The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 16

fact is with it an axiomatic truth. Loving its neighbour as itself, its moral ntlitudo inspires its active one--'' do good to all." It regards life as wasted if not lived for men a.nd the time as lost in which it does not "save some." ' III. hmLORIOU8 DUTY IS MOST IN DANGER OF DEING LEFT UNDONE, Jonah had nn idea how his mi~sion would end. As a prophet, he knew that Nineveh would repent, and on repentance be spared, his prophecy to the contrary notwithstanding (eh. iv. 2). And the prospect was humbling to his self-love. The affair could bring him little credit. He was simply to deliver an empty threat, a threat the utterance of which would serve God's purpose, and so prevent the necessity of carrying it out. How was he to get up a prophetic reputation by performing such a task? Warnings heeded and predictions fulfilled are the chief credentials of a prophet. The first is, both in itself and in its practical results, by far the more important. But the second is more of a personal interest to the prophtt as involving his credibility more directly, Hence in proportion as he is "yet carnal" and self-seeking it will bulk more largely in his re;::ard. A Paul could say," We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord" and mean it thoroughly. But the perfect self-sinking of the apostolic rule was an un~caled height to the egotistic prophet. He wanted a name and official distinction more than the exhibition of God's mercy and the reformaiion of wicked men. Accordingly he refused to assume an equivocal position, although he knew, and because he kne:, it would lead to these prime results. And servants his counterparts are still found in God's work. The men who "do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame" no doubt exist. But the blushes traceable to this source are a small proportion of the blushes current. He has reached a high spiritual level who so lives to God that personal considerations are as nothin~ in his work. Position and visibility, to say nothing of considerations more sordid still, are elements in the situation, hard to keep subordinate,- harder still to ignore, when the Christian worker is making choice of fields. .&,place in the most distant mission field may single out a worker from the crowd, and the missionary pioneer finds temptations to pose before the Church as strong as beset the brightest metropolitan star. The large giver, moreover, or the great organizer, has as many temptations to self-seeking as either. It is so through all dep11.rtments of acfo·ity and in all the walks of life. The work that brings fortune and fame will have thousands competing for a chance to do it, 'l'he only duty in practical danger of being shirked is the duty to be followed into obscure places, and done with only the eye of God to note our faithfulness. IV. RETREAT FROM Goo IS RESOLUTE, AND ADIB AT ENTIRE ISOLATION. Jonah started at a run. .Be evidently meant to get away, and threw all his energy into the effort. He went, too, in a direction exactly the opposite of the one in which he he.d been sent. God had said, "Go north-east," and he went south-west. .,He set out, more- over, for the remotest place he knew of, Spain being the "far West" of those early times. He went about it also in the most business-like way, going to Joppa, the great seaport, and booking a berth on one of the great ships of Tarshish, to break which was the magnum opus of the east wind (Ps. xlviii. 7). All which things are no doubt nn allegory. The sinner's drawing near to God is done at a snail's pace. Loving this sinful world, he hangs back long before he starts. Answering feebly as yet to the drawing of grace, and breaking cord after cord in t;lie tearing of himself away, the motion toward God at first is slow and painful, like that of a weak oarsman against a rapid stream. But like a stone down hill, and drawn by mighty gravitation, the motion away from God is by leaps and bounds (Rom. vii. 19, 22, 23). You have seen at the docks the seamen straining at the windlas?, as, after minutes of strenuous effort, they have pulleyed a bale of IDercbaudise high in air. And you have seen, when they let go the winch, how swiftly the handle flies and, as the rope unrolls, the bale comes rushing down. And such is retrogression in contrast to progress in the religious sphere. So much more quickly do men fall than rise, that a few days' backsliding ill enough to neutralize the growth of years. Then so opposite to God is the sinful heart that its dtparture from him is absolute turning back. Swerving would be bad, aberra- tion would be worse, but regression is worst of all ; and such is religious backsliding. It is spiritual tergiversation. The renegade turns his back on right, and takes a way the very opposite. He obeys Satan and follows sin, the antipodes respectively of God and uod. If God's way be light, his is darkness; if upwards, his is down.wards jnfalliblf, oe. 1. 1-17.] THE BOOK OF JON AH. 13