Two sermons, of Jonahs punishmentTwo sermons, of Ionahs punishment

For what a blessing felt Jonah, God vouchsafing him of this honour, to offer them a lively, holy, & acceptable sacrifice to God, by whom he presently before greatly feared to have been offered a dead, unholy, and so a delightful sacrifice to Satan. This fear banished, & that joy possessing him, what a mercy of the almighty did Jonah think it? But before he converted the Ninevites, he was more to be humbled, fuller to be strengthened, better every way to be prepared. Therefore God would have the sea to wash him, the Whale to fast him, and yet miraculously safe to preserve him, that being purified, he might pray fervently, and being delivered, find power, comfort, and courage abundantly. Therefore when by ¹lot being taken, and by his own confession found the man that procured the tempest, the Mariners in love and compassion of him, had assayed by rowing to get to land, but could not, the sea raging more and more, and Jonah ²himself professed he knew the tempest was sent for his cause, and would be laid he being cast into the Sea. Jonah ³at length was cast out of the ship into the swelling purge of the tempestuous sea. What hope of life then left? is there any? to swallow up all, soon after he is swallowed whole of a Whale. Here let us mark, that after the tempest ⟨image 20⟩had terrified Jonah, the mariners reproved him: when they had reproved him, his conscience pricked him: when his conscience had pricked him, the consulting to cast lots grieved him: after grief for consulting, their concluding to cast lots vexed him: vexed at their conclusion, the lot condemns him: the lot having condemned him, in what an agony think we was Jonah? partly, that he should be held that notorious wretch that had brought this woe? partly, least they in their raging grief, for their great trouble of body, loss of goods, and danger of life, should forthwith kill him for a sacrifice, to appease the unknown angry God? But after this agony, the terror of drowning followed, and after that the horror of the huge fish: first, least it tear him in pieces, then least it melt him, afterward, least it poison him: lastly, three days and three nights the comfortless horror of darkness, and noisome stink in the fishes belly tormented him.