the gate to a new life. The life of Jonah after his virtual resurrection was a new one, and greatly higher than the old. He emerges from the sea a new man, in a new relation to God, with a new purpose of heart, and a new life-career opening out. "His old life is cancelled; all its guilt obliterated; all its evils interruptive of Divine fellow- ship and blessing abolished-left behind in the depths of the sea. He is dead to the pest; and it has no more hold on him, no more evidence against him, no more wrath in store for him" (Martin). A prominent element in this new life was the preaching to Gentile Nineveh. But for it that heathen city would have perished for lack of knowledge. So also the resurrection-life of Christ is new (Rom. vi.10). Living always to God, he lives to him now in a new sense. " He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.n And as he rose no bond of law kept bold on him any more; no condemnation la.id its taint upon him any more ; the glory of bis Father's unmingled and eternal favour shone upon him now for evermore; and in his Father's favour he had life, his risen and eternal life" (Martin). In short, the risen Saviour's life is life in a new sphere, and a new relation and to new purpose. By that life, moreover, be enters the door which by hie death he opened (Eph. ii. 11-17)-the door of access to the Gentile world (Matt. xxviii. 16-20; Acts i. 5-8). The risen Saviour gives the Scriptures to be preached to the ends of the earth, and the apostles and teachers to preach them, and the Spirit to apply them, and the Church to embody them in her Christ-like life. And thus is negotiated a wider repentance than of Nineveh, and with greater results. "God bath also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." III. As A SIGN, A sign is a miracle viewed from the evidential standpoint, a Divine work regarded as authenticating a Divine truth. Jonah's entombment served this purpose (Matt. xii. 39). 1. It was a sign to the Ninwites. (Luke xi. 30.) Jonah in Nineveh would be full of his unparalleled adventure. He would tell the people of his virtual death and rising again by the hand of God. And would not the amazing story credential the prophet as beyond dispute the messenger of God? He would declare to them how the miracle of judgment which had consigned him to the deep had been, if possible, outdone by the miracle of mercy which had saved him "from the belly of hell." And would he not be thus a sign at once of God's resistless vengeance on sin, and his unspeakable mercy to the penitent? From such a God the Ninevites would know what they had to expect in the one character and in the other. 2. It was the archetype of the Bign of the resurrection. (Matt. xii. 49,) The miracles of Christ were all signs. The effect of them was to certify his Divine mission, and bring men to faith in his Name (Matt. xxvii. 54; John xi. 45). On many, however, they were practically thrown away. The Jews clamoured for a. sign, while signs were being wrought before their very eyes. To this blind demand of insuperable unbelief there would be one further concession. The sign of the Prophet Jonah would be repeated in the Person of Christ by the resurrection on the third da.y. This was an unchallenga.ble sign of the Divine mission of our Lord (Rom. i. 4). If the dead One rose, then undoubtedly that dead One must have been the Son of God (1 Cor. xv. 14). The resurrection of Christ was the Father's sign-manual to the Son's claim to a Divine character and an accepted work. It was a sign, too, of the Divine attitude toward sin. Ta.ken in connection, as it must be, with the death and burial, the whole was, like Jonah's miraculous experience, a graphic attestation of wrath against sin, removed as soon as satisfied, but inappeasable till then. If God" spared not his own Son," whom will he spare? If the sin laid on Christ is punished to the full, how much more the sin that remains on the sinner I And then, if Christ rises into a new life the moment his assumed connection with sin ends by death, shall not we, dead to our sin by the body of Christ, be raised together with him to "walk in newness of life"? The sign of the Prophet Jonah is everything to us. It means Christ credentialled, salvation finished and attested, and II sure hope springing of the resurrection unto life. 1. &e how far God's J°udgments may follow deserters. Generally they include mis- fortune, often sickness, and sometimes death. The principle is that they must be efficacious, and so they go on till they reach their object. The distance you have gone away from God is the measure of the length to which his jodgments will follow you (Col. iii. 25). 2. See how easily God can turn the destroyer into a preserver. Instead of killing Jonah, the fish saves his life. The Divine afflictive agencies operate in like manner. 'fhey wound only to heal; destroy the flesh " that the spirit may be saved ::.'4 THE IlOOK OF JONAH. (orr. 1. 1-17.
in the day of Jesus Christ." Your jndgments are your mercies. Lt>t the Divinemcroy t.hcy reveal be your c.1111 to the duty you owe, your recall to the service you forsake (Ps. lxxxix. 30-33 ; Rev. iii. 19). 3. Realize the high things to which this sign of the Prophet Jonas calls you. The death or Christ w11s for the death of your sin, hie life from the dead for the life of your soul (Rom. vi. 4; Eph. v. 14).-J. E. H.