Jonah 4:11

REFLECTIONS

HERE, Reader, let us pause as we finish the history of Jonah, and gather together into one view the wonderful subject, as it relates to the Lord's servant, and as it relates to the Lord himself, in his abundant grace manifested to such a wayward and rebellious frame of mind. We shall read the account of Jonah's preaching to Nineveh, and his displeasure at the Lord's mercy to little purpose, if we do not learn from the whole to bring the subject home to our own hearts, and under divine teaching discover that the seeds of the same sins, as we find in the Ninevites, and the Prophet, are in our nature also. What (saith the Prophet) are we better than they? No! (saith he) in no wise. For we have before concluded all under sin. And to whom, or from what cause do we ascribe the whole of salvation, but to Jesus and his wonderful undertaking in our nature? Chiefly let the people of God from this history learn, what man in his highest attainments is, if for one moment left to himself. Though like Jonah we have cried from the deep of affliction, when the wormwood and the gall of sin hath been bitterly drank by us; and though from the very belly of hell we have been brought to know the Lord, yet the withering of a gourd will open a-fresh our rebellion, if that thwarting providence, be it what it may, is not sanctified. Precious Lord Jesus! cause both him that writes, and him that reads, to live under the unceasing teachings of thy Holy Spirit, that a spring of humblings and sorrow may be constantly kept open in our souls. Lord, keep from us, as the most dangerous of all evils, every thought of anything and everything in ourselves as righteous; that a sense of the daily workings of corruption, however graciously restrained by thee from breaking out into actual commission, may cause us to go humbly and softly all our day. And above all, dearest Lord, let the daily consciousness of our need of thee, and of thy greatest salvation, make thee daily, yea hourly, more precious to our souls.

Farewell Jonah! I bless my God and Saviour for the profitableness I find under his blessed Spirit's teaching of thy ministry. Even the frailties of my Lord's servants, so faithfully recorded in his holy scriptures, afford instruction to my soul. Men of like passions with ourselves, are better suited in my Lord's service than angels of light. But oh! gracious Lord Jesus! what shall I say, or what shall I offer of thankfulness in beholding thy wonderful condescension in causing a Jonah, amidst all his unworthiness, to be a lively type of thine own person, when accomplishing the purpose of redemption. Here surely Lord, as in a thousand other instances, thy thoughts are not our thoughts, nor thy ways our ways. I bow, Lord, to the dust before thee, and thankfully acknowledge, that both in thine unequalled humiliation and exaltation, thou hast a name above every name, and all creation shall confess that thou art Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.