The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 18

them might pass unnoticed. A le.rge proportion of the heterodoxy extant origin11toe in or is exaggerated by II desire to ca.tch the public eye. The evil it does to the souls of men will go on so long as there a.re nominal servants who he.ve a private intorcst dearer to them than the Master's work. And the persona.I disappointment and suffer- inii; aud failure of the prophet a.re the experiencos bound to be repeated in e.11 ea.sea of ~piritual renegadism like it. I. 'l'HEY RUN HARD WHOM Goo's JlJDGMENTS CANNOT OVERTAKE. Jonah soe.rcely hoped to get away from God. But he did expect to get away from his work. It lay north-east, and be went south-west. He was determined not to be near the place where duty lay, lest by any chance he should be compelled to do it. In this he succeeded for the time, and he succeeded still more fully in getting morally and spiritually away from the Most High. Not depths of see. or wilds of desert, could have taken him so far from God as the moral elements implied in the.t flight. But he found that desertion, however possible, ce.n never be satisfactory. God's authority is not to be run away from. He makes storms his artillery, and thunders e.fter the run- away. He makes heathen s'.Lilors his officers, e.nd captures him in his flight. He me.kes a fish's belly his dungeon keep, e.nd puts him in durance there. Do not for a moment dream of evading God. If you run a.way from his spade, you run age.inst his sword. You can run away from sobriety, but not from the white liver and empty purse and premature grave that drunkenness brings. You ce.n run away from purity, but not from the debilitated frame, and the cloyed appetite, and the hell of a strengthen- ing lust with failing power to feed it. You can run awe.y from charity, but not from the heart-hardness and bitterness and gnawing unrest of all loveless souls. Disobedi- ence accomplished means judgment on the way, and judgment on the way means judgment a.head of the transgressor, and waiting for him as the angel for wretched Balaam (Rom. ii. 3). Il. THE JUDGMENTS SENT AFTER THE GUILTY OFTEN FALL ON THE INNOCENT AS WELL. "Sin," says Chrysostom, "brings the soul into much senselessness." It brought Jonah to think that he could pla.y off nature age.inst its God, and escape him by the help of his own winds and' tides. It brought him to pit one of the gree.t ships of Tarshisb-the East lndiamen of that time-against God's east wind (Ps. xlviii. 7). But mighty merchantman or tiny skiff, it is e.ll one to the hurricane's blast. The prophet, so far from getting out of trouble himself, got others into it (vers. 4, 5). The sailors suffered fatigue and alarm; the ship-owners suffered loss of freight; other vessels near suffered dilapidations; indeed, many interests were harassed before Jonah himself was reached. That is the rule with all sin. In almost every offence against the second table of the Law our neighbour suffers first. Then, after the offender begins to suffer, his suffering in tum involves the family and social circles in which he is. The spendthrift's poverty, the debauchee's disease, the felon's disgrace, go down infallibly to children, and it may be children's children. Sinning against God you are indirectly sinning against man, and sinning against one man, you are practically sinning against all his friends and all your own. Such a following of evils does the transgressor drag after him in an ever-lengthening train. ill THOSE WHO HA VE BEEN THE OCCASION OF GBEAT PUBLIO EVIL A.BE OJ'TEN THE LEAST OONCEBNED ABOUT IT. Jonah was the coolest man on board while the big storm was raging. It was due to him, sent after him, meant to arrest his thought e.nd step, and yet, when hardy sailors were frightened, and ignorant bee.then were driven to pray, the erewhile God-fee.ring le.ndsma.n was ma.king himself comfortable below, and curled up fast asleep. So the men who provoked the Flood were cool e.nd calm about it, even when Noah and his family were flying to the ark. To the Sodomites also righteous Lot, preparing to fly the coming doom, seemed but as one that mocked. The hardness produced by recent rebellion had not yet worn off. The murderer does not regret his crime nor fear the gallows while his blood is_ up. The excitement sustains him for a time in reckless disregard of both. But when he has had time to cool down and think, when be gets the cold iron on hie wrists, and sees the outer world through iron bars, when dreams recall his victim's death-struggle or forecast tho scaffold and the dangliog rope, then his crime begins to look like itself, and his doom to put on its proper terrors. Jonah was still in the earlier ste.ge. He did not see his sin yet, and he wu too hot and rebellious to fee.r the punishment. After sin and CH, I, 1-17.] THE BOOK OF JONAH. 15