194 THE BLESSINGS OF TRIBULATION. imparts, for example, the blessing of health. We enjoy it; but God is never praised, and then we complain if he takes it away. Or, God imparts to us the blessing of friendship. We enjoy it, and forget the Friend who sticketh closer than a brother. Nay, strange as it may seem, God in Christ holds out the blessings of pardon and eternal life; and we would fain get possession of these without caring for God himself—I mean, we would fain enjoy a pardon, and yet continue in sin. Jonah is the very type of men in that condition. If grace did not prevent, nature would take God's gifts—it would rejoice in them—and yet live in rebellion against Him who bestows them all. It is perhaps superfluous to unfold at greater length the instructions which are presented here. The pro phet trusted in his gourd. forgot the God who sent it. He rejoiced in it; but he taken away; and where was Jonah then? Precisely where the sons of men are now, when their refuges of lies are swept away from around them. It was only for a single day that Jonah enjoyed the gourd, but that was enough to unveil the condition of his heart, when the thing in which he trusted withered before his eyes. It is in miniature, or in compend, the history of man. By nature we have all some gourd under which we sit we all have something which we put in the place of God. His gifts are preferred to himself; for we all think it better to have the creature for a portion than God over all blessed for ever. But is it not a blessing when these gourds wither? Is it not mercy in God to sweep them utterly away, even though the heart should be half-broken by the loss? THE WITHERED GOURD. 195 There is one reposing, for example, on his goods laid up for many days, and regarding them just as Jonah did the goodly foliage of the sheltering plant. Is it not a mercy, in the high reckoning of eternity at least, to have these gifts of God withdrawn, that God himself may be our trust? Another is reposing under the shadow of some protecting friend. To him, and not to God, the eye of hope, or the heart of expectation, turns. Now, is it not a mercy, according to the standard of the sanctuary at least, that that earthly friend should be withdrawn, that we may learn to lean upon the Lord alone? A third may be seeking all the heaven which he knows in something which perishes in the using. Is it not well that the delusion should be swept away, that God may be sought and eternity provided for? Many will bless God for ever, because their gourds were withered-just as the saints in glory praise the King of saints, "because they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword, they wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." Had the gourd not withered, the soul would not have been saved, and the withering of the gourd, therefore, makes the anthem of the saved the louder. We might perhaps deduce another lesson here from the creature employed by the mighty God to destroy the prophet's pleasing refuge-a worm-a thing so worthless that we often tread on it without care or compunction, yet powerful, when God employed it, to add misery to misery in man. We pass, however, from that to mention one general lesson more which presses itself on our notice, from passage after passage in the life 196 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GRACE. of Jonah. We have seen his waywardness displayed in scene after scene. We have heard him vindicate his flight and his anger. We have beheld him galled and grieved, because Jehovah was a God of mercy; and yet, with all this, we know that he was a prophet raised up by God-he delivered God's message, and promoted his purposes on earth. See, then, how God over all selected this man, not from any good that was in him, but just because Jehovah was pleased to call him. It was not goodness in the prophet, it was grace in God-it was not because Jonah willed, but because God willed, that this man was singled out as a vessel of mercy-—and so it ever is. When God in Christ set his heart upon the sons of men, it was not because of their goodness or their claims to his favour. Nay, for they lay polluted in their blood. They sinned, and could do nothing but sin till grace interposed; and as grace did interpose, that is the firm foundation on which the sinner's hope reposes, even the free and sovereign favour of Jehovah. Try to found it elsewhere, in all this withering world, and you are building upon the sand; but rest on that grace which came by Jesus Christ, and then, though the storm were beating, and the floods were coming down-though every gourd were withered, and every earthly hope quenched in disappointment for ever, our heavenly hopes would rest immovably upon that Rock which is Christ. CHAPTER XVII. "And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"-JONAH iv. 8-11. It would be difficult to say, whether the tokens of God's holy justice, or of his abounding mercy be the more numerous in the Scriptures. At one place it is made plain that not a single sin can escape from punishment -at another, that mercy rejoices over judgment, or that grace abounds to the chief of sinners; and the earnest, but not fully enlightened soul, is sometimes at a loss whether to tremble at the inevitable justice, or rejoice in the exuberant mercy of Jehovah. But all doubt is dispelled the moment that we understand the gospel of our salvation. It is there that the mercy of God shines out eclipsing all besides, as sunlight appears to extinguish the stars. We can no longer question the loving-kindness of the Lord, when we see 198 THE GLAD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY. what has been done that sinners might have hope. As mercy rejoices over judgment, as even the ungodly are invited back to the favour of the Holy One, and as our very sins are made reasons for our fleeing to Jehovah, we now perceive that the gospel is glad tidings of great joy indeed. As a plan of mercy based upon justice, it is a very munition of rocks to the soul, and we can dwell in perfect peace under that shelter, which is as glorifying to God as it is safe for man. Now, we have been engaged in contemplating in the book of Jonah a signal display of this mercy of God. But that mercy has strangely distempered the mind of the prophet. He reckoned the case of Nineveh one in which justice should have taken its unchecked course; and when mercy in God rejoiced to spare, Jonah felt like an injured man. He complained like one defrauded of his due. But we have also seen that that complaint led only to misery. Jonah was opposing the will of the Supreme; and he found, as every sinner sooner or later does, that he could not prosper in that course, unless he were mightier than the Almighty. In the portion of his history now before us, his trials are accordingly multiplied; for, after the withering of his gourd, and the withdrawing of his comfort, you read, "When the sun did rise, God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted, and wished in himself to die." "The sun had arisen," we read. All around the prophet was joyous; for nature had been refreshed by another night's repose; the majestic Tigris and the mighty city rejoiced together; but while all were thus gladdened by the sunlight again |