The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 15

clone, nor the feelings which prompted it have found a home in his heart. To fly from God's service btcrmse H involved the helping of men is a course consistent it may be with grace, but only with grace alloyed, inchoate, and overlaid with the mind or flesh. J. lN GoD'B ARMY IT 1B F.ITHER DESERTION OR DUTY. "Jonah rose np to flee from the presence of the Lord." There was a. Divine presence from which Jonah was not so ignorant as to attempt escape. He shows familiarity with the Book of Psalms (eh. ii. 2-9), and doubtless knew with the psalmist (Ps. cx:xxix. 7-10) that there was no place outside God's omnipresence. But there was a special presence of God in the land of Israel. He was present in gracious hearts, and in the ordinances and offices of the Church. 'l'his special and gracious presence Jonah, like Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 16), seems to have considered peculiar to the Holy Land. He had a notion probably tha.t the institutions arising out of it were purely local also, and that flight to heathen Spain would break the spiritual connection and void his prophetic ofljce. His flight was "not from God's presence, but from standing before him as bis minister . . . he renounced his office" (Pusey). And the act was logical in one aspect, how- ever criminal. Enlistment in God's service means something. It is not playing at campaigning. It is not a kind of spiritual autumn manceuvres, which merely give spice to a periodical outing. It incurs responsibility and involves obedience. "I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty. I woke, and found that life was duty." 'l'hat all must find who are spiritually awake. There is work for all, and his task for each. And it has got to be done. In the Divine code stand the regulations of the service, and they are not to be trifled with. Idleness is out of the question; insub- o_rdination is not to be named. Jonah felt this. "He rose up to flee." He could not point-blank refuse, and stand his ground. Do something he must, when the word went forth. He will not preach, and so he has got to fly. It is so always. A man cannot remain at his post and strike work. The eye of the Master would look him through, and his presence compel obedience. The mutineer is in the same hour a deserter. He can maintain the one character only by adopting the other. Our spirit.ual duties arise out of our spiritual relations, and are at the same time their necessary expression. The alternative with us is "both or neither." Refuse God'! work, and you put yourself out of his service. II. BIGOTRY IS AN INEVITABLE WEAKENER OF THE MORAL BENSE. Some think Jonah refused to summon the Ninevites to repentance for fear they might take him at his word. Their reformation just now would not have suited his views. As heathen he disliked them, and as wicked he could use them as a foil for wicked Israel. Nineveh penitent, on the other hand, after one Divine warning, would have contrasted strongly with Israel impenitent after centuries of prophetic appeal, and he dreaded the repentance which would have been the occasion of such a damaging comparison. But this is clearly an exaggeration of Jonah's feeling in the matter. No prophet of God, no servant of God, could connive at sin against God in order to the destruction of men. To do so would be incompatible altogether with the religious character. Still, Jonah would have been more or Jess than a Jew if he had not been a bigot. He would not wantonly have compassed Nineveh's ruin. But being a bigot, and an egoist as well, he was so indifferent to the fate of the heathen city as to be ready to sacrifice it rather than risk the lowering of his own prophetic reputation. In all this \"l"e see the tokens of a weakened moral sense. Bigotry is an unequalled hardener of the heart. It is narrow, cold, sour, and carping. It denies or belittles all good out~ide its own ecclesi- astical circle. Whilst blind to extern religious excellence, it is indifferent to extcm religious attainment. It takes covert pleasure in the sins and weaknesses of rival Churches; it would regard their failure and collapse with mean complacency; and it would almost us lief see men remaining in sin as reformed by effort not its own. The tendency to look every man and Church on our own things is a natural one, an,l grows. Aud it recessarily inv~lves the other tendency, its obverse, to look away from the things of c.thers. 'l'his is the very antipodes of the "mind of Christ." That believes in the llignity of man ns man. It sets a unique value on human life. lt regnrds the question of a human destiny as one of stupendous interest. It nnu,es the securing of it a personal concern. It never asks," Am I my brother's keeper·," for the  12 THE BOOK OF JON AH. [orr. 1, 1-17,