet two mighty streams of influence 
 unseen; — two streams of influence wide as the poles asunder; — 
 the one, of avenging Justice as it slew the sacrifice ; — the other, 
 of redeeming love providing it. And as they met and blended 
 into one, there blazed forth on that dishonourable wood "the 
 
28o Nezv Testament Commentaries : 
 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God," while the sun in 
 the heavens grew pale, and the angels veiled their faces with 
 their wings. For three days and three nights the eyes of men 
 were holden that they could not see it. But the resurrection 
 morn tore away all veils for ever, and the dis-eclipsed sign of 
 the prophet Jonah shone out resistless — outshining all other 
 signs and lights ; the very presence-chamber of the King Eternal 
 affording now no glory more brilliant ; " for the Lamb is the 
 
 LIGHT THEREOF." 
 
 Therefore, while the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek 
 after wisdom, we preach — Christ crucified and risen, the power 
 of God, and the wisdom of God. 
 
 PABT THIRD. 
 
 THE SIGN : — CHRIST, THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD. 
 
 " For tJie Jews reguire a sign, and the Grcels seek after u-lsdom ; hut we 
 preach Clir ist crucified . . . the poicer of God, and the ivisdom of God." — 1 Cor. 
 i. 22-24. 
 
 It is with reference to the combined objections of Jew and Greek 
 — of a false ecclesiasticism and a false philosophy — that Christ 
 is here styled the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. Other- 
 wise it would be somewhat remarkable that these, the natural, 
 rather than the moral attributes of Godhead should be specified. 
 
 Usually the Cross is spoken of illustrating, displaying, and 
 giving scope for the moral attributes of God ; especially His 
 Justice and Mercy. The wonderful harmony in which the appar- 
 ently opposing claims of justice, rigorous and stern, and of mercy, 
 gentle and compassionate, are reconciled in a substituted, suffer- 
 ing Saviour, fills the spiritually-enlightened mind with wonder, 
 confidence, and praise ; and is apt to attract our contemplation 
 almost engrossingly. Glorious to the awakened and enlightened 
 sinner is the Cross, or death of the great High Priest ; as at once, 
 on the one hand, satisfying Divine justice and declaring God's 
 perfect rectitude as the Judge of all the earth ; and, on the other 
 hand, securing the forgiveness of iniquity, transgression, and 
 
The Sign. 281 
 
 sin : and, for one who trembled to see the Divine character truly, 
 lest the sight should banish hope for ever; for such an one to 
 see the love of God finding a satisfaction for His offended Justice, 
 and the Son of His love, who is the gift of love, making justice 
 glorious in justifying the sinner who believeth — how blessed a 
 surprise ! how perfect a relief ! how admirable an object and 
 occasion of adoring joy ! Never can we cease to preach Christ 
 crucified, the righteousness of God and the love of God unto 
 salvation, to every one that believeth ; and never can we exhaust 
 the fulness of the revelation thus given of the moral attributes 
 of Deity. 
 
 Yet it is well to see arrayed in this same Cross of Christ, and 
 in the revelation it gives of God, the evidence and the forth- 
 putting of His natural attributes too ; His Power and Wisdom, 
 as well as His Justice and His Love. A loyal subject will take 
 delight in contemplating his monarch's glory as refiected in the 
 stern rectitude of his character and tender amiability of his 
 disposition ; and a finer combination cannot be conceived than 
 the righteousness which shuns all wrong except to avenge and 
 rectify it, and the mercy which seeks out misery to relieve it. 
 And as the sovereign should stand before his subject, the embodi- 
 ment of justice unswerving and compassion unwearying ; combin- 
 ing the " righteousness " for which " scarcely one would die," but 
 on the strength of which a nation can live and rest secure, with 
 the " goodness " for which " some would even dare to die " — 
 righteous and gracious alike — that sovereign must command 
 warm, cordial, loyal admiration. It is the moral that thus en- 
 forces your esteem and love ; and, in point of principle, it matters 
 not though that monarch sway the weakest sceptre in the world, 
 and have little either of prowess or of skill to support or to 
 adorn the throne. 
 
 But while the moral is glorious irrespective of the natural, 
 while justice and mercy form the essence of all that we inust 
 admire in character and action — how joyful if justice and mercy 
 can command power and wisdom in their service. 
 
 Let the same monarch stand forth to view, surrounded by 
 myriads in arms, pledging their poiuer in the field ; and by an 
 inner circle of a nation's hierarchy of talent in counsel, pledging 
 their ivisdoin in the cabinet ; the spectacle becomes still more 
 
282 Neiu Testament Connnentaries : 
 
 attractive; and the moral glory of a just and gracious throne is 
 seen to be established by power and adorned with wisdom. 
 
 Seen in the light of God, such a throne is the Cross of Christ ; 
 where mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace 
 embrace each other ; — it is the power of God and the wisdom 
 of God unto salvation; — with this difference, that Christ alone 
 is All. 
 
 Yet we shall see in the Cross neither Power nor Wisdom, if 
 we look away from Grace and Righteousness. It is in effecting 
 the alliance of righteousness and grace that the wisdom of God 
 conspicuously appears, and His power is put forth unto salvation. 
 Listen, for instance, to an apostle in a parallel passage in Romans 
 i. IG : — " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the 
 poiver of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." But 
 why is the preaching of Christ crucified the power of God ? 
 " For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to 
 faith " — the perfect, justice-satisfying righteousness imputed 
 unto faith is therein revealed ; for that reason the gospel of the 
 Cross is the power of God. And it is grace that reveals that 
 righteousness; for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
 against all unrighteousness of men — and grace, compassion, 
 mercy, love, is the counterpart of wrath. Grace, therefore, in 
 the gospel reveals righteousness, and righteousness gives holy 
 scope for grace ; therefore this gospel is the power of God unto 
 salvation. Moreover, also, it is the wisdom of God. 
 
 And how precious is this combination ! Power alone, apart 
 from wisdom, is mere force ; and wisdom, without power, is in 
 danger of 1 becoming mere subtlety and policy. Power, not guided 
 by wisdom, is blind force ; and wisdom, destitute of power to 
 achieve its purpose, is apt to degenerate into deception or ma- 
 noeuvre. Power without wisdom seeks to compel; Wisdom 
 without power is apt to deceive and overreach. Satan, in Para- 
 dise, had no power over holy Eve ; his ivisdom was, therefore, 
 all exerted in trick, " subtlet}',"' sneaking deception. The power- 
 ful world, persecuting the Church, is far from wise ; its power, 
 therefore, is brutish force. The persecutor is at once a tyrant 
 and a fool. 
 
 But wisdom combined with equal power is not subtle strata- 
 gem : it is intelligent will. Power combined with equal wisdom 
 
The Sign. 
 
 is not blind immeasurable force, but quiet efficiency. There is 
 a combination of wisdom and of power in the starry heavens ; 
 and the wisdom is that of most marvellous simplicity ; the power 
 is that of quiet and noiseless energy. Powerful wisdom is not 
 full of strange devices ; but straightforward and grand in its sim- 
 plicity. Wise power is not distinguished by noise and crash; 
 but by the planet-like silence of its sure accomplishments. Even 
 so the Power of the Cross " cometh not with observation ; " and 
 the Wisdom of the Cross is " the simplicity which is in Christ." 
 
 So very simple is this wisdom, and so noiseless is this power, 
 that the one has been counted " foolishness," and the other " of 
 none effect." Not but that men are fond of power, and fond of 
 wisdom too, could they only get them to their mind. " For the 
 Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom." The 
 whole world, Jewish and Gentile, are in quest of these very 
 things. 
 
 The Jew stipulates for a " sign ; " some astounding manifesta- 
 tion; something wonderful, miraculous, faith-compelling; some- 
 tliing that shall force his belief ; that shall make it impossible 
 for him to disbelieve any longer. It is just poiuer that he de- 
 mands. But it is power apart from Christ; power prior to 
 Christ; power greater than Christ. Ah! little does he know 
 that a sign better than Christ there is none; a power higher 
 than Christ there is none. Christ himself is the sign ; the miracle 
 of miracles ; the power of God unto salvation. True ; that power 
 of God which Christ crucified is^ is a quiet, unobtrusive power. 
 He does not " come down from the Cross " and scatter His cruci- 
 fiers as by the whirlwind. When the Jews in seeking a sign 
 exclaim : " Let him come down from the cross and we will believe 
 him ; " He quietly refuses their demand. He continues to suffer 
 in apparent weakness. But " the weakness of God is stronger 
 than men " ! In this very weakness He is the power of God. 
 
 The Greek, in like manner, seeks after " wisdom." The Jew 
 demands a miracle, the Greek an argument, to compel their faith. 
 Both unite in this, that they would have their faith forced, their 
 unbelief made impossible any more. The Jew seeks this by 
 some forth-putting of power ; the Greek by reasoning or logic. 
 The Greeks delighted in speculation. They would be lighted 
 along by the path of argument, their faith constrained by wis- 
 
284 New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 dom. But the Cross 1 A murdered man ! An executed felon 
 A professed Saviour of others, himself in shame and death, the 
 prey of others ! Does that stand to reason ? Is that philosophy ? 
 " Foolishness " ! — stupidity ! — exclaims the Greek, as the Jew had 
 complained of a " stumbling block." 
 
 Nevertheless, Christ is at once the Power and the Wisdom 
 of God. If any one join with the Jews and seek " a sign," or 
 powerful, faith-engaging evidence, Christ himself is the infinite 
 power ; the best of signs ; the very Omnipotence of God. If any 
 one fall in with the Greeks and seek " wisdom," truth, infallible 
 knowledge and certainty, Christ himself is the truth infallible ; 
 the infinite wisdom ; the very Omniscience of God. Almighty 
 power operates in Him : infinite light shines in Him. The 
 heavens and the earth were powerfully made ; but Christ is the 
 power of God. In wisdom did the Lord make them all ; but 
 Christ is the wisdom of God. Created nature is a limited result 
 of Divine power and wisdom. Christ unlimitedly is all God's 
 power and wisdom unto salvation. 
 
 It is by seeing Christ to be both the Wisdom and the Power 
 of God that we really see Him to be either. It is Wisdom that 
 redeems from apparent weakness, and it is Power that redeems 
 from apparent folly. 
 
 I. It is Wisdom that redeems the Cross from apparent weak- 
 ness. 
 
 Contemplate the Cross of Christ ; contemplate Christ crucified. 
 And view Him, simply in the light of sense and human history 
 and reason. In vain do you search for any evidence of omni- 
 potence. On the contrary, you can find nothing but humiliating 
 tokens of weakness. He is oppressed ; He is afflicted ; He is 
 stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He is bruised, and 
 grieved, and apparently fainting through thirst. Stripes are 
 laid upon Him, and He resents it not. His soul is being poured 
 out unto death. He is " crucified in weakness." And nothinff 
 but weakness can the eye of sense or intellect discover. In vain 
 you search thus for the Power of God. 
 
 But bring into view the Wisdom. Let the light of God's 
 Word and God's Spirit show you the wise scheme in hand ; the 
 wondrous plan in progress. Be it yours to see what intellect 
 
The Sign. 285 
 
 and history cannot show you in the Cross of Christ; what the 
 revealed will and wisdom of God alone can show. Be it yours to 
 get, reverently speaking, behind the scenes ; away from the 
 shallow, superficial, garish world, with its love for the external, 
 the hollow, the transient, the deceiving. Get out hy faith into 
 the unseen realm of which this dying malefactor is the Prince 
 and Lord ; and there learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin ; its 
 terrible, righteous, inevitable doom in the wrath and curse of the 
 great Judge of all ; and the loving substitution of this Saviour, 
 bearing sin and the wrath due to sin, in our room and stead. 
 Contemplate the power of God inflicting righteous wrath ; and 
 think of the power unseen by mortal eye — eye of flesh or eye of 
 reason — that must be silently engaged in bearing it. Contem- 
 plate the power of sin, of Satan, of death, and hell, all bearing 
 down on this suffering Saviour. And think of the greater power 
 of this Saviour Himself, not borne down and swept away by the 
 flood-tide of hell's utmost effort, but maintaining His ground, 
 abiding by His Cross, drinking His Father's cup of wrath, and 
 baffling His enemies' attempts to vanquish Him. See the Cross as 
 Wisdom shows it : and you see a Power that silently, noiselessly, 
 unobtrusively, yet with secret and resistless efficiency, is quelling 
 all other power ; breaking the power of Jew and Gentile, Church 
 and State, priest and potentate of earth ; breaking the power of 
 Satan and his hosts of hell ; breaking the power of death and sin ; 
 exhausting all the power even in God's most awesome malediction! 
 Ah ! be it that He is "crucified in weakness ; " yet this "weakness 
 of God is stronger than men " ! It is the very power of God. It 
 is omnipotence unto salvation. Because of the Wisdom of God, 
 Christ crucified is the Power of God. 
 
 II. Conversely ; to see again how intimately the two are 
 blended : — It is Power that redeems the Cross from apparent 
 folly. 
 
 Contemplate again the Cross of Christ, the dying Saviour. 
 And, whereas formerly you sought to see the power, you are 
 looking now for the wisdom. You are in search of traces of 
 profound wisdom in this asserted scheme or plan of salvation. 
 Where do you find them ? Again it becomes plain that the eye 
 of sense or natural reason cannot find them. Nay; the more 
 
2 86 Nezv Tcsta^neiit Coiiiuicntaries : 
 
 you see of what is going on beneath the eye of sense, and the 
 more you examine it in the light of human intellect unaided, the 
 more apparently hopeless is this strange arrangement ; the more 
 foolish this miserable failure. For, is it not an utter failure ? A 
 Saviour of others, who cannot save Himself ! A Saviour of 
 sinners ; and sinners slaying Hhn ! A peculiar Son of God ; and 
 God forsaking Him 1 A Deliverer from death ; and death carry- 
 ing Him away as his prey ! How can these things be ? Where 
 is there ivlsdom here ? 
 
 And you cannot see it, till you bring into view the power. 
 Consider the mighty forces that are in action ; the grand and 
 auo'ust aoencies at work. Then you see the wisdom that en- 
 countered them in this peculiar manner ; the wdsdom that baffled 
 all their subtlety ; that drew them out in all their might and in 
 all their scheming ; in all their force and all their fraud ; that 
 compelled them to stake and peril in the combat all their re- 
 sources ; and then eternally defeated them. You see that — with 
 powers like these in operation, and victory gained over them all 
 exterminatingly, even in Christ's hour of utmost woe and weak- 
 ness — this is the arrangement of " prudence and of understanding, 
 findinof out wonderful inventions : " and admitting that the idea 
 of a Saviour of others who cannot save Himself is " foolishness ; " 
 — it is a " foolishness of God that is wiser than men ! " and Christ 
 crucified is the Wisdom of God unto salvation. 
 
 Thus it is the Power that redeems from apparent folly, as it 
 is the Wisdom that redeems from apparent w^eakness. The Cross 
 would have been foolishness but for the noiseless, unobtrusive, 
 secret power. The Cross would have been weakness but for the 
 hidden wisdom of God. Combine these ; and Christ crucified is 
 the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. 
 
 Let it be observed very specially that it is " Christ crucified " 
 that is the Power and the Wisdom of God. It is Christ in the 
 fundamental act of His priesthood ; offering Himself a sacrifice 
 to satisfy Divine justice and reconcile us to God. This is indeed 
 remarkable. Would we not have thought that when Christ was 
 to be called the Wisdom of God, we would have been asked to 
 contemplate His Prophetic office ? and wdien Christ was to be 
 called the Power of God, to contemplate His Kingly office ? As 
 
The Sign. 287 
 
 a teacher, He might have been called God's Wisdom; and as a 
 prince, God's Power. But not so. He is a wise teacher; and He 
 is a powerful prince. But it is as a priest on His Cross that He 
 is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. 
 
 As a Teacher, He might have taught us many truths ; but 
 there could have been no power in them but for the Cross. Gospel 
 morality might have been very beautiful — but weak. It might 
 have been very acceptable to the Greeks in their search for wis- 
 dom. But oh ! the folly of being followers of a dead, a murdered 
 Teacher 1 Yes ; and that folly is undeniable, if the sufferer be 
 not a Priest. 
 
 And so, as a King, He might have done many great and 
 powerful things ; but there could have been no luisdom in them ; 
 no adaptation for the cancelling of guilt ; for reconciling men to 
 God ; for giving peace of conscience and power over Satan and 
 death : — none but for the Cross. The astoundino; sigfus and won- 
 ders might have been very acceptable to Jews. Gladly would they 
 have accepted Him as king ; taken Him by force and made Him 
 a king. But oh ! the shameful Cross ! The King of the Jews 
 crucified ! Write not, " the King of the Jews," — but only that he 
 said it. Our king crucified! They stumbled at that stumbling- 
 stone. A king should be with great power and observation. 
 
 Yet not in the kingly office are we to look for all the power 
 of God ; and not in the prophetic for all His wisdom. It is the 
 priest, — the sacrifice, — the Lamb of God, — Christ crucified, — who 
 is the power of God, and the wisdom of God unto salvation. If 
 He is not a priest, the Greek may rightly reject Him as a teacher, 
 and call the whole exhibition folly ; and the Jew reject Him as a 
 king, and call it weakness and unprofitableness unto the utter- 
 most. The Greek inevitably falls into his error, and the Jew 
 into Ins, because they both are blind to the priestly nature and 
 glory of His death. The Greek seeks a wise teacher — and the 
 Jew a powerful king. A crucified king and teacher seems 
 absurdity and imbecility. And it really is so, except upon the 
 ground that Christ crucified is an atoning priest for ever after 
 the order of Melchizedec. As a prophet, there is wisdom in His 
 instructive voice. As a king, there is might in His majestic arm. 
 His Cross may cast a cloud over His wisdom ; and cast more than 
 a doubt upon His power ; yet, rightly seen, the Cross, as the altar 
 
Neiu Testament Commentaries 
 
 of eternal propitiation, proves that He was not merely powerful 
 and wise, but the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. 
 
 It may illustrate more fully the unison and reciprocal action 
 of these attributes in the person of Christ crucified, if we consider 
 the import of His mournful cry in the garden, as it appealed to 
 His Father's wisdom and power both, and even seemed to 
 question them : — " Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass 
 from me." 
 
 1. Take it as an appeal to His Father's luisdom. my 
 Father, — Father of lights, — can all thy penetrating insight into 
 all possible conditions and contingencies descry nothing for me 
 but this coming Cross, this present cup of woe ? Can Omniscience 
 discover no alternative, — no open door of escape from this dire 
 necessity ? Can no Divine and all-wise device render this agony 
 and woe unnecessary ? 
 
 And none is forthcoming. Is Wisdom, therefore, at fault ? 
 Yes, if Wisdom has not found in this the grandest scope and 
 exhibition for Power. But Omnipotence acts and glorifies Omni- 
 science. Omnipotence is to have opportunity now as it never 
 had before, and never will again. The Almighty " will " of God 
 is coming into play ; and its almightiness is to be specially illus- 
 trated. " Father, not my will, but Thine be done : " Thy will ; 
 Thy will omnipotent. " I come to do Thy will " — not to suffer 
 Satan's. " I come to do Thy will " — not to do mine own. Let 
 me be borne through in doing Thy will. " I delight to do Thy 
 will." Save me not from dying ; but save me from death. 
 Strengthen me to vanquish death by dying ; and to destroy him 
 that hath the power of death. For this, O Father, is Thy will 
 omnipotent ; " by the which will my people shall be sanctified 
 through the offering of my body once for all." And now in the 
 Power of this " will " of God on the Cross, Wisdom is seen to be 
 not at all at fault ; under no eclipse ; but shining in its fullest 
 splendours ; — a calm and steady light ; able to wait its vindication, 
 — its judgment brought forth as the noon-day. And just by its 
 apparent failure, when no device was forthcoming to open for the 
 Sufferer a door of escape from suffering — no plan devised for 
 causing the cup to pass from Him ; just by its apparent "foolish- 
 ness," the Cross shines out as the Wisdom of God. 
 
 2. But the appeal may be regarded still more simply and 
 
The Sign. 289 
 
 directly as an appeal to the 'power of God. "Father, if it be 
 possible V Art Thou not able ? Is it not within the compass of 
 Thy power to make this cup pass from me ? Is not Thy power 
 almighty ; and is anything too hard for Thee ? 
 
 It is for Wisdom to reply : and how ? The appeal to Wisdom 
 is answered by power : — Thy will — Thy mighty, Thine Almighty 
 will — be done. Even so the appeal to Power is answered by 
 Wisdom ; and Wisdom can show that finite power might carry 
 the cup aside, but Omnipotence — the power of God — shall be 
 displayed in drinking it. Yes : twelve legions of angels might 
 have borne Christ away from His Cross. But they would have 
 borne Him away from the opportunity of showing that the power 
 of God is Almighty. A flashing sign from heaven, in the cohorts 
 of seraphim carrying the Sufferer aloft upon their wings, would 
 have pleased the sign-seeking Jew. But it would have been 
 limited, created, finite strength displayed. Grappling with hell, 
 and the curse, and the wrath of God, and the power of sin, and 
 the sting of death ; — drinking His Father's cup ; — Jesus, in 
 apparent " weakness," was the infinite Power of God. 
 
 We rejoice to "preach" this. "We preach Christ crucified, 
 the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God." When we preach 
 Christ, we keep this in our own view^, — we set this in your view ; 
 — namely, that the Christ whom we preach, whom we press on 
 your acceptance, is the infinite Power, the omniscient Wisdom of 
 God. In Him there is not merely perfect righteousness to justify 
 you from all sin, and infinite love and grace to make that right- 
 eousness freely over to you, " sinner," " enemy " (Rom. v, 8, 10), 
 though you be : but this very Christ is the power of God, the 
 wisdom of God. 
 
 Can yoii fail to see how very thoroughly this meets your case, 
 and shuts you up to an immediate reception of the Saviour ? 
 
 You tell us you are not merely guilty. In the moral attri- 
 butes of God, as they meet in Christ crucified ; — in Divine Justice, 
 satisfied, and owning the righteousness brought in, — in Divine 
 Love, willing that that righteousness be immediately yours ; — in 
 mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace 
 embracing each other ; — you see a satisfactory provision for the 
 removal of your guilt and condemnation. But alas ! you are 
 
2 QO New Testament Commentaries : 
 
 utterly ignorant of how to embrace it, and utterly powerless, 
 though you knew the way. You stand upon your want of 
 wisdom, and your want of strength. You know not how to 
 believe to the saving of your soul. You have no power to come 
 unto Him that you may have life. 
 
 But is not all this most unsuitable, out of place, — in a word, 
 impertinent, — if Christ crucified is the power of God and the 
 wisdom of God ? You cannot see through this difficulty, and 
 that other mystery, in the scheme of salvation ! But what 
 barrier is that to be allowed to place in the way of your receiv- 
 ing Christ ? He is " the Wisdom of God ; " and to tarry, and 
 hesitate, and scruple, and hang back from receiving Him, till 
 your difl&culties are all removed, is just to say that you will not 
 receive Him who can, and alone can, remove them all. And then 
 your weakness ! You cannot come till you are drawn. You are 
 overwhelmed in moral inability and spiritual death ! But what 
 of that ? It implies your want of power. Shall that be a barrier 
 in the way of your receiving Him who is " the Power of God ? " 
 If inability is your disease ; if want of power is your danger ; is 
 not Christ your very remedy, seeing He is " the Power of God " ? 
 Oh, that " stumbling " Cross ! — Omnipotence is in it ; — not 
 indeed to save you in your unbelief. Omnipotence was not in it 
 to save Christ from His cup of woe ; it would have needed far 
 less than omnipotence to save Him from that. But omnipotence 
 was there to save Him from being overwhelmed in His dying 
 hour ; — to give Him the victory by dying. And so omnipotence 
 is in it, — not to save you in unbelief, but from unbelief ; — to save 
 you in dying to all hope but Christ ; — to save you in dying unto 
 all hope without Christ, and all hope except Christ ; and in 
 believing into all hope in Him who is able to save unto 
 the uttermost. 
 
 Indeed, there is no omnipotence in Christ's Cross to save you, 
 if you become not one by faith with Him as your living Head ; 
 even as there was no omnipotence — and because there was no 
 omnipotence — put forth to save Him from becoming one with 
 you, His death-doomed members ; or from the death to which 
 His oneness with you then doomed Him. It would not have 
 needed omnipotence to save Christ from becoming one with you, 
 and standing at the bar of an angry God in your room. That 
 
The SigJi. 291 
 
 would have given no display of God's power. Something 
 infinitely less than almightiness could have done it. " Twelve 
 legions of ano-els" mio-ht have done it. It did not need God's 
 uttermost of power to save Christ from dying. It did, to save 
 Him in dying, and to make Him conqueror of death and Satan, 
 when the curse of God due to sin was on the side of death and 
 him that had the power of death : and now, therefore, He is able 
 to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, 
 identifying themselves by faith with Him. The omnipotence 
 of God in the Cross contemplated Christ as one with you, and 
 gave Him victory over all that His oneness with you brought 
 down upon Him. And now it contemplates making you one 
 with Him, in opposition to all that would prev^ent that oneness ; 
 and therefore saving you unto the very uttermost, — "mighty 
 to save " ! 
 
 There is a drawing power in the Cross, utterly unbounded ; 
 to bring and to save the chief of sinners. Give yourself up unto 
 it; it will bring you into the love of God, into your Father's 
 bosom. There is power in the planetary system, and in the 
 pathless spaces of the stellar heavens. But the power there is 
 limited : God's power could go greatly farther in its efforts than 
 the heavens and the earth give proof of. It cannot go farther 
 than it goes in the Cross. There, there is not merely a display 
 of power, leaving infinite efforts and effects for God's power to 
 achieve behind and after all ; there is all God's very power itself 
 — the Power of God, His Omnipotence unto salvation. 
 
 There are obstacles in the way of your salvation ; your for- 
 giveness, your holiness; your coming unto Jesus, j^our believing 
 on His name, your walking worthy of His love ; — obstacles mani- 
 fold and strong. Are they almighty ? One need scarcely seek 
 an answer. Earth and hell and all creation may join their power 
 to destroy you ; but their allied forces do not make Omnipotence, 
 Finite powers at the uttermost, they fall infinitely short of 
 Almightiness. And can Almightiness not cope with them ? 
 Yea, verily. But where does Almighty power emanate, to 
 overthrow them ? In what direction — what line — may I so place 
 myself as to find Omnipotence coming forth to draw me to the 
 Lord ? In the line of the Cross. In your looking unto Jesus. 
 " I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Through 
 
292 Nezv Testament Co77zmentaries : 
 
 the Blood of the dying Surety, ahnighty power comes forth on 
 all them that believe. 
 
 Yea : and the splendours of omniscient Wisdom break around 
 your enlightened spirit also. 
 
 If it were not so ; if God should lay aside His Wisdom ; and 
 make a mere diplomatic stroke of policy in saving sinners, — • 
 a subtle compromise with the claims of law, — a mere trickful 
 appearance and illusion of justice, — an exhibition of indulgence 
 without remission of sin, or of proffered remission without shed- 
 ding of blood, — a gift of general, uncovenanted, unmediatorial 
 mercy ; there could be no power needed, and no power put forth, 
 in such a scheme of saving you. But God maintains His Wis- 
 dom, and glorifies it to the uttermost in the Cross. All shall be 
 wisely done. "My servant shall deal prudently." There shall 
 be nothing to regret afterwards. There shall be no real, no 
 rightful interest injured, either in the meantime or in the long 
 run ; no, not in all the eternal issues. All shall be rightly, fairly, 
 justly done. All shall be candidly explained. All shall be fitly 
 and righteously transacted. This "judgment shall rest for a 
 light unto the people : " — clear as " light " itself : conclusive as a 
 final "rest:" — no claim of justice set aside; no voice of truth 
 silenced ; and no gift of grace, but righteousness shall sanction 
 it; and no entrance into glory, but holiness itself shall smile 
 approval. Such shall this salvation be. Ah ! then, it must be 
 a wisely-planned salvation ; devising for the eternal best ; a 
 " wisdom ordained before the world was, for your glory," — for 
 God's glory also in the highest, — and for making great the glory 
 of Him who is the Mediator between God and man. Very 
 specially, and very graciously, it is a wisdom ordained for your 
 glory ; for your true holy dignity and honour ; for making you 
 a king and a priest ; for admitting you to see and to share the 
 glory of the Son of God ; for making you altogether like Him 
 when you shall see Him as He is. It is no blind, sheer force 
 that carries you from the darkness of guilt and of the shadow 
 of death, through many a paroxysm of conflict with Satan and 
 with sin, to the presence of the Lamb. It is infinitely wise 
 Power. And it is not mere scheming which brings you off, as 
 by a stroke of policy. It is infinitely powerful Wisdom, making 
 you more than conqueror. Christ is to you both the Power of God 
 
The Sign. 29; 
 
 and the Wisdom of God, when He saves you. " The Lord is your 
 light and your salvation. He also is the strength of your life." 
 
 Yes : Strength and Lig-ht are thine, Zion ; for Christ the 
 Power of God and the Wisdom of God is thine. " Arise ; shine : 
 for thy LIGHT is come." " Awake ; awake : put on thy STRENGTH, 
 O Zion." 
 
XXII. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 JONAH'S ANGER— AND THE GOURD. 
 
 "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he 
 prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray Thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, 
 when I was yet in my country ? therefore I fled before unto Tarshish : for I 
 knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great 
 kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil. Therefore now, Lord, take, I 
 beseech Thee, my life from me : for it is better for me to die than to live. 
 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry ? " &c., etc. — Jonah iv. 1-11. 
 
 " Why art thou wroth ? and why is thy countenance fallen ? " — Gen. iv. 6. 
 "• Although the Jig-tree shall not blossom." — Habak. iii. 17. 
 
 THIS chapter describes the effect produced on Jonah's mind 
 by the Lord's mercy to penitent Nineveh, and the method 
 taken by the Lord to rebuke and correct him. 
 
 When God saw the works of the Ninevites, that they turned 
 from their evil ways, and when He repented of the evil that He 
 had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not ; this 
 " displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." A 
 marvellous state of mind in a man of God contemplating a 
 splendid instance of the Lord's long-suffering — His mercy to 
 them that repent, and His grace in blessing and prospering the 
 preaching of His servant ! It is, indeed, difficult to enter into 
 Jonah's state of mind sufficiently to do him justice as well as to 
 condemn his error. But while his sin is here exposed for con- 
 demnation, let us do him, at least, this justice, — to bear in re- 
 membrance that it is exposed by himself. It is he himself who 
 has put on record the story of his inexcusable frame of spirit. 
 He has ingenuously recorded for all generations the feelings with 
 which, at this painful crisis, he was exercised, concealing nothing, 
 and nothing extenuating. He softens not the expressions which 
 he felt were necessary to indicate the violence of his emotion. 
 
Conclusion. 295 
 
 The prophet, with his own pen, narrates that he was " displeased," 
 — nay, " displeased exceedingly," — nay, farther, that " he was 
 very angry." 
 
 Let us not forget, therefore, that he has with much simplicity 
 and frankness owned all his sin in this matter. He has "acknow- 
 ledged his transgression : and his iniquity he has not hid." All 
 his heart he has laid bare and open. He was afraid lest he 
 should be regarded as a false prophet ; and while, by the Nine- 
 vites, in their softened and subdued frame of mind, this was not 
 likely to occur, yet among the Israelites, in their wild and per- 
 verse rebelliousness, it was highly probable. The treatment 
 which the}'' were ever ready to mete out to their prophets, is too 
 clearly implied in Christ's upbraiding question, " Which of the 
 prophets have not your fathers killed ? " They would lie on the 
 watch for anything that might be perverted into a handle against 
 them and their commission ; and Jonah, no doubt, anticipated 
 wnth perfect agony the laughter and ridicule with which he 
 should be received on his return, as having gone on a fool's 
 errand ; threatening the greatest city in the world with destruc- 
 tion in a specified time, and returning without a hair of their 
 heads being injured ! He foresaw the utter weakening of his 
 hands, — the destruction of his usefulness, — among his country- 
 men. The overthrow of Nineveh by Divine judgments, according 
 to his proclamation, would most mightily have strengthened him 
 on his return to his countrymen, enforcing the repentance which 
 he should preach to them also ; and although he could not, save 
 most inhumanly, have rejoiced in the perdition of the great city, 
 yet the favourable reaction that might have ensued among Israel, 
 he had apparently begun to calculate upon. He expected to 
 return with a terrible instance to quote of the truth implied in 
 the psalmist's question to the peculiar people, " He that chas- 
 tiseth the heathen, shall not He correct " yov, .? But when this 
 was taken out of his hands ; and not only so, but the issue turned 
 against him, — in the sense of being manifestly capable of being 
 wrested by Israel to their own destruction, and to the painful 
 questioning of His Divine commission as a prophet ; Jonah's 
 heart despaired of his country ; and the event — so infinitely 
 blessed to Nineveh — he saw would be turned to the spiritual and 
 eternal damage of his " kinsmen according to the flesh." It was 
 
296 Conclusion. 
 
 not his own honour merely, nor chiefly, nor indeed at all, that 
 Jonah cared for. Anything so grovelling is not for a moment 
 to be imagined in the case of a servant of God, so exercised, so 
 true, so loyal, so ingenuous, and truthful as Jonah was. But the 
 contempt likely to fall on himself as a prophet, he saw would 
 fall on the honour of the Lord who had sent him ; and the people 
 who were dear to him as his owm countrymen, he saw would be 
 confirmed in their mockings and perverseness ; and so would 
 ultimately incur the very destruction from which Nineveh had 
 by timeous repentance delivered herself, and from which Israel, 
 alarmed by Nineveh's destruction, might have delivered herself, 
 had the original denunciation taken effect. All his official influ- 
 ence in and over Israel, which the destruction of Nineveh might 
 have greatly confirmed, he beholds suddenly scattered and de- 
 stroyed. His fond hopes for his country he suddenly sees 
 Tolighted. He was afraid, indeed, from the first, that it might be 
 so. It was for this reason that he attempted from the first to 
 evade the commission to Nineveh. Was not this his saying 
 when he was yet in his country ? Therefore he fled before unto 
 Tarshish (ver. 2). 
 
 And mark here, and in confirmation of this explanation of 
 his displeasure and anger, — mark with what emphasis he speaks 
 of his country. " Was not this my saying while I was yet in my 
 country ? " " My country ! " My oivn country ! He is not merely 
 pointing out the locality where he said this originally. He is 
 indicating that his heart is full of thoughts about his " country ; " 
 about the bearing of this matter on his " country ; " his " kinsmen 
 according to the flesh, for whom his heart's desire and prayer to 
 God is, that they might be saved." He is viewing it intensely in 
 the light of its bearing upon his country ; it is for his country's 
 sake that he is keenly agitated ; it is in love to his own people 
 that his emotions are stirred even beyond control. There is 
 nothing selfish, worldly, mean, in this painful aberration of a 
 godly man's heart. It were easy to pour forth condemnations on 
 him ; but it is more difficult to emulate the strong love to God's 
 honour, and cause, and kingdom, and people, without which he 
 could not have exhibited this unparalleled manifestation of char- 
 acter and temper. Assuredly he erred : he erred most grievously. 
 Let no attempt be made to cover over the guilt of his procedure. 
 
Conclusion. 297 
 
 Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Still 
 let no gross, and easy, and short-hand, and indiscrirainating de- 
 nunciation be pronounced. It was manifestly in the ill- regulated 
 and unbalanced force of principles and desires far from blame- 
 worthy, that Jonah was hurried into his present sinful extremes 
 of feeling. He erred not in lamenting the probable perversion of 
 God's mercy by the Israelites. It was no sin in Jonah to regret 
 with his whole soul their probable wresting to their own destruc- 
 tion of this blessed event ; their acceptance of it as a proof 
 that Jonah had never been sent of God, that his pretensions now 
 were proven false, and that his denunciations were only such as 
 might safely be laughed to scorn. But he did err in not pouring 
 his regrets and griefs in this matter into the bosom of God 
 submissively. He did err greatly in not acquiescing in the Divine 
 arrangement as righteous, and wise, and holy, and good, and best. 
 He did err in not bringing all his own wisdom into subjection to 
 the appointment of God, and placing his desires, with their 
 relative hopes on the one hand, or their fears on the other, under 
 the control and rein of the word and work of the Lord. Ought 
 he not to have poured out his patriotic longings and spiritual love 
 for Israel into the ear of the God of Israel ? Ought he not to 
 have bowed in repentance, and said, " Not my will, but Thine be 
 done ? " Ought he not to have rejoiced in the meantime in the 
 deliverance of so very great '"a multitude of fellow-creatures, and 
 trusted that the same God who had so unexpectedly given them 
 repentance and salvation, could make even this event work, in 
 its influence on Israel, in a very different direction from what the 
 prophet feared — seeing that " with God all things are possible ? " 
 And instead of indulging in gloomy anticipations, ought he not 
 joyfully to have celebrated the Divine power and mercy in crown- 
 ing his ministry to the heathen city with such success, and 
 implored, in quickening faith, a like blessing on his future 
 labours in Israel ? To grieve ; to be " displeased ; " was very 
 inexcusable. But to be " exceedingly displeased ; " to be " very 
 angry ;" angry with God ; was lamentable sin ! 
 
 Still this was the infirmity of a friend of God, and not the 
 malice of an enemy. And that it was so, is very evident from 
 the fact, that the prophet carried the whole matter to God in 
 prayer. " And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray Thee, 
 
298 Conclusion. 
 
 O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country ? 
 therefore I fled before unto Tarshish : for I knew that Thou art a 
 gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kind- 
 ness, and repentest Thee of the evil." 
 
 Here Jonah seems to palliate, or rather justify, his flight, and 
 to undo the repentance to which he had been already brought. 
 He seems also to expostulate and remonstrate with God for spar- 
 ing Nineveh. These are amazing instances of what the corruption 
 of a believer may attain to, in its opposition to the will and work 
 of God. But still the evidence that this is the corruption of a 
 believer is conclusive, from the fact that Jonah carried the whole 
 matter to God in the exercise of prayer. " He prayed unto the 
 Lord, and said." When his sorrow was stirred ; while he mused 
 painfully ; while the Are of anxiety burned within him ; he wisely 
 resolved against " keeping silence." He went with all his burden 
 to the Lord ; he opened up to Him all his grief. Even the wild 
 tumultuous lustings of the flesh against the spirit, — he made the 
 Lord cognisant of them all. He made God his counsellor ; 
 honestly and unreservedly he unbosomed himself to God ; his 
 whole case and his whole heart he laid open, even as they were, 
 to Him. He had no secret from God. Even the injustice which 
 his wild feelings did to God, — even that he did not conceal. 
 Even those sinful emotions over which he had not yet obtained 
 the mastery, he explains before the Lord, His very " inflrmity " 
 he spreads out before Him ; even though he seems to be forgetting 
 " the years of the right hand of the Most High." 
 
 Here is Jonah's integrit}' ; and here is Jonah's safety. 
 
 1. Here is his integrity. He is no enemy of God ; — he is a 
 friend and child of God, notwithstanding the perplexity into 
 which his feelings have fallen. He cannot rest in a state of 
 distance from God. Wretched as he is, through the predominance 
 of his own fears, and the complainings against God to which 
 these fears lead him, he would be more wretched still were he to 
 restrain prayer before God, shut up his soul from Him, and 
 determinedly and consciously depart from Him by an evil heart 
 of unbelief. Sick at heart, and overwhelmed with bitter despon- 
 dency, he pours out his complaint unto the Lord ; even though, 
 through the temporary predominance of the flesh, it is a complaint 
 against the Lord Himself. In every prayer of God's children 
 
Conchision. 299 
 
 there is some mixture of sin. The mixture here is very conspic- 
 uous and very alarming. There is, however, a secret element of 
 grace, a secret seed of faith and submission, — proved to be present 
 by the confidence in God implied in making Him the referee and 
 counsellor. When prayer is suppressed, duplicity is begun to 
 reign. Iniquity is regarded in the heart ; conscious sin is cher- 
 ished and clung to ; presumptuous iniquity has obtained domi- 
 nion ; and the soul is not upright ; when God is shunned, and a 
 cloak or mask of concealment drawn over the soul in His presence. 
 But so long as all can yet be declared unto the Lord, even though 
 it be your infirmity, tlierc integrity still reigns. And the Lord in 
 infinite condescension will acknowledge it. 
 
 2. For, secondly, here was Jonah's safety, as well as his 
 integrity. But for this, he would, mentally and spiritually^ 
 have been fleeing again from the Lord, even as formerly he 
 attempted to flee to Tarshish. His danger formerly was in 
 fleeing from the Lord. Agitated and alarmed, he fled froin the 
 Lord. Agitated and alarmed now again, he flees to the Lord. 
 This is the safety of his position now. He does not seek a refuge 
 from God. He makes God his refuge. He tells Him the grounds 
 of his alarm and agitation. He expostulates with God. He 
 seeks to clear his case with God. And though there is excess^ 
 and violence, and inexcusable haste and passion, still the Lord 
 condescends to his prayer, stained though it is by such grievous 
 infirmity. 
 
 He thus bore testimony to the reality of faith and grace that 
 was in His servant ; — and God is the best witness of His people's 
 estate. It was Jonah's safety to call upon the Lord ; for the 
 Lord " hath not despised the prayer of the afflicted, nor hid His 
 face when he hath cried : " nor is He ready to cast off or to reject 
 our supplications because of their impurities and sins, provided 
 we truly wait upon Him, and make Him the witness of all our 
 desires, — the counsellor, and referee, and confidant in all that 
 concerneth us. 
 
 Jonah had anticipated the sparing of Nineveh, provided they 
 should repent. And he grounded this expectation on his know- 
 ledge of the character of God. " I knew that Thou art a gracious 
 God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and 
 repentest Thee of the evil." 
 
300 Conclusion. 
 
 This is the uniform character assigned to God in the law, and 
 the psalms, and the prophets. It is the memorial of God to all 
 generations. It is the name, or the exhibition of character, by 
 which He revealed Himself to Moses, and by which He desires 
 in all ages to be known. "I knew that Thou art a gracious 
 God;" — gratuitously benevolent; having a disposition of good- 
 ness; Fountain of actual mercy. Hence Thou art "slow to 
 anger"; not speedily provoked, but long-suffering; being not 
 willing that any should perish. Hence, also. Thou art " of great 
 kindness," abundant in goodness, and "repentest Thee of the 
 evil." Let it be carefully observed that all actual patience, kind- 
 ness, mercy, and forgiveness are here traced up solely to the 
 graciousness of God's nature. It is in Himself alone that He 
 linds reason for saving sinners. It is in His own nature exclu- 
 sively that He finds ground and motive for bringing salvation. 
 " Not for your sakes do I this, be it known unto you, O house of 
 Israel, but for Mine own name's sake." In myself alone, I find 
 the reason why I should ask you to return, and promise you a 
 good reception when you do. And for this cause we ought in all 
 our prayers to carry our appeal to the gracious disposition of God, 
 as the only source and fountain of all our hopes. " God so loved 
 the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth on Him may not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 " Of His own will begat He us by the word of His truth, that we 
 might be a kind of first fruits from among His creatures." " By 
 grace are we saved " : " being justified freely by His grace." Let 
 us in prayer resign, therefore, the aid of everything save the 
 grace of God. Let us ground our hopes alone on that, and on 
 the righteousness of Christ which God in His grace has provided 
 for us. Let us take all our encouragement in prayer from God 
 only. Let His memorial and name be graven on our hearts 
 for ever. 
 
 It was in accordance with this name, or memorial, or nature, 
 or character, that God acted when He spared Nineveh ; and how- 
 ever much His doing so might appear to Jonah adverse to the 
 prospects of Israel, adverse to the prophet's own usefulness, 
 adverse to the promotion of God's own glory, yet we may here 
 learn that to exercise His mercy towards the truly penitent, God 
 will — reverently speaking— run all hazard. Israel may bias- 
 
Conclusion. 301 
 
 pheme ; and Israel may ridicule Jonah as a false prophet, and 
 harden themselves ae^ainst His denunciations, remindinof him of 
 the little harm that came on Nineveh, though he predicted a 
 total and swift destruction. But God will not alter His memo- 
 rial, nor resile from His gracious designs to the penitent, on that 
 account. His name will be more honoured in the end ; and in 
 the meantime, if men will have it so, they may take occasion ta 
 wrest His procedure to their own destruction ; but the responsi- 
 bility and the peril are their own. The legitimate use of God's 
 doings is very different ; and it is hard for them to kick against 
 the pricks. " The ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall 
 walk in them : but the transgressors shall fall therein." 
 
 Thus, in general, the doctrine of free grace is frequently said 
 to encourage men in sin ; but we are not to modify the freeness 
 of God's offered mercy on pretence of taking care of the glory of 
 God, and the maintenance of His law. This was substantially 
 Jonah's sin ; — the sin of pretending to be more careful of God's 
 glory, and more qualified to advance it, than God Himself. It is 
 a glorious fact that His thoughts are not as our thoughts ; and 
 we reduce them to a measure that would render them useless to 
 ourselves, when we constrain them within the limits of our ow^n 
 judgment or capacity. God is able to vindicate His own pro- 
 cedure and all its principles ; and He will do so without the aid of 
 man's wisdom. " The weakness of God is stronger than men ; 
 and the foolishness of God is wiser than men." 
 
 But what sort of reasoning is this ? " Therefore, now, O Lord, 
 take, I beseech thee, my life from me : for it is better for me to 
 die than to live " (ver. 3). Most miserable inference ; most pain- 
 ful exclamation ! It is the exclamation of a believer, a saint, a 
 man of God. But it is the cry of a soul far aside from its duty. 
 Unable to guide either his mind or his ministry amidst the per- 
 plexity which the apparent vacillation or change of purpose on the 
 part of God occasioned, Jonah prefers death to life. He prefers 
 death to the apprehended dishonour of God and the destruction 
 of His own usefulness as God's prophet. Excessive though His 
 grief is — uncontrolled though his feelings are — they are evidently 
 the feelings and the grief of a godly man. An earthly-minded 
 man were incapable of such emotions. Yet are they altogether 
 indefensible and inexcusable. Our life is in the hands of God ; 
 
 n 
 
302 Conclusion. 
 
 and He can threaten the removal of it in a thousand ways, every 
 one of them sufficient to cause a displeased prophet to repent of 
 his rash desire. He had but escaped from a species of living 
 death that had filled him with anguish, and extorted from him 
 the most agonising cries for the Lord's pity and deliverance: and 
 how can he forget that God might again plunge him into the 
 jaws of destruction, and " answer his prayer by terrible things 
 in righteousness " ! 
 
 Very different was the decision of Paul on the question of 
 death, or life continued. He had " a desire to depart and be with 
 Christ. " He felt that that was " far better. " Nevertheless, he 
 saw that it was for the good of the Church that he should abide 
 in the flesh. He was willing, therefore, to die or to live at the 
 pleasure of the Lord. He lost and merged his own will in God's ; 
 living or dying, he was the Lord's. All the days of his appointed 
 time would he wait patiently, till his change came. Unquestion- 
 ably the chief element of Paul's devotedness was in Jonah, though 
 acting erroneously under a pressure which he could not bear, under 
 a perplexity of feeling which he could not unravel. He fancied 
 that it could not be serviceable for the Church that he should 
 abide in the flesh. He saw, or thought he saw, all his usefulness 
 destroyed. He judged according to his own wisdom, that to min- 
 ister in the prophetic office in Israel, after the sparing of Nineveh, 
 would henceforth be altogether unavailing ; and the same con- 
 sideration which reconciled Paul to live, induced Jonah, under a 
 perverted imagination, to desire to die. But he erred in judging 
 according to reason, to hunmn prospects and probabilities. He 
 ought to have left all issues and results in the hand of God him- 
 self. His whole life, and all its serviceableness in the kingdom 
 of the Lord, were in the Lord's own disposal. And if circum- 
 stances in providence rendered his future prosecution of the duties 
 of his office more difficult, more fruitless of good, more destitute 
 of seeming results, ought he not to have said : " Lord, what wilt 
 Thou have me to do ? Make a plain path before me, because of 
 mine enemies. Lord, here am I : send me " ? 
 
 But instead of this, he assumed the right of judging that 
 the salvation of Nineveh would eclipse the honour of God, de- 
 stroy the credit of his ministry, and harden the hearts of his 
 countrymen. And rather than live to see such issues he would cry 
 
Conclusion. 2f>Z 
 
 to be removed from the evil to come. " It is better for me to 
 die than to live." 
 
 The Lord reproves him in a twofold manner. First l)y a 
 verbal and, secondly, by a symbolical rebuke. 
 
 I. First : — " Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry ? " 
 How gracious ! How condescending ! How considerate ! Feel- 
 ling for the sad though sinful perplexity of His servant, the Lord 
 does not break forth in punishment of his irritability, his petu- 
 lance, his " anger " and " exceeding great displeasure. " He does 
 not upbraid him for making his own narrow capacity the measure , 
 by which to judge of the Divine will and the Divine procedure, 
 in sparing that great city. He simply calls him to reflection. 
 He points out to him his state of mind ; " Doest thou well to be 
 angry ? " Thou art " angry " ; Thou art morose ; harsh in thy 
 feelings, and uncontrolled in the expression of them ; murmuring, 
 complaining, angry at the good hand of God. Is this justifiable ? 
 " Doest thou well ? " Hast thou ground for it ? Thy grounds for 
 joy and gladness are real ; — a spared city ; angels rejoicing over 
 their repentance ; thy God proved to be gracious, and merciful, 
 and slow to anger, and of great kindness, repenting Him of the 
 evil ; thine own ministry eminently, marvellously, matchlessly 
 successful. These are grounds for joy and gladness, thanksgiving 
 and the voice of melody. These grounds of gratitude are plain 
 and patent and present, immediate and sure and great. Thy 
 grounds for displeasure, — are they not distant, future, imaginary, 
 of thine own portending, at the best but doubtful, and such as 
 events may negative and disappoint ? Doest thou well, then, to 
 be angry ? Angry ! angry at the good hand and good pleasure 
 of the Lord ! 
 
 11. Secondly : — The Lord resumes and continues this exj^ostu- 
 lation, aided by a very significant and symbolical mode of tuition. 
 He means to show to Jonah that the Lord's heart was greatly set 
 on Nineveh, wicked and provoking as it had been. He means to 
 lead Jonah into sympathy with Himself concerning Nineveh. He 
 means to show him how the Divine affections are twined around 
 the human race as God's own workmanship, capable of sharing His 
 mercy, and tasting and knowing that He is gracious. And for 
 
J04 Conclusion. 
 
 this purpose He rears right suddenly, and soon removes, a little 
 object for the prophet's own affections to twine around. 
 
 And it happened thus. " So Jonah went out of the city, and 
 sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and 
 sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become 
 of the city " (ver. 5). 
 
 There he sits ! engrossed with the one solitary thought, luhat 
 shall become of the city. Not an imagination of the thoughts of 
 his heart can be spared from considering and contemplating to 
 see what shall hecoine of the city. He takes time, indeed, to put 
 a few rude branches together, forming a rural, rugged booth — a 
 little arbour, rapidly extemporised ; and he takes time for that, 
 solely because it serves his purpose, and shelters him from the 
 burning eastern sun, while he watches to see tvhat sltall become of 
 the city. But the Lord is to bring into play some object on which 
 the prophet's tender affections may strongly rest. It must not 
 be such as would thwart the stream of all his thoughts, and turn 
 them aside from considering loltat shall become of the city. Any- 
 thing so introduced to his notice now would prove oftensive and 
 unwelcome ; and would counteract the very purpose of the Lord 
 in bringing it forward. Let it be something serviceable to him, 
 while he sits and still watches to see what shall become of the city. 
 Let a large-leafed, spreading plant ascend, and cover all his rustic 
 and unsightly bower, leaving no crevice for the burning rays to 
 pierce and beat upon the watcher's weary frame. Let the palm- 
 crist, ivy-like, thatch with sudden beauty and impervious foliage, 
 and thereby altogether perfect, the prophet's little booth. It is 
 precisely what his strangely troubled heart will dearly welcome 
 in its present engrossing exercise. 
 
 " And the Lord prepared a gourd,* and made it to come up 
 over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver 
 him from his gi'ief. " And it wrought precisely as the Lord ex- 
 pected and designed. "So Jonah was exceeding glad of the 
 gourd" (ver 6). 
 
 Ah ! so had the living God, the God of love, been " exceeding 
 
 * See "Biblical Natural Science," vol. ii., p. 540, and "Science and 
 Christian Thought," pp. 169-171, by John Duns, D.D., Professor of Natural 
 Science in the New College, Edinburgh. 
 
Conclusion. 305 
 
 o-lad " over Nineveh's repentance ; the same God who, in the form 
 of man, sat afterwards over a city that would not repent, and 
 was " exceeding sorrowful, " shedding tears of matchless and 
 unfathomable grief. By this beautiful device of the gourd, and 
 Jonah's exceeding gladness, the Lord is preparing Jonah, if not 
 to be sflad in Nineveh's salvation, at least to understand the Lord's 
 own gladness. 
 
 " But God prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next 
 day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to 
 pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east 
 wind ; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, 
 and wished in himself to die, and said. It is better for me to die 
 than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be 
 angry for the gourd ? And he said, I do well to be angry, even 
 unto death "(verses 7-9). 
 
 So highly had he begun to value the gourd ! So ill could he 
 bear the want of it ! So uncontrollable were his feelings when it 
 withered ! So deeply had his affections twined around it ! 
 
 Who but must admire the Divine wisdom in turning off in this 
 ■direction all the keen intensity of the prophet's excited, morbid, 
 powerful affections ? The very emotions of anguish and anger 
 with which his perplexed soul was formerly contemplating the 
 deliverance of Nineveh, are now turned towards lamenting the 
 destruction of his welcome, beloved, brief -lived gourd. And now 
 the Lord argues with him : — If thine affections were twined around 
 the gourd, because it pleased thy fancy and served thy wish, — wilt 
 thou not allow mine to repose with satisfaction on the teeming 
 multitudes, the workmanship of my hands, which throng the 
 alarmed, the humbled, the obedient, the saved city ? " Thou 
 bast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, 
 neither madest it grow ; which came up in a night, and perished 
 in a night ; " — this little shrub ; in no sense thine own ; neither 
 planted, nor watered, nor cared for, nor pruned by thee ; brief- 
 lived, too — passing hastily away in a night from the place that 
 only for a day hath known it. And "should not I spare" im- 
 mortal men ; the workmanship of my hands ; cultivated and 
 cared for, and fed, and clothed, and dealt with variously in pa- 
 tience and in pity, because I am not willing that any should 
 perish, but rather that they should come to repentance : — " Should 
 
 u 
 
3o6 Conclusion. 
 
 f 
 
 not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six 
 score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right 
 hand and their left hand ; and also much cattle ? " 
 
 Is there anything in which I am, like Jonah, unreconciled to 
 the will of God — His will in His Word ; His procedure in provi- 
 dence ? And when He expostulates kindly with me, — " Doest 
 thou well to be angry ? " — do I allow His condescending remon- 
 strance to pass away unimproved ? Let me beware. God's 
 purpose, though unwelcome to me is verj^ dear to Him : it is 
 after the counsel of His own will ; it is according to the good 
 pleasure of His will ; and I must, if I am a child of God, be con- 
 strained to feel that it is so, and constrained to sympathise with 
 Him, and aquiesce. 
 
 And He may teach me practically, as He taught Jonah. He 
 may send me a welcome gift — a lovely, serviceable ivy plant — 
 sudden, acceptable, gladsome gourd. 
 
 I become exceeding glad of my gourd. My heart entwines 
 around it. This pleasing prospect ; this budding hope ; this suc- 
 cessful movement ; this dawn of charming friendship with the 
 bright-hearted and the noble ; this light of sunshine falling 
 most unlooked for on my vexed and weary heart ; this welcome 
 visitant, the golden haired little one within my earthly home, 
 crowing in arms, searching my eye for the kindling glance 
 of jo}^ and love, and dancing gleefully on finding it ; — ah ! in 
 many a form my gourd may grow ; and I am exceeding glad 
 of my gourd. Even when I quarrel with God, I may be all the 
 more glad of my gourd. 
 
 For what end may it have been planted ? For what end may 
 it have grown ? To the end, perhaps, that it may wither, and 
 droop, and die ; and that my heart, untractable, may at last, by 
 losing it, be taught to feel, that if the object which my poor foolish 
 love fastens on be hard to part with, how infinitely wrong in me 
 to desire God to abandon those purposes which His infinitely wise 
 will hath cherished from eternity, and which He hath bound in 
 with and wrapt around my destiny, at once to bless and train 
 me — exercising my faith and patience, stripping me of all creature 
 confidence that He may fill me with uncreated good, and rendering 
 me one trophy more among the many thousands of the poor and 
 needy whom angels have seen sitting not desolate even with every 
 
Conclusion. 307 
 
 idol shattered, and whom angels have heard, through grace, ex- 
 claiming : — Though my flesh and my heart fail ; though my house 
 be not so with God : though the fig-tree shall not blossom ; yet 
 will I rejoice in the Lord ; for " He hath made with me an ever- 
 lasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure : this is all my 
 salvation, and all my desire. " 
 
BS1605.M381 
 
 The prophet Jonah : his character and 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1012 00054 8356 
 
 
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