The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 25

freely. We woniler at the propriety and fitness of the sailors' entire action.· They had no Bible. They learned nothing from the prophet. Yet they took a distinctly. scriptural course. They remlered Goel service in God's appointed way. Does it not seem as if they were somehow taught by bis Holy Spirit; their minds enlightened, their hearts renewed, their nctivity shaped by almighty grace? As to salvation without the Bible, we must s11y, with a leading Reformation Symbol, that" there is no ordinary possibility" of it; but might it not be going too far to say that it is absolutely nnd in the nature of the case impossible? The rule is "salvation by faith, and faith by hearing;" but if the rule does not cover the case of infants, why must it be ta.ken to cover that of all other human beings? 'fhe mere light of nature is doubtless insufficient to give saving knowledge of God; but saving enlightenment can hardly be held impossible in a. mind to which God bas access direct. Humility and charity will alike refuse to mark out a. path for him whose "footsteps are not known." It is ill trying to make the voyage of the religious life with a spiritual Jonah on board. Yet the Church is full of such would-be navigators. There is the Jonah of a. demoralizing occupation-occupation having to do, e.g., with gambling, or betting, or drunkenness, or fraudu~ent manufacture, and it must be thrown overboard or the ship of personal religion will go down. There is the Jonah of some pet sin, which, like Herod to Herodias, we cling to and prefer to Christ; and if we would escape the lake of fire we must "pluck it out and cast it from us." There is above all the Jonah of an unbe- lieving heart. Men will have a religion without self-surrender; will do anything and everything but yield themselves to God. Yet they must do this, or all else is vain. Unbelief is in its nature fatal, cuts off the dead soul from its life in Christ. We ask yon one question-Will you give yourself now and here to Christ? If you answer, "Yes," you are a saved man. If you answer, "No," we need pursue the inquiry no further, for heaven is as inaccessible to you as if Christ the Way to it had never come.-J. E. H. Ver. 17.-" The sign of the Prophet Jonas." God sees the end from the beginning. He means it from the beginning. He is moving towards it from the beginning. There are no isolated events. Each is connected with a series leading up to it. The series is so long that we cannot see its earlier steps, much less observe their direction. But nothing is surer than that from the first they have a trend toward that one which is their ultimate effect. In proof of this we have only to select a series on which we have the light of Scripture, such as that leading up to the work of Christ. There are many such series. One leads up to bis birth, another to his education, another to his sufferings, another to his death; and so on. And these series lead up to it in various ways. There is a. prophetic series, and a. typical series, and a contributory series, and a causal series. And there are events which lead up to it in two or three of these capacities at once. Such an event is tbe one recorded here, as the New Testament Scriptures repeatedly affirm. Consider this event- I. As A MIRACLE. It was clearly outside the natural order. The shark or other sea-monster was "prepared" by God. It swallowed Jonah, contrary to its habit, withont crushing him between its teeth. He remained alive in its stomach for days, contrary to all known physical laws. He was cast out safely on land, contrary to all natural probabilities. Seeing, as he could not but see, God's band in the whole thin!s, Jonah would learn from it: 1. The Divine resistless purpose. Throwing off allegiance, he fled from duty like a. man resolved on any terms to get away. But God went after him in a way that showed he meant to have his work done. The fugitive was stopped by wind and wave and conspiring circumstances as by an adamantine wall, impossible to break through. He knew now that God W!\S a God who cannot be baulked, and who will have his way. The same lesson we all need to learn. Much rebellion arises out of a ho.If-conscious expectation that God at last will give way, and our disobedience be all condoned. And ha.If the afflictions we suffer are to cure us of our wilfulness and conceit of irresponsibility. They teach us that God's arm, not ours, is strongest-that his will, not ours, must rule. When we have appropriated and endorsed the sentiment, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt," our life-sky will clear, and tho thunder-clouds that threatened a deluge will discharge themselves in fertilizing showers. 2. The Divine con- iistent character. s~verity was conspicuous up to the point of the prophet'8 immersion. 22 'i'H~ BOO'! 011' JONAil. tcm. I. 1-l'f,