From all this we may learn, _First_, that though God may suffer his people to fall into sin, yet he will not suffer them to lie still in it, but will take a course effectually to show them their error, and to bring them to themselves, and to their right mind again. We have reason to hope that Jonah, after this, was well reconciled to the sparing of Nineveh, and was as well pleased with it, as ever he had been displeased. _Second_, that God will justify himself in the methods of his grace toward repenting returning sinners, as well as in the course his justice takes with them that persist in their rebellion, though there are those that murmur at the mercy of God, because they do not understand it, (for his thoughts and ways therein are as far above ours as heaven is above the earth) yet he will make it evident that therein he acts like himself, and will be justified when he speaks. See what pains he takes with Jonah, to convince him that it was very fit that Nineveh should be spared. Jonah had said, I do well to be angry, but he could not prove it; God says, I do well to be merciful, and proves it; and it is a great encouragement to poor sinners to hope that they shall find mercy with him, that he is so ready to justify himself in showing mercy, and to triumph in those whom he makes the monuments of it, against those who is evil because he is good; such murmurers shall be made to understand this doctrine, that how narrow soever their souls and their principles are, and how willing soever they are to engross divine grace to themselves, and those of their own way, their is one Lord over all, that is rich in mercy to all that call on him, and in every nation, Nineveh as well as in Israel, he that fears God, and works righteousness, is accepted of him, and he that repents and turns from his evil way shall find mercy with him. Did not the fate of this prophet typify our Saviour’s being cast into the raging sea of divine wrath; his lying a part of three days in the grave; his glorious resurrection from the dead; and the publication of his gospel to multitudes of perishing sinners that followed. We cannot close more fitly, perhaps than by extracting a few lines from the powerful summing up by the poet Young.