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He shall enter into His glory'; and He triumphs not only for Himself, but for innumerable rescued souls. Many there are who have long lain in the pit of evil, whom the weight of evil habits, the hopelessness of any change, held fast bound; yet Thy grace, O Lord, has brought them forth to life. The Divine Sufferer, after His deliverance, says (Psalm xxii. 22, 25), 'I will declare Thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto Thee.' 'I will pay my vows before them that fear Him.' He prepares a feast of thanksgiving in which those join who 'could not quicken their own souls.'

10. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

'O death, I will be thy plagues' (says another Prophet of the same age as Jonah), 'O grave, I will be thy destruction.' 'After two days will He revive us; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight' (Hosea xiii. 14; vi. 2). One has come from death, and He lives for evermore. Has not then God broken the fear of death, given us a hope of immortality? The land of life lies open before me. I shall reach its shore safely, and find there One to welcome me.

A saying,

CHAPTER III

ND the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2. Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3. 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.

The preacher of repentance has risen again after His three days' sojourn in the underworld. He praises God for deliverance, sets Himself to do God's bidding. He goes forth into the Gentile world, declaring God's righteousness. I see here Israel rising from the captivity and becoming a pattern and an Evangelist to the world. 'He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many' (Isaiah liii. 11). Nay, taking prophecy in a deeper sense, as Christians do, I see God's true Servant, His personified Israel, His people's Ransom, Who, after He had issued from the grave, went, by Apostolic ministry, into the world's great empire and showed its hollowness; bade men seek a lasting kingdom.

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Forty Days' Respite

[JON. III.

4. 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.

This was a declaration of God's anger, whereas the Gospel is a declaration of God's mercy. But in the Gospel there is also an undertone of fear, a warning lest rejected mercies turn to ruin, a sense how awful must sin be which required so great an expiation, a caution lest hopeless misery seize on despisers. Just so in this Evangelist of old time there was, with all his denunciations, somewhat that led his hearers to turn to repentance, to hope for pardon. He said 'Nineveh shall be overthrown,' and stated the cause of this judgment-the sins of the city; but he also prefigured the Gospel by inviting to penitence and prayer. How wonderful it is that a Jew should discern that the Kingdom of God embraces all nations; that he should proclaim, before Christ came, this universal warning!

5. 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. 6. 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.

This is like the Jews who had crucified Christ Jesus, crying out, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?' They were pricked at the heart' when they learnt their own crime in rejecting Christ Jesus. It is like innumerable converts from all nations who have felt shame at their past lives, have given up pleasures and embraced hardships for Christ's sake. Great and mean persons alike have felt this word. It has come home to them and made all earth's glory seem as nothing. Touch my heart, O Lord, with such contrition as this, that I may grieve over my own folly and ingratitude.

7. 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 any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 8. 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.

When hell is opened beside us, we do not much regard this world's glory. Instead of the trappings of state we would have all things partake of our own gloomy feelings. We give up pleasures, we turn to prayer, we amend our ways. Thus Nineveh is indeed overthrown. A great earthquake has shaken all that insolence of

VER. IO.]

Who can tell?

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glory which stood so firm before. O that I could sometimes realise the bright promises and awful warnings of the eternal world, and in the light of those truths speak and act! If one mortal sin may cast me away for ever, why do I not beware of the pit on whose edge I stand? Why do I not fly from occasions of temptation and implore the continued help of my Divine Guide, without Whom I am lost?

9. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

Who knows what depths of mercy, or of wrath, are hidden in God's unseen counsels? Who can tell God's hidden decrees? I certainly cannot. Has such or such a sinner exhausted all God's patience? Can those who did not turn to God here find pardon after death? Is it possible to bring to repentance souls that are utterly hardened in wrongdoing? Who can tell? All I know is, that it is God who bids us intercede and strive. The very desire to awaken careless and desperate characters is a token that His mercy has still designs for them. Anyhow, in God's extreme forbearance with myself I see a vivid representation of mercy. I know how I have treated His calls and graces, and yet I still enjoy them, not without wonder at His longsuffering.

10. 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.

Our Blessed Saviour propounds this people as an example of repentance (S. Luke xi. 32), 'They repented at the preaching of Jonas.' He is a greater' than Jonah, and has more powerful motives wherewith to influence us. But I see that their repentance implied real and serious amendment. They turned from their evil way,' and so He turned from His threatened vengeance. In speculation, when I am considering God's eternal decrees, I soon get bewildered; I know not how to reconcile His infinite foreknowledge with our initiative. But in practice there is no difficulty. While I love evil, God is against me; when I come back to goodness and abhor sin, then God becomes my friend, and I rest on His love, displayed to me in Christ Jesus. Jonah was a powerful herald of wrath, yet did not leave out mercy. But in the accents of Christ Jesus all is more intense, comes home to me more. I learn both to greatly fear and greatly love.

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A narrow Heart

[JON. IV.

BUT

CHAPTER IV

UT it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2. 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. 3. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

Jonah in this chapter represents the feelings of the Jews at the conversion of the Gentiles. He has already mystically represented the person of Christ Jesus Himself; a Prophet of God, yet accursed, pursued by storms of Divine wrath, swallowed by the devouring monster, redeeming His brethren's life, raised up to be a light to the Gentiles. Now the same Prophet rehearses for us the feelings of God's people when they saw the curse of alienation from God being removed from the Gentile world by the preaching of Christ's Apostles. They were wroth, they appealed to God Himself against His too gracious dispensation; they abhorred Paul, by whom especially this all-embracing work was carried Their narrow hearts were 'zealous of the law,' and could not widen to take in the universal message of the Gospel.

on.

4. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? In the Prophet's heart was the sure conviction, which events verified, that God could only show mercy to the Gentiles by cancelling the privileges of the Jews. He saw the great oppressor and enemy of God's people apparently admitted to the children's table and enjoying blessings of pardon, while God's own children were left to ruin. We may blame this anger of his as narrow and prejudiced, we may wish that he had appreciated better the riches of Divine mercy; but it is too true that we ourselves often hug our privileges selfishly and forget the great multitude of souls who are left outside. O for a heart that welcomed all dispositions, all conditions, to the banquet of God's grace! O that anger at our own follies swallowed up all jealousy of our brethren !

5. 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.

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6. And the Lord God 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 grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

What was this gourd that for a while overshadowed the complaining Prophet with its grateful shelter? I see here the glories of the Jewish dispensation. It figures the earthly Canaan, the sacrifice of slain beasts, the literal Temple, all the apparatus of the law, to which Jews, even when they had become Christians, clung with close grasp. This great tree spread its shelter over them, and they trusted in it. Meanwhile they viewed with envious eyes the conversion of the Gentiles, which daily became more clear and certain. They put their trust in a transitory protection, which God designed shortly to remove.

7. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 8. 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. 9. 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.

What, his last shelter gone, his last trust deceived? Was all to go wrong with him? No, do not think that the great Prophet is really so stirred by the fading of a withered leaf. He bore the character of his people Israel when they found themselves in presence of God's mercy that was working the conversion of the Gentiles. When the morning of the Gospel rose over heathen lands, the Jews suspected and complained of it. All through the Acts and Epistles we notice how hard it was for them to believe that Christ Jesus was 'the Saviour of all men.' They remained under the shadow of the legal rites, and would not quit it. Presently, as the Lord Himself had expressly and minutely foretold, all that glory withered away. Jerusalem, the Temple, the nation's life, the soil of the sacred land, all passed from them, and they were left desolate. To them the Spirit's power which vivified Gentile hearts was but 'a vehement east wind,' sweeping away all they loved. They clung passionately to the faded leaf while all around them the good seed of faith was springing up to fresh life. Let me not, O Lord, set my hopes on anything transitory. Let me suit myself to the varying dispensations of Thy grace. Let me find Thy Altar and Thy Scriptures an abiding shelter, whatever else is

gone.

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