and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope." As the Church of all ages is essentially one, so also is the manifested character of God; and whenever, or wherever, any child of God, and any portion of his Church, find themselves in a situation answerable to the testimonies recorded of past troubles or deliverances, they both may and ought to appropriate the language to themselves. For God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; what he was, and what he has done in the past, he still is, and is ready to do in the future; and what he reveals of himself to one, he virtually declares to all to the very end of time.

In this appropriating use of the recorded experiences of former times, and the utterances of divine truth connected with them, not Jonah alone, but our blessed Lord himself, has left us an example of faith exercising itself thus under trial and temptation. As when, to refer only to one specimen, he replied to the solicitation of the tempter to turn a stone into bread, by saying, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." When and where was it so written? By Moses (in Deut. viii. 3), when rehearsing to the Israelites, at the close of their sojourn in the wilderness, the wonderful nature of God's dealings with them, and the support he miraculously provided through manna, when they were cut off from all ordinary supplies of food-" that he might make thee know (said the man of God), that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that

proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live." Might make thee know this, and with thee every child of God to the latest time. Therefore did the holy child Jesus take it in his state of wilderness bereavement as a word of direction and promise to him, 'not less than if it had been specially addressed to himself; and by his example he instructs us to do the same, and to make a corresponding use of all the memorials of God's past dealings with his people. He bids us enter by faith into their history; and, when we are conscious of standing in a situation similar to theirs, to make its lessons of wisdom or its words of comfort our own-it is a revelation of God

to us.

But the instruction may also be applied with greater latitude to the word of God at large. Not some select portions merely, but that word as a whole will always become precious, when affliction is truly sanctified; faith will then be ever ready to repair thither as to its storehouse to get counsel from the Lord and replenish itself with arguments. "This is my comfort in my affliction; for thy word hath quickened me." And again, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." As much as to say, I did not know till I was in trouble and distress what was in thy word; I had but skimmed its surface, and knew not the depth of meaning, the rich mine of instruction and blessing, that is laid up in it. But I now know it; my own trials and necessities have opened out its infinite

suitableness to my condition, and taught me to appreciate its divine cordials, as well as to listen to its wholesome counsels. It is well to know the word of God at any time, even in the day of security and repose; for otherwise we shall not be prepared, in the season of peculiar need, to draw from it the strength and refreshment it is fitted to impart. But the full sense of its amazing richness and incomparable preciousness can be attained only in the school of tribulation. There then appears a reality, a felt adaptation to the wants and necessities of our case, in its tidings of mercy, its promises of love, even its darker representations, the sighs from the deep, the struggles of faith, the manifold alternations of fear and hope, through which it leads us-of which we were very imperfectly conscious before. The rod is blessed in the truest sense, when it thus brings us acquainted with the hidden treasures of wisdom and grace which lie enclosed in the word of God.

4. The last thing deserving of notice in the prayer of Jonah, as a mark of sanctified affliction, is the purpose of amendment it expresses. This rather runs through the whole of it, and appears in the altered tone of feeling it breathes toward God and his service, than comes distinctly out in any separate and formal announcements. We feel, it is impossible for us to doubt, while we read these meditations of his heart, that he is now cured of flying from God, and is resolutely bent on following the path of duty, wherever that may lead. Silently comparing his behaviour

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in the past to the conduct of idolaters, those who regard lying vanities"-for whatever withdraws the trust of the soul, and steals away the homage of its affections from God, is in substance an idol, and as such a delusive vanity, whose promises can end only in disappointment and ruin-Jonah now declares his conviction of the folly of such courses; it is forsaking for vain shadows the very source of love and beneficence; and he therefore turns to God, whom he can now regard also as the author of his salvation, with the vow of thankful and devoted obedience. will sacrifice to thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed."

"I

When trials and distresses are sent, as in the case of Jonah, for correction and reproof in backsliding, this is always of necessity the great end and issue to which they point. They must, if not sent in vain, work in us a thorough sense of the folly, as well as guilt of sin, and of the wisdom and happiness, not less than the duty, of obedience. While they do not forbid us to count the cost of a dutiful surrender to the will of God, they call us, with a voice of stern rebuke, to count the incomparably greater cost of a refusal, and seek to enforce upon our deceitful and foolish hearts the salutary lesson, that if we would do well to ourselves we must first do faithful and willing service to God. Let the heart, therefore, of the believer ever say to itself, when cast by Christ into the furnace of affliction: "My Lord sits here as a refiner of silver; he would have me entirely separated

F

from what mars the purity of my affections, and interferes with the integrity of my obedience. Let me fall in with his design, and, giving the dross of my corruption to be burnt up as in the fire of his judgment, devote myself anew as a living sacrifice to his fear; so that, if I must confess with the Psalmist, Before I was afflicted I went astray,' with him also I may be enabled to add, 'But now I keep thy

word.""