Early English Protestant John Hooper used the Book of Jonah as the foundation for a series of seven lenten sermons for King Edward VI of England in 1550.  Convinced that the use of clerical vestments was a sinful vestige of worldly Roman Catholicism, Hooper was the primary instigator of the so called "vestiarian controversy."  The debate over the wearing of clerical vestments was in large part a debate over the essentials and ideals of Christian identity (Davies, 73). 

 John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester

    Hooper's sermons use the Book of Jonah to support the Protestant opposition to bishops having to wear “Aaronic” ceremonial vestments, including a cope and surplice, and the declaration of the oath by the saints. Hooper opposed these practices, arguing that they were remnants of Roman Catholicism with no biblical warrant, since early church services had not required them.  Although Hooper was one of the loudest advocates, such views were not uncommon among other Protestant iconoclasts who "desired to do away with all images of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnate Son of God, and the saints, as a breaking of the Second Commandment against 'graven images'" (Davies, 350). After declining to be consecrated as bishop of Gloucester according to existing rites, Hooper appeared in a court case that eventually led to the compromise that ceremonial vestments were to be understood as adiaphora (“things indifferent” rather than articles of faith): though Hooper could be consecrated as bishop without wearing the "Aaronic vestments," others could wear them if they wished.

     Following King Edward VI’s death, Mary Tudor ascended England’s throne, repealing her predecessor’s legislations. In March 1554, Hooper’s bishopric appointment was taken away from him because he was a married man (not allowed under Catholic practice), and was soon imprisoned. According to the March 1554 heresy acts, Hooper was now, under a Catholic queen, a heretic, and his execution was eminent. On February 9, 1555, Hooper was burned at the stake in Gloucester.

John Hooper at the Stake

    While Edward VI was still on the throne, however, Hooper delivered his seven sermons on Jonah in February of 1550. Hooper used the text of Jonah to support his adamant denunciation of the need for clerical vestments and the declaration of the oath by the saints that was prescribed in the new Ordinal.  Hooper sets out his concern directly in the dedicatory epistle to the king that accompanied the sermons: “Most gracious king and noble counselors, as you have taken away the mass from the people so take from them its feathers also, the altar, vestments, and such like as have appareled her; and let the holy communion be decked with the holy ceremonies with which the high and wise priest Christ, decked and appareled it first of all" (Hooper, 90).   Hooper's Protestant stance against what he considered to be the human (and therefore not Divine) elements of the church set him even more solidly in the belief that the text of the Bible itself is one of the few sources of Divine truth.  He turns in these sermons therefore to the text of Jonah to argue against the elaborate clerical vestments of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the veneration of the saints also central to Catholicism.  Hooper finds support for his stance in nearly every turn of the text, from aligning Jonah with himself and to aligning Jonah with the Catholic "sinners."  Though the primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate various interpretations of the book of Jonah, we would also propose that in his overly confident sense of his own Divinely inspired mission, Hooper takes too many liberties with his interpretation of the text and in so doing weakens his argument with contradictory readings of aspects of Jonah. 

    Hooper was concerned that the church return to what he viewed as the original elements that Christ prescribed for her.  He felt that if ceremonial elements were not supported by scripture, then they were not only indifferent, but heretical.  Hooper turned often to scripture to support his definition of vestments and oath by the saints as sinful.  In Hooper’s first sermon on Jonah, which we will focus on, he asserts the validity of his claim to declaring God’s truth by comparing himself with the “holy prophet Jonah.”  Other protestant reformation sources, such as the commentary on Jonah in the Geneva Bible, view Jonah as a true and holy prophet, though sometimes his actions force God to show the darker side of God’s omnipotence.  More recent protestant views on Jonah tend to characterize him as primarily disobedient and selfish.  But Hooper speaks of him with reverence as a holy prophet, no less than Isaiah or Elijah (Hooper, 96).

    Hooper establishes a comparison of the current state of tumult in England with the state of the ancient Israelites: “The state and condition of the commonwealth was troublous and very unquiet, for their idolatry in following the learning invented by man, and leaving the word of God, had been punished by God with many great and cruel wars” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper seems convinced that Jonah's cause is analogous to his own.  He states at the outset of the sermon that, “the doctrine we preach unto his majesty’s subjects is one and the same with that of the prophets and apostles; and that it is as old as the doctrine of them both, and not as new as these papists” (Hooper, 95).   By comparing the current chaotic state of the church with the “tumultuous state” of Jonah’s time, Hooper draws a parallel between the two settings.  In this context, Hooper says that the people of his time sin and fail to hear the voices of the prophets just as they have in the Bible: “They would be naughty idolaters and vicious livers continually… [and] rather give faith unto the prophets of men and liars than unto the prophets of God who are true men” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper moves from this parallel between the climate of unrest in his time and Jonah’s, to using this as a platform for establishing the validity of his argument, that he is speaking God’s truth when he rejects the wearing of vestments.

    Hooper cites the first two verses of the first chapter of Jonah, drawing another parallel between God’s calling Jonah to Hooper’s understanding of the holy commissioning of his own mission:  “The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me” (KJV).  Hooper views himself as a prophet of God, and his mission not unlike that of Jonah.  Confident that his cause is ordained by God, Hooper states that we can discern between, "bishops and ministers of God from the ministers of the devil, by the preaching tongue of the gospel, and not by shaving,  clipping, vestments, and outward apparel... [W]hen God sends such preachers as without fear show unto the world God’s word and punishment for sin, their sin is full ripe, and they must either amend at the preaching, or utterly perish under the plague and scourge of God" (Hooper, 98).  Based on what he deems to be scriptural support for the validity of his mission, Hooper maintains that he is right and those who continue the practices of the Roman Catholic Church are wrong.  He, like a prophet, views himself as having been commissioned by God.  With such prophets of the true Christianity as himself having been sent by God, Hooper declares this to be a sign also that, like the situation in Nineveh, the still-Catholic climate in England is doomed to certain and "severe" punishment if they do not repent as the heathen Ninevites did.

    Although Jonah as prophet is the great prophet-hero of the story with whom Hooper identifies, Hooper nonetheless acknowledges his having disobeyed God by attempting to flee to Tarshish.  Still, Hooper does not use this detail in order to condemn the wickedness of Jonah as many contemporary interpretations of the text do.  Rather, Hooper as prophet/preacher can appreciate the impulse behind Jonah's attempted escape.  Hooper cites 1:3: “Whereupon Jonah rose to fly from the face of the Lord into Tharsis, and came to Japho, and found a ship pressed towards Tharsis.”  Commenting on this, Hooper writes that among the "many godly doctrines" the book of Jonah teaches us, we learn, "how hard and difficult a vocation it is to be a preacher, that in case he be not comforted and strengthened with the especial mercy of God, he cannot, nor is it possible he should, truly preach God’s word” (Hooper, 100).  It is hard to be a preacher, Hooper says, and the desire to run away on the part of Jonah, a true prophet of God, illustrates how difficult a task preaching God's word can be.  Furthermore, Hooper states that it is impossible to "truly preach God's word" unless one is graced with "the especial mercy of God" (Hooper, 100).  This statement could be said to validate Jonah's attempted escape.  At any rate, it suggests that Jonah is not capable of preaching to the Ninevites until he experiences God's mercy, which does not happen in the narrative until he is put in the situation of needing God's mercy for survival (namely when he lands in the belly of the beast), which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't tried to escape.  This appreciation of Jonah's attempted escape also works as a kind of circular argument to suggest that Hooper himself is one of those who has been favored with "the especial mercy of God," and as such, his prophetic cries against elements of Roman Catholicism are divinely inspired.

    Hooper's divine mission is all the more crucial because it is timely.  Not only does he view those around him to be sinners, but he declares that God disapproves of them as well: “Miserable and cursed is our time, cursed of God’s own mouth, that there be such dumb bishops, unpreaching prelates, and such ass-headed ministers in the church of God.  Christ instituted neither singers nor massers, but preachers and witnesses of his true doctrine” (Hooper, 100). Hooper then highlights a different reading of Jonah's fleeing from God.  He compares those who refuse to listen to God’s truth to be like Jonah fleeing from God’s calling: “He that leaves this doctrine untaught in the church, or teaches a contrary doctrine, flees from the face of God, and incurs the danger and damnation which is written” (Hooper, 100).   Indeed, Hooper calls his listeners not to take the threat of God’s punishment lightly, citing Jonah’s experience as a warning: “But a man might say, Tush! it is not so great a matter if a man walk not in his vocation, neither yet is God so much offended with disobedience.  But this fleshly and perverse opinion my soon be corrected, if men would consider the dangers that this poor man Jonah fell into for his disobedience” (Hooper, 101).  This statement works both to warn people against taking disobedience lightly, as well as to justify Hooper’s own position.  He must proceed with his own cause in order to avoid incurring God’s wrath by neglecting to carry out what he feels God has called him to do.  But does it weaken Hooper's argument to issue a double reading of Jonah's fleeing from God, one that loosely aligns himself with such an action, as well as directly compares the sinners of his time with it?  

     Indeed, after comparing both himself and the sinners with Jonah in different ways, Hooper goes on to align the vestment promoting sinners of his time with the idolatrous sailors in the Book of Jonah.  This turn is not surprising, given that the sailors do not worship Jonah's God.  After citing verse 4, Hooper proclaims that "in them [the mariners] is expressed a very lively image of all men that lack faith, how they fear above measure, in the time of trouble” (Hooper, 102).  Moreover, Hooper again draws specific parallels between the sinners of his contemporary climate, in this case regarding the issue of swearing by the saints.  The mariners that cry out each to their own gods are like Roman Catholics: "As it is to be seen in papistry at this present day, when as it is disputed which lady is best, our lady of Bullayne, or our lady of Rome… Further, this text declares that idolaters always seek new gods when their old god deceives them.  So is it among so called christians; when the matter is plainly desperate, they cast a lot between three or four idolatrous pilgrimages which of them shall be the patron of his health” (Hooper, 103).  As the sermon proceeds, it becomes clear that Hooper does not hesitate to use any and all aspects of the biblical story to support his case.  It could be argued that Hooper's confidence in his own mission as being absolutely Divinely inspired leads him to draw parallels with the text with too much freedom.  His protestant emphasis on the truth of scripture may also play a role in his making the text his to analyze as he chooses.  Still, Hooper's sermon displays the versatility of the text, and as such could be said to validate Hooper's belief that scripture is the only material necessity for the true Christian.        

 
Howard Crosby: "The Prepared Worm"    
   
    Howard Crosby's sermon “The Prepared Worm” cites Jonah 4:7 (KJV), "But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered" as its opening text. Crosby, who died in 1891 at the age of sixty-five, had a varied career: after graduating from New York University in 1844, he became professor of Greek at NYU in 1851 and later held a similar position at Rutgers College beginning in 1859. While in New Brunswick, Crosby was ordained pastor of the first Presbyterian church before being appointed chancellor of New York University in 1870, a position he held until 1881 (Johnson and Malone, 586).   Besides these academic and clerical positions, Crosby’s scholarly activities included revising the New Testament and editing Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. He was also involved in social reform, especially in organizing the Society for the Prevention of Crime and focusing on curbing the illegal liquor trade (Kleiser, 88).

    Crosby’s sermon has four key points. First, hardships occur in people’s lives because God “permits it” (Kleiser, 92). God is the “author equally of prosperity and adversity” (Kleiser, 91) who allows Satan to afflict the world “to remove our affections from the world and to place them more devotedly upon our Heavenly Father” (Kleiser, 92). Therefore, when faced with adversity, mankind should not follow Jonah’s example of becoming angry and wishing to die, but rather withstand the adversity knowing that God allows it, and all of God’s actions are just.

    Second, Crosby argues that God “uses the natural laws of the world as “His agents in afflicting” (Kleiser, 93). According to Crosby, the worm in “The Book of Jonah” is only following its natural instinct when it eats away at the gourd, and no wise men of science can explain the behavior of the worm beyond this. There is a purpose for the worm’s existence, as indeed there is a plan that must be followed in every event that occurs in people’s lives as well. “No accident brought the worm there,” says Crosby (Kleiser, 94). Through his actions, God provides Jonah with comfort: he gives him a gourd to protect him from the sun, as well as providing Jonah with hardship.

    Third, Crosby argues that God’s afflictions are just because mankind’s actions deserve nothing except afflictions from God. No one is exempt from sin, as “We are unclean in our natures and by practice, and so, under the covenant which our Maker was pleased to form for us, we can only deserve punishment” (Kleiser, 96). Yet, Crosby points out, despite the countless grievances men have committed against God, people still complain about affliction, just like Jonah did when the worm destroyed the gourd, even though Jonah himself rejected God’s command of going to the Ninevites.

    Crosby’s fourth point is that the reason why God afflicts us all is His “desire that all men may come to repentance” (Kleiser, 96). He does not send afflictions because He hates us – mankind’s actions deserve even greater punishments than the ones God sends. No, God afflicts people in order to improve them and help them “grow in grace” and “cultivate a more heavenly disposition of mind and heart” (Kleiser, 97). God prepared the worm so that it would eat the protective gourd so that Jonah might better understand God’s actions in sparing Nineveh. Jonah laments that the gourd was destroyed, so why then would he want Nineveh, “that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand” (4:11), destroyed? In suffering the loss of the gourd, Jonah may better understand the suffering that would occur if God in fact destroyed the city that now Jonah wished destroyed.

 
Charles Haddon Spurgeon: "The Ninevites' Repentance"

    Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was English Calvinism’s “leading exponent,” even as Calvinism itself was “very much in decline” (McLeod, 31). As a youth, Spurgeon had grown deeply attached to Puritan theology, spending hours among the books at his grandfather's parsonage.  Two of Spurgeon's favorites were Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress, which he read many times throughout his life (Northrop, 27). As he gained popularity, Spurgeon’s audiences often exceeded 10,000 so that eventually the Metropolitan Tabernacle was built and opened in 1861 to accommodate the large congregation (http://www.spurgeon.org). Spurgeon began publishing his sermons on the Monday following their delivery in 1885.  He published, and widely circulated, a sermon every week for twenty-seven years, an unprecedented phenomenon (Northrop, 64).   A devoted protestant in many senses, Spurgeon had little interest in sacraments and liturgy, but rather preferred emphasizing conversion and baptism. His sermons most often drew on text found in the Bible.  

    While Crosby’s sermon uses the Book of Jonah to emphasize mankind’s disobedience and God’s justified punishments, C. H. Spurgeon’s sermon “The Ninevites’ Repentance” emphasizes repentance. At the beginning of his sermon, Spurgeon introduces both Jonah 3:4, “And Jonah began to enter into the city… and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” and Matthew 12:41, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”  By bringing in Matthew alongside Jonah, Spurgeon allows a key comparison. The Ninevites, who were “in heathen darkness,” heard Jonah’s message and listened to it, even though he was “none of the greatest, or most affectionate” of the prophets, and neither he nor they knew about the “love which burned in the heart of Jesus” (Spurgeon, 439). Unlike the Ninevites who repented, many of those who heard the greatest messenger, Jesus, chose to remain unrepentant. Spurgeon points out that the Ninevites’ repentance is a rebuke to those who heard Jesus’ message and did not listen to it. Spurgeon asks, “Might not the Lord rebuke the unbelievers of our day in the same way? Is not Nineveh a reproach to England?” (Spurgeon, 439). His question puts his listeners and England in the hot seat as he requires his audience to think of how they and England, who are fortunate to know about Jesus and his teachings, compare in action to the Ninevites, who without knowing about Jesus listened to the lesser prophet Jonah and repented as God had wished them to do.

    Spurgeon’s sermon compares Jonah and Jesus to show that even a lesser prophet than Jesus was able to bring the Ninevites to repent, making the sins of those who have heard of Jesus and his works that much greater. Spurgeon suggests that both Jonah and Jesus were messengers of God. The similarities stop there, however. Jonah was a reluctant prophet who he disliked his mission and even showed disdain towards the people to whom his message was intended.  Jesus, on the other hand, brought a message of love to mankind. While both Jonah and Jesus had a similar mission, bringing salvation to people, their demeanor was very different, and so was their listeners’ reaction. Those who heard Jesus’ teachings had no excuse not to repent, for “No man ever spoke like this Man” (Spurgeon, 440). Jesus had a tender loving heart and cared about the salvation of all men. On the other hand, Jonah was a reluctant prophet who did not offer an encouraging message. Jesus offered a message of hope, yet was turned away by many. Instead, people listened to Jonah.

    Both sermons of Spurgeon and Crosby involve the Book of Jonah, but they do so in different ways.  Whereas Crosby focuses on the afflictions of Jonah, Spurgeon deals with the repentance of the Ninevites.  John Hooper's extensive reading of Jonah emphasized numerous aspects of the story in order to support his understanding of Protestantism.  If we are to give credence to the idea that meaningful social, cultural, and historical perspectives can vary significantly, then these three sermons provide us with a glimpse of how the same biblical text can change in the way its readers interpret it.

Works Cited

Davies, Horton. Worship and Theology in England from Cranmer to Hooker, 1534-1603. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Hooper, John. Writings of Dr. John Hooper. London: The Religious Tract Society .

Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone, eds.  Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 4.  New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930.  

Kleiser, Grenville, ed. The World’s Great Sermons, Vol. VII. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908.

McLeod, Hugh. Religion and Society in England, 1850-1914. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Northrop, Henry Davenport.  Life and Works of Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon.  Memorial Publishing Co., 1892.

Spurgeon, Charles H. My Sermon Notes: A Selection from Outlines of Discourses Delivered at The Metropolitan Tabernacle. Westwood: Fleming H. Revell, 1956.

    Early English Protestant John Hooper used the Book of Jonah as the foundation for a series of seven lenten sermons for King Edward VI of England in 1550.  Convinced that the use of clerical vestments was a sinful vestige of worldly Roman Catholicism, Hooper was the primary instigator of the so called "vestiarian controversy."  The debate over the wearing of clerical vestments was in large part a debate over the essentials and ideals of Christian identity (Davies, 73). 

 John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester

    Hooper's sermons use the Book of Jonah to support the Protestant opposition to bishops having to wear “Aaronic” ceremonial vestments, including a cope and surplice, and the declaration of the oath by the saints. Hooper opposed these practices, arguing that they were remnants of Roman Catholicism with no biblical warrant, since early church services had not required them.  Although Hooper was one of the loudest advocates, such views were not uncommon among other Protestant iconoclasts who "desired to do away with all images of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnate Son of God, and the saints, as a breaking of the Second Commandment against 'graven images'" (Davies, 350). After declining to be consecrated as bishop of Gloucester according to existing rites, Hooper appeared in a court case that eventually led to the compromise that ceremonial vestments were to be understood as adiaphora (“things indifferent” rather than articles of faith): though Hooper could be consecrated as bishop without wearing the "Aaronic vestments," others could wear them if they wished.

     Following King Edward VI’s death, Mary Tudor ascended England’s throne, repealing her predecessor’s legislations. In March 1554, Hooper’s bishopric appointment was taken away from him because he was a married man (not allowed under Catholic practice), and was soon imprisoned. According to the March 1554 heresy acts, Hooper was now, under a Catholic queen, a heretic, and his execution was eminent. On February 9, 1555, Hooper was burned at the stake in Gloucester.

John Hooper at the Stake

    While Edward VI was still on the throne, however, Hooper delivered his seven sermons on Jonah in February of 1550. Hooper used the text of Jonah to support his adamant denunciation of the need for clerical vestments and the declaration of the oath by the saints that was prescribed in the new Ordinal.  Hooper sets out his concern directly in the dedicatory epistle to the king that accompanied the sermons: “Most gracious king and noble counselors, as you have taken away the mass from the people so take from them its feathers also, the altar, vestments, and such like as have appareled her; and let the holy communion be decked with the holy ceremonies with which the high and wise priest Christ, decked and appareled it first of all" (Hooper, 90).   Hooper's Protestant stance against what he considered to be the human (and therefore not Divine) elements of the church set him even more solidly in the belief that the text of the Bible itself is one of the few sources of Divine truth.  He turns in these sermons therefore to the text of Jonah to argue against the elaborate clerical vestments of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the veneration of the saints also central to Catholicism.  Hooper finds support for his stance in nearly every turn of the text, from aligning Jonah with himself and to aligning Jonah with the Catholic "sinners."  Though the primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate various interpretations of the book of Jonah, we would also propose that in his overly confident sense of his own Divinely inspired mission, Hooper takes too many liberties with his interpretation of the text and in so doing weakens his argument with contradictory readings of aspects of Jonah. 

    Hooper was concerned that the church return to what he viewed as the original elements that Christ prescribed for her.  He felt that if ceremonial elements were not supported by scripture, then they were not only indifferent, but heretical.  Hooper turned often to scripture to support his definition of vestments and oath by the saints as sinful.  In Hooper’s first sermon on Jonah, which we will focus on, he asserts the validity of his claim to declaring God’s truth by comparing himself with the “holy prophet Jonah.”  Other protestant reformation sources, such as the commentary on Jonah in the Geneva Bible, view Jonah as a true and holy prophet, though sometimes his actions force God to show the darker side of God’s omnipotence.  More recent protestant views on Jonah tend to characterize him as primarily disobedient and selfish.  But Hooper speaks of him with reverence as a holy prophet, no less than Isaiah or Elijah (Hooper, 96).

    Hooper establishes a comparison of the current state of tumult in England with the state of the ancient Israelites: “The state and condition of the commonwealth was troublous and very unquiet, for their idolatry in following the learning invented by man, and leaving the word of God, had been punished by God with many great and cruel wars” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper seems convinced that Jonah's cause is analogous to his own.  He states at the outset of the sermon that, “the doctrine we preach unto his majesty’s subjects is one and the same with that of the prophets and apostles; and that it is as old as the doctrine of them both, and not as new as these papists” (Hooper, 95).   By comparing the current chaotic state of the church with the “tumultuous state” of Jonah’s time, Hooper draws a parallel between the two settings.  In this context, Hooper says that the people of his time sin and fail to hear the voices of the prophets just as they have in the Bible: “They would be naughty idolaters and vicious livers continually… [and] rather give faith unto the prophets of men and liars than unto the prophets of God who are true men” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper moves from this parallel between the climate of unrest in his time and Jonah’s, to using this as a platform for establishing the validity of his argument, that he is speaking God’s truth when he rejects the wearing of vestments.

    Hooper cites the first two verses of the first chapter of Jonah, drawing another parallel between God’s calling Jonah to Hooper’s understanding of the holy commissioning of his own mission:  “The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me” (KJV).  Hooper views himself as a prophet of God, and his mission not unlike that of Jonah.  Confident that his cause is ordained by God, Hooper states that we can discern between, "bishops and ministers of God from the ministers of the devil, by the preaching tongue of the gospel, and not by shaving,  clipping, vestments, and outward apparel... [W]hen God sends such preachers as without fear show unto the world God’s word and punishment for sin, their sin is full ripe, and they must either amend at the preaching, or utterly perish under the plague and scourge of God" (Hooper, 98).  Based on what he deems to be scriptural support for the validity of his mission, Hooper maintains that he is right and those who continue the practices of the Roman Catholic Church are wrong.  He, like a prophet, views himself as having been commissioned by God.  With such prophets of the true Christianity as himself having been sent by God, Hooper declares this to be a sign also that, like the situation in Nineveh, the still-Catholic climate in England is doomed to certain and "severe" punishment if they do not repent as the heathen Ninevites did.

    Although Jonah as prophet is the great prophet-hero of the story with whom Hooper identifies, Hooper nonetheless acknowledges his having disobeyed God by attempting to flee to Tarshish.  Still, Hooper does not use this detail in order to condemn the wickedness of Jonah as many contemporary interpretations of the text do.  Rather, Hooper as prophet/preacher can appreciate the impulse behind Jonah's attempted escape.  Hooper cites 1:3: “Whereupon Jonah rose to fly from the face of the Lord into Tharsis, and came to Japho, and found a ship pressed towards Tharsis.”  Commenting on this, Hooper writes that among the "many godly doctrines" the book of Jonah teaches us, we learn, "how hard and difficult a vocation it is to be a preacher, that in case he be not comforted and strengthened with the especial mercy of God, he cannot, nor is it possible he should, truly preach God’s word” (Hooper, 100).  It is hard to be a preacher, Hooper says, and the desire to run away on the part of Jonah, a true prophet of God, illustrates how difficult a task preaching God's word can be.  Furthermore, Hooper states that it is impossible to "truly preach God's word" unless one is graced with "the especial mercy of God" (Hooper, 100).  This statement could be said to validate Jonah's attempted escape.  At any rate, it suggests that Jonah is not capable of preaching to the Ninivites until he experiences God's mercy, which does not happen in the narrative until he is put in the situation of needing God's mercy for survival (namely when he lands in the belly of the beast), which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't tried to escape.  This appreciation of Jonah's attempted escape also works as a kind of circular argument to suggest that Hooper himself is one of those who has been favored with "the especial mercy of God," and as such, his prophetic cries against elements of Roman Catholicism are divinely inspired.

    Hooper's divine mission is all the more crucial because it is timely.  Not only does he view those around him to be sinners, but he declares that God disapproves of them as well: “Miserable and cursed is our time, cursed of God’s own mouth, that there be such dumb bishops, unpreaching prelates, and such ass-headed ministers in the church of God.  Christ instituted neither singers nor massers, but preachers and witnesses of his true doctrine” (Hooper, 100). Hooper then highlights a different reading of Jonah's fleeing from God.  He compares those who refuse to listen to God’s truth to be like Jonah fleeing from God’s calling: “He that leaves this doctrine untaught in the church, or teaches a contrary doctrine, flees from the face of God, and incurs the danger and damnation which is written” (Hooper, 100).   Indeed, Hooper calls his listeners not to take the threat of God’s punishment lightly, citing Jonah’s experience as a warning: “But a man might say, Tush! it is not so great a matter if a man walk not in his vocation, neither yet is God so much offended with disobedience.  But this fleshly and perverse opinion my soon be corrected, if men would consider the dangers that this poor man Jonah fell into for his disobedience” (Hooper, 101).  This statement works both to warn people against taking disobedience lightly, as well as to justify Hooper’s own position.  He must proceed with his own cause in order to avoid incurring God’s wrath by neglecting to carry out what he feels God has called him to do.  But does it weaken Hooper's argument to issue a double reading of Jonah's fleeing from God, one that loosely aligns himself with such an action, as well as directly compares the sinners of his time with it?  

     Indeed, after comparing both himself and the sinners with Jonah in different ways, Hooper goes on to align the vestment promoting sinners of his time with the idolatrous sailors in the Book of Jonah.  This turn is not surprising, given that the sailors do not worship Jonah's God.  After citing verse 4, Hooper proclaims that "in them [the mariners] is expressed a very lively image of all men that lack faith, how they fear above measure, in the time of trouble” (Hooper, 102).  Moreover, Hooper again draws specific parallels between the sinners of his contemporary climate, in this case regarding the issue of swearing by the saints.  The mariners that cry out each to their own gods are like Roman Catholics: "As it is to be seen in papistry at this present day, when as it is disputed which lady is best, our lady of Bullayne, or our lady of Rome… Further, this text declares that idolaters always seek new gods when their old god deceives them.  So is it among so called christians; when the matter is plainly desperate, they cast a lot between three or four idolatrous pilgrimages which of them shall be the patron of his health” (Hooper, 103).  As the sermon proceeds, it becomes clear that Hooper does not hesitate to use any and all aspects of the biblical story to support his case.  It could be argued that Hooper's confidence in his own mission as being absolutely Divinely inspired leads him to draw parallels with the text with too much freedom.  His protestant emphasis on the truth of scripture may also play a role in his making the text his to analyze as he chooses.  Still, Hooper's sermon displays the versatility of the text, and as such could be said to validate Hooper's belief that scripture is the only material necessity for the true Christian.        

 
Howard Crosby: "The Prepared Worm"    
   
    Howard Crosby's sermon “The Prepared Worm” cites Jonah 4:7 (KJV), "But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered" as its opening text. Crosby, who died in 1891 at the age of sixty-five, had a varied career: after graduating from New York University in 1844, he became professor of Greek at NYU in 1851 and later held a similar position at Rutgers College beginning in 1859. While in New Brunswick, Crosby was ordained pastor of the first Presbyterian church before being appointed chancellor of New York University in 1870, a postion he held until 1881 (Johnson and Malone, 586).   Besides these academic and clerical positions, Crosby’s scholarly activities included revising the New Testament and editing Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. He was also involved in social reform, especially in organizing the Society for the Prevention of Crime and focusing on curbing the illegal liquor trade (Kleiser, 88).

    Crosby’s sermon has four key points. First, hardships occur in people’s lives because God “permits it” (Kleiser, 92). God is the “author equally of prosperity and adversity” (Kleiser, 91) who allows Satan to afflict the world “to remove our affections from the world and to place them more devotedly upon our Heavenly Father” (Kleiser, 92). Therefore, when faced with adversity, mankind should not follow Jonah’s example of becoming angry and wishing to die, but rather withstand the adversity knowing that God allows it, and all of God’s actions are just.

    Second, Crosby argues that God “uses the natural laws of the world as “His agents in afflicting” (Kleiser, 93). According to Crosby, the worm in “The Book of Jonah” is only following its natural instinct when it eats away at the gourd, and no wise men of science can explain the behavior of the worm beyond this. There is a purpose for the worm’s existence, as indeed there is a plan that must be followed in every event that occurs in people’s lives as well. “No accident brought the worm there,” says Crosby (Kleiser, 94). Through his actions, God provides Jonah with comfort: he gives him a gourd to protect him from the sun, as well as providing Jonah with hardship.

    Third, Crosby argues that God’s afflictions are just because mankind’s actions deserve nothing except afflictions from God. No one is exempt from sin, as “We are unclean in our natures and by practice, and so, under the covenant which our Maker was pleased to form for us, we can only deserve punishment” (Kleiser, 96). Yet, Crosby points out, despite the countless grievances men have committed against God, people still complain about affliction, just like Jonah did when the worm destroyed the gourd, even though Jonah himself rejected God’s command of going to the Ninevites.

    Crosby’s fourth point is that the reason why God afflicts us all is His “desire that all men may come to repentance” (Kleiser, 96). He does not send afflictions because He hates us – mankind’s actions deserve even greater punishments than the ones God sends. No, God afflicts people in order to improve them and help them “grow in grace” and “cultivate a more heavenly disposition of mind and heart” (Kleiser, 97). God prepared the worm so that it would eat the protective gourd so that Jonah might better understand God’s actions in sparing Nineveh. Jonah laments that the gourd was destroyed, so why then would he want Nineveh, “that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand” (4:11), destroyed? In suffering the loss of the gourd, Jonah may better understand the suffering that would occur if God in fact destroyed the city that now Jonah wished destroyed.

 
Charles Haddon Spurgeon: "The Ninevites' Repentence"

    Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was English Calvinism’s “leading exponent,” even as Calvinism itself was “very much in decline” (McLeod, 31). As a youth, Spurgeon had grown deeply attached to Puritan theology, spending hours among the books at his grandfather's parsonage.  Two of Spurgeon's favorites were Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progess, which he read many times throughout his life (Northrop, 27). As he gained popularity, Spurgeon’s audiences often exceeded 10,000 so that eventually the Metropolitan Tabernacle was built and opened in 1861 to accomodate the large congregation (http://www.spurgeon.org). Spurgeon began publishing his sermons on the Monday following their delivery in 1885.  He published, and widely circulated, a sermon every week for twenty-seven years, an unprecidented phenemonon (Northrop, 64).   A devoted protestant in many senses, Spurgeon had little interest in sacraments and liturgy, but rather preferred emphasizing conversion and baptism. His sermons most often drew on text found in the Bible.  

    While Crosby’s sermon uses the Book of Jonah to emphasize mankind’s disobedience and God’s justified punishments, C. H. Spurgeon’s sermon “The Ninevites’ Repentance” emphasizes repentance. At the beginning of his sermon, Spurgeon introduces both Jonah 3:4, “And Jonah began to enter into the city… and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” and Matthew 12:41, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”  By bringing in Matthew alongside Jonah, Spurgeon allows a key comparison. The Ninevites, who were “in heathen darkness,” heard Jonah’s message and listened to it, even though he was “none of the greatest, or most affectionate” of the prophets, and neither he nor they knew about the “love which burned in the heart of Jesus” (Spurgeon, 439). Unlike the Ninevites who repented, many of those who heard the greatest messenger, Jesus, chose to remain unrepentant. Spurgeon points out that the Ninevites’ repentance is a rebuke to those who heard Jesus’ message and did not listen to it. Spurgeon asks, “Might not the Lord rebuke the unbelievers of our day in the same way? Is not Nineveh a reproach to England?” (Spurgeon, 439). His question puts his listeners and England in the hot seat as he requires his audience to think of how they and England, who are fortunate to know about Jesus and his teachings, compare in action to the Ninevites, who without knowing about Jesus listened to the lesser prophet Jonah and repented as God had wished them to do.

    Spurgeon’s sermon compares Jonah and Jesus to show that even a lesser prophet than Jesus was able to bring the Ninevites to repent, making the sins of those who have heard of Jesus and his works that much greater. Spurgeon suggests that both Jonah and Jesus were messengers of God. The similarities stop there, however. Jonah was a reluctant prophet who he disliked his mission and even showed disdain towards the people to whom his message was intended.  Jesus, on the other hand, brought a message of love to mankind. While both Jonah and Jesus had a similar mission, bringing salvation to people, their demeanor was very different, and so was their listeners’ reaction. Those who heard Jesus’ teachings had no excuse not to repent, for “No man ever spoke like this Man” (Spurgeon, 440). Jesus had a tender loving heart and cared about the salvation of all men. On the other hand, Jonah was a reluctant prophet who did not offer an encouraging message. Jesus offered a message of hope, yet was turned away by many. Instead, people listened to Jonah.

    Both sermons of Spurgeon and Crosby involve the Book of Jonah, but they do so in different ways.  Whereas Crosby focuses on the afflictions of Jonah, Spurgeon deals with the repentance of the Ninevites.  John Hooper's extensive reading of Jonah emphasized numerous aspects of the story in order to support his understaning of Prodestantism.  If we are to give credence to the idea that meaningful social, cultural, and historical perspectives can vary significantly, then these three sermons provide us with a glimpse of how the same biblical text can change in the way its readers interpret it.

Works Cited

Davies, Horton. Worship and Theology in England from Cranmer to Hooker, 1534-1603. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Hooper, John. Writings of Dr. John Hooper. London: The Religious Tract Society .

Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone, eds.  Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 4.  New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930.  

Kleiser, Grenville, ed. The World’s Great Sermons, Vol. VII. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908.

McLeod, Hugh. Religion and Society in England, 1850-1914. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Northrop, Henry Davenport.  Life and Works of Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon.  Memorial Publishing Co., 1892.

Spurgeon, Charles H. My Sermon Notes: A Selection from Outlines of Discourses Delivered at The Metropolitan Tabernacle. Westwood: Fleming H. Revell, 1956.

    Early English Protestant John Hooper used the Book of Jonah as the foundation for a series of seven lenten sermons for King Edward VI of England in 1550.  Convinced that the use of clerical vestments was a sinful vestige of worldly Roman Catholicism, Hooper was the primary instigator of the so called "vestiarian controversy."  The debate over the wearing of clerical vestments was in large part a debate over the essentials and ideals of Christian identity (Davies, 73). 

 John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester

    Hooper's sermons use the Book of Jonah to support the Protestant opposition to bishops having to wear “Aaronic” ceremonial vestments, including a cope and surplice, and the declaration of the oath by the saints. Hooper opposed these practices, arguing that they were remnants of Roman Catholicism with no biblical warrant, since early church services had not required them.  Although Hooper was one of the loudest advocates, such views were not uncommon among other Protestant iconoclasts who "desired to do away with all images of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnate Son of God, and the saints, as a breaking of the Second Commandment against 'graven images'" (Davies, 350). After declining to be consecrated as bishop of Gloucester according to existing rites, Hooper appeared in a court case that eventually led to the compromise that ceremonial vestments were to be understood as adiaphora (“things indifferent” rather than articles of faith): though Hooper could be consecrated as bishop without wearing the "Aaronic vestments," others could wear them if they wished.

     Following King Edward VI’s death, Mary Tudor ascended England’s throne, repealing her predecessor’s legislations. In March 1554, Hooper’s bishopric appointment was taken away from him because he was a married man (not allowed under Catholic practice), and was soon imprisoned. According to the March 1554 heresy acts, Hooper was now, under a Catholic queen, a heretic, and his execution was eminent. On February 9, 1555, Hooper was burned at the stake in Gloucester.

John Hooper at the Stake

    While Edward VI was still on the throne, however, Hooper delivered his seven sermons on Jonah in February of 1550. Hooper used the text of Jonah to support his adamant denunciation of the need for clerical vestments and the declaration of the oath by the saints that was prescribed in the new Ordinal.  Hooper sets out his concern directly in the dedicatory epistle to the king that accompanied the sermons: “Most gracious king and noble counselors, as you have taken away the mass from the people so take from them its feathers also, the altar, vestments, and such like as have appareled her; and let the holy communion be decked with the holy ceremonies with which the high and wise priest Christ, decked and appareled it first of all" (Hooper, 90).   Hooper's Protestant stance against what he considered to be the human (and therefore not Divine) elements of the church set him even more solidly in the belief that the text of the Bible itself is one of the few sources of Divine truth.  He turns in these sermons therefore to the text of Jonah to argue against the elaborate clerical vestments of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the veneration of the saints also central to Catholicism.  Hooper finds support for his stance in nearly every turn of the text, from aligning Jonah with himself and to aligning Jonah with the Catholic "sinners."  Though the primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate various interpretations of the book of Jonah, we would also propose that in his overly confident sense of his own Divinely inspired mission, Hooper takes too many liberties with his interpretation of the text and in so doing weakens his argument with contradictory readings of aspects of Jonah. 

    Hooper was concerned that the church return to what he viewed as the original elements that Christ prescribed for her.  He felt that if ceremonial elements were not supported by scripture, then they were not only indifferent, but heretical.  Hooper turned often to scripture to support his definition of vestments and oath by the saints as sinful.  In Hooper’s first sermon on Jonah, which we will focus on, he asserts the validity of his claim to declaring God’s truth by comparing himself with the “holy prophet Jonah.”  Other protestant reformation sources, such as the commentary on Jonah in the Geneva Bible, view Jonah as a true and holy prophet, though sometimes his actions force God to show the darker side of God’s omnipotence.  More recent protestant views on Jonah tend to characterize him as primarily disobedient and selfish.  But Hooper speaks of him with reverence as a holy prophet, no less than Isaiah or Elijah (Hooper, 96).

    Hooper establishes a comparison of the current state of tumult in England with the state of the ancient Israelites: “The state and condition of the commonwealth was troublous and very unquiet, for their idolatry in following the learning invented by man, and leaving the word of God, had been punished by God with many great and cruel wars” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper seems convinced that Jonah's cause is analogous to his own.  He states at the outset of the sermon that, “the doctrine we preach unto his majesty’s subjects is one and the same with that of the prophets and apostles; and that it is as old as the doctrine of them both, and not as new as these papists” (Hooper, 95).   By comparing the current chaotic state of the church with the “tumultuous state” of Jonah’s time, Hooper draws a parallel between the two settings.  In this context, Hooper says that the people of his time sin and fail to hear the voices of the prophets just as they have in the Bible: “They would be naughty idolaters and vicious livers continually… [and] rather give faith unto the prophets of men and liars than unto the prophets of God who are true men” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper moves from this parallel between the climate of unrest in his time and Jonah’s, to using this as a platform for establishing the validity of his argument, that he is speaking God’s truth when he rejects the wearing of vestments.

    Hooper cites the first two verses of the first chapter of Jonah, drawing another parallel between God’s calling Jonah to Hooper’s understanding of the holy commissioning of his own mission:  “The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me” (KJV).  Hooper views himself as a prophet of God, and his mission not unlike that of Jonah.  Confident that his cause is ordained by God, Hooper states that we can discern between, "bishops and ministers of God from the ministers of the devil, by the preaching tongue of the gospel, and not by shaving,  clipping, vestments, and outward apparel... [W]hen God sends such preachers as without fear show unto the world God’s word and punishment for sin, their sin is full ripe, and they must either amend at the preaching, or utterly perish under the plague and scourge of God" (Hooper, 98).  Based on what he deems to be scriptural support for the validity of his mission, Hooper maintains that he is right and those who continue the practices of the Roman Catholic Church are wrong.  He, like a prophet, views himself as having been commissioned by God.  With such prophets of the true Christianity as himself having been sent by God, Hooper declares this to be a sign also that, like the situation in Nineveh, the still-Catholic climate in England is doomed to certain and "severe" punishment if they do not repent as the heathen Ninevites did.

    Although Jonah as prophet is the great prophet-hero of the story with whom Hooper identifies, Hooper nonetheless acknowledges his having disobeyed God by attempting to flee to Tarshish.  Still, Hooper does not use this detail in order to condemn the wickedness of Jonah as many contemporary interpretations of the text do.  Rather, Hooper as prophet/preacher can appreciate the impulse behind Jonah's attempted escape.  Hooper cites 1:3: “Whereupon Jonah rose to fly from the face of the Lord into Tharsis, and came to Japho, and found a ship pressed towards Tharsis.”  Commenting on this, Hooper writes that among the "many godly doctrines" the book of Jonah teaches us, we learn, "how hard and difficult a vocation it is to be a preacher, that in case he be not comforted and strengthened with the especial mercy of God, he cannot, nor is it possible he should, truly preach God’s word” (Hooper, 100).  It is hard to be a preacher, Hooper says, and the desire to run away on the part of Jonah, a true prophet of God, illustrates how difficult a task preaching God's word can be.  Furthermore, Hooper states that it is impossible to "truly preach God's word" unless one is graced with "the especial mercy of God" (Hooper, 100).  This statement could be said to validate Jonah's attempted escape.  At any rate, it suggests that Jonah is not capable of preaching to the Ninivites until he experiences God's mercy, which does not happen in the narrative until he is put in the situation of needing God's mercy for survival (namely when he lands in the belly of the beast), which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't tried to escape.  This appreciation of Jonah's attempted escape also works as a kind of circular argument to suggest that Hooper himself is one of those who has been favored with "the especial mercy of God," and as such, his prophetic cries against elements of Roman Catholicism are divinely inspired.

    Hooper's divine mission is all the more crucial because it is timely.  Not only does he view those around him to be sinners, but he declares that God disapproves of them as well: “Miserable and cursed is our time, cursed of God’s own mouth, that there be such dumb bishops, unpreaching prelates, and such ass-headed ministers in the church of God.  Christ instituted neither singers nor massers, but preachers and witnesses of his true doctrine” (Hooper, 100). Hooper then highlights a different reading of Jonah's fleeing from God.  He compares those who refuse to listen to God’s truth to be like Jonah fleeing from God’s calling: “He that leaves this doctrine untaught in the church, or teaches a contrary doctrine, flees from the face of God, and incurs the danger and damnation which is written” (Hooper, 100).   Indeed, Hooper calls his listeners not to take the threat of God’s punishment lightly, citing Jonah’s experience as a warning: “But a man might say, Tush! it is not so great a matter if a man walk not in his vocation, neither yet is God so much offended with disobedience.  But this fleshly and perverse opinion my soon be corrected, if men would consider the dangers that this poor man Jonah fell into for his disobedience” (Hooper, 101).  This statement works both to warn people against taking disobedience lightly, as well as to justify Hooper’s own position.  He must proceed with his own cause in order to avoid incurring God’s wrath by neglecting to carry out what he feels God has called him to do.  But does it weaken Hooper's argument to issue a double reading of Jonah's fleeing from God, one that loosely aligns himself with such an action, as well as directly compares the sinners of his time with it?  

     Indeed, after comparing both himself and the sinners with Jonah in different ways, Hooper goes on to align the vestment promoting sinners of his time with the idolatrous sailors in the Book of Jonah.  This turn is not surprising, given that the sailors do not worship Jonah's God.  After citing verse 4, Hooper proclaims that "in them [the mariners] is expressed a very lively image of all men that lack faith, how they fear above measure, in the time of trouble” (Hooper, 102).  Moreover, Hooper again draws specific parallels between the sinners of his contemporary climate, in this case regarding the issue of swearing by the saints.  The mariners that cry out each to their own gods are like Roman Catholics: "As it is to be seen in papistry at this present day, when as it is disputed which lady is best, our lady of Bullayne, or our lady of Rome… Further, this text declares that idolaters always seek new gods when their old god deceives them.  So is it among so called christians; when the matter is plainly desperate, they cast a lot between three or four idolatrous pilgrimages which of them shall be the patron of his health” (Hooper, 103).  As the sermon proceeds, it becomes clear that Hooper does not hesitate to use any and all aspects of the biblical story to support his case.  It could be argued that Hooper's confidence in his own mission as being absolutely Divinely inspired leads him to draw parallels with the text with too much freedom.  His protestant emphasis on the truth of scripture may also play a role in his making the text his to analyze as he chooses.  Still, Hooper's sermon displays the versatility of the text, and as such could be said to validate Hooper's belief that scripture is the only material necessity for the true Christian.        

 
Howard Crosby: "The Prepared Worm"    
   
    Howard Crosby's sermon “The Prepared Worm” cites Jonah 4:7 (KJV), "But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered" as its opening text. Crosby, who died in 1891 at the age of sixty-five, had a varied career: after graduating from New York University in 1844, he became professor of Greek at NYU in 1851 and later held a similar position at Rutgers College beginning in 1859. While in New Brunswick, Crosby was ordained pastor of the first Presbyterian church before being appointed chancellor of New York University in 1870, a postion he held until 1881 (Johnson and Malone, 586).   Besides these academic and clerical positions, Crosby’s scholarly activities included revising the New Testament and editing Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. He was also involved in social reform, especially in organizing the Society for the Prevention of Crime and focusing on curbing the illegal liquor trade (Kleiser, 88).

    Crosby’s sermon has four key points. First, hardships occur in people’s lives because God “permits it” (Kleiser, 92). God is the “author equally of prosperity and adversity” (Kleiser, 91) who allows Satan to afflict the world “to remove our affections from the world and to place them more devotedly upon our Heavenly Father” (Kleiser, 92). Therefore, when faced with adversity, mankind should not follow Jonah’s example of becoming angry and wishing to die, but rather withstand the adversity knowing that God allows it, and all of God’s actions are just.

    Second, Crosby argues that God “uses the natural laws of the world as “His agents in afflicting” (Kleiser, 93). According to Crosby, the worm in “The Book of Jonah” is only following its natural instinct when it eats away at the gourd, and no wise men of science can explain the behavior of the worm beyond this. There is a purpose for the worm’s existence, as indeed there is a plan that must be followed in every event that occurs in people’s lives as well. “No accident brought the worm there,” says Crosby (Kleiser, 94). Through his actions, God provides Jonah with comfort: he gives him a gourd to protect him from the sun, as well as providing Jonah with hardship.

    Third, Crosby argues that God’s afflictions are just because mankind’s actions deserve nothing except afflictions from God. No one is exempt from sin, as “We are unclean in our natures and by practice, and so, under the covenant which our Maker was pleased to form for us, we can only deserve punishment” (Kleiser, 96). Yet, Crosby points out, despite the countless grievances men have committed against God, people still complain about affliction, just like Jonah did when the worm destroyed the gourd, even though Jonah himself rejected God’s command of going to the Ninevites.

    Crosby’s fourth point is that the reason why God afflicts us all is His “desire that all men may come to repentance” (Kleiser, 96). He does not send afflictions because He hates us – mankind’s actions deserve even greater punishments than the ones God sends. No, God afflicts people in order to improve them and help them “grow in grace” and “cultivate a more heavenly disposition of mind and heart” (Kleiser, 97). God prepared the worm so that it would eat the protective gourd so that Jonah might better understand God’s actions in sparing Nineveh. Jonah laments that the gourd was destroyed, so why then would he want Nineveh, “that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand” (4:11), destroyed? In suffering the loss of the gourd, Jonah may better understand the suffering that would occur if God in fact destroyed the city that now Jonah wished destroyed.

 
Charles Haddon Spurgeon: "The Ninevites' Repentence"

    Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was English Calvinism’s “leading exponent,” even as Calvinism itself was “very much in decline” (McLeod, 31). As a youth, Spurgeon had grown deeply attached to Puritan theology, spending hours among the books at his grandfather's parsonage.  Two of Spurgeon's favorites were Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progess, which he read many times throughout his life (Northrop, 27). As he gained popularity, Spurgeon’s audiences often exceeded 10,000 so that eventually the Metropolitan Tabernacle was built and opened in 1861 to accomodate the large congregation (http://www.spurgeon.org). Spurgeon began publishing his sermons on the Monday following their delivery in 1885.  He published, and widely circulated, a sermon every week for twenty-seven years, an unprecidented phenemonon (Northrop, 64).   A devoted protestant in many senses, Spurgeon had little interest in sacraments and liturgy, but rather preferred emphasizing conversion and baptism. His sermons most often drew on text found in the Bible.  

    While Crosby’s sermon uses the Book of Jonah to emphasize mankind’s disobedience and God’s justified punishments, C. H. Spurgeon’s sermon “The Ninevites’ Repentance” emphasizes repentance. At the beginning of his sermon, Spurgeon introduces both Jonah 3:4, “And Jonah began to enter into the city… and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” and Matthew 12:41, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”  By bringing in Matthew alongside Jonah, Spurgeon allows a key comparison. The Ninevites, who were “in heathen darkness,” heard Jonah’s message and listened to it, even though he was “none of the greatest, or most affectionate” of the prophets, and neither he nor they knew about the “love which burned in the heart of Jesus” (Spurgeon, 439). Unlike the Ninevites who repented, many of those who heard the greatest messenger, Jesus, chose to remain unrepentant. Spurgeon points out that the Ninevites’ repentance is a rebuke to those who heard Jesus’ message and did not listen to it. Spurgeon asks, “Might not the Lord rebuke the unbelievers of our day in the same way? Is not Nineveh a reproach to England?” (Spurgeon, 439). His question puts his listeners and England in the hot seat as he requires his audience to think of how they and England, who are fortunate to know about Jesus and his teachings, compare in action to the Ninevites, who without knowing about Jesus listened to the lesser prophet Jonah and repented as God had wished them to do.

    Spurgeon’s sermon compares Jonah and Jesus to show that even a lesser prophet than Jesus was able to bring the Ninevites to repent, making the sins of those who have heard of Jesus and his works that much greater. Spurgeon suggests that both Jonah and Jesus were messengers of God. The similarities stop there, however. Jonah was a reluctant prophet who he disliked his mission and even showed disdain towards the people to whom his message was intended.  Jesus, on the other hand, brought a message of love to mankind. While both Jonah and Jesus had a similar mission, bringing salvation to people, their demeanor was very different, and so was their listeners’ reaction. Those who heard Jesus’ teachings had no excuse not to repent, for “No man ever spoke like this Man” (Spurgeon, 440). Jesus had a tender loving heart and cared about the salvation of all men. On the other hand, Jonah was a reluctant prophet who did not offer an encouraging message. Jesus offered a message of hope, yet was turned away by many. Instead, people listened to Jonah.

    Both sermons of Spurgeon and Crosby involve the Book of Jonah, but they do so in different ways.  Whereas Crosby focuses on the afflictions of Jonah, Spurgeon deals with the repentance of the Ninevites.  John Hooper's extensive reading of Jonah emphasized numerous aspects of the story in order to support his understaning of Prodestantism.  If we are to give credence to the idea that meaningful social, cultural, and historical perspectives can vary significantly, then these three sermons provide us with a glimpse of how the same biblical text can change in the way its readers interpret it.

Works Cited

Davies, Horton. Worship and Theology in England from Cranmer to Hooker, 1534-1603. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.

Hooper, John. Writings of Dr. John Hooper. London: The Religious Tract Society .

Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone, eds.  Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 4.  New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930.  

Kleiser, Grenville, ed. The World’s Great Sermons, Vol. VII. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908.

McLeod, Hugh. Religion and Society in England, 1850-1914. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Northrop, Henry Davenport.  Life and Works of Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon.  Memorial Publishing Co., 1892.

Spurgeon, Charles H. My Sermon Notes: A Selection from Outlines of Discourses Delivered at The Metropolitan Tabernacle. Westwood: Fleming H. Revell, 1956.

    Early English Protestant John Hooper used the Book of Jonah as the foundation for a series of seven lenten sermons for King Edward VI of England in 1550.  Convinced that the use of clerical vestments was a sinful vestige of worldly Roman Catholicism, Hooper was the primary instigator of the so called "vestiarian controversy."  The debate over the wearing of clerical vestments was in large part a debate over the essentials and ideals of Christian identity (Davies, 73). 

 John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester

    Hooper's sermons use the Book of Jonah to support the Protestant opposition to bishops having to wear “Aaronic” ceremonial vestments, including a cope and surplice, and the declaration of the oath by the saints. Hooper opposed these practices, arguing that they were remnants of Roman Catholicism with no biblical warrant, since early church services had not required them.  Although Hooper was one of the loudest advocates, such views were not uncommon among other Protestant iconoclasts who "desired to do away with all images of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnate Son of God, and the saints, as a breaking of the Second Commandment against 'graven images'" (Davies, 350). After declining to be consecrated as bishop of Gloucester according to existing rites, Hooper appeared in a court case that eventually led to the compromise that ceremonial vestments were to be understood as adiaphora (“things indifferent” rather than articles of faith): though Hooper could be consecrated as bishop without wearing the "Aaronic vestments," others could wear them if they wished.

     Following King Edward VI’s death, Mary Tudor ascended England’s throne, repealing her predecessor’s legislations. In March 1554, Hooper’s bishopric appointment was taken away from him because he was a married man (not allowed under Catholic practice), and was soon imprisoned. According to the March 1554 heresy acts, Hooper was now, under a Catholic queen, a heretic, and his execution was eminent. On February 9, 1555, Hooper was burned at the stake in Gloucester.

John Hooper at the Stake

    While Edward VI was still on the throne, however, Hooper delivered his seven sermons on Jonah in February of 1550. Hooper used the text of Jonah to support his adamant denunciation of the need for clerical vestments and the declaration of the oath by the saints that was prescribed in the new Ordinal.  Hooper sets out his concern directly in the dedicatory epistle to the king that accompanied the sermons: “Most gracious king and noble counselors, as you have taken away the mass from the people so take from them its feathers also, the altar, vestments, and such like as have appareled her; and let the holy communion be decked with the holy ceremonies with which the high and wise priest Christ, decked and appareled it first of all" (Hooper, 90).   Hooper's Protestant stance against what he considered to be the human (and therefore not Divine) elements of the church set him even more solidly in the belief that the text of the Bible itself is one of the few sources of Divine truth.  He turns in these sermons therefore to the text of Jonah to argue against the elaborate clerical vestments of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the veneration of the saints also central to Catholicism.  Hooper finds support for his stance in nearly every turn of the text, from aligning Jonah with himself and to aligning Jonah with the Catholic "sinners."  Though the primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate various interpretations of the book of Jonah, we would also propose that in his overly confident sense of his own Divinely inspired mission, Hooper takes too many liberties with his interpretation of the text and in so doing weakens his argument with contradictory readings of aspects of Jonah. 

    Hooper was concerned that the church return to what he viewed as the original elements that Christ prescribed for her.  He felt that if ceremonial elements were not supported by scripture, then they were not only indifferent, but heretical.  Hooper turned often to scripture to support his definition of vestments and oath by the saints as sinful.  In Hooper’s first sermon on Jonah, which we will focus on, he asserts the validity of his claim to declaring God’s truth by comparing himself with the “holy prophet Jonah.”  Other protestant reformation sources, such as the commentary on Jonah in the Geneva Bible, view Jonah as a true and holy prophet, though sometimes his actions force God to show the darker side of God’s omnipotence.  More recent protestant views on Jonah tend to characterize him as primarily disobedient and selfish.  But Hooper speaks of him with reverence as a holy prophet, no less than Isaiah or Elijah (Hooper, 96).

    Hooper establishes a comparison of the current state of tumult in England with the state of the ancient Israelites: “The state and condition of the commonwealth was troublous and very unquiet, for their idolatry in following the learning invented by man, and leaving the word of God, had been punished by God with many great and cruel wars” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper seems convinced that Jonah's cause is analogous to his own.  He states at the outset of the sermon that, “the doctrine we preach unto his majesty’s subjects is one and the same with that of the prophets and apostles; and that it is as old as the doctrine of them both, and not as new as these papists” (Hooper, 95).   By comparing the current chaotic state of the church with the “tumultuous state” of Jonah’s time, Hooper draws a parallel between the two settings.  In this context, Hooper says that the people of his time sin and fail to hear the voices of the prophets just as they have in the Bible: “They would be naughty idolaters and vicious livers continually… [and] rather give faith unto the prophets of men and liars than unto the prophets of God who are true men” (Hooper, 96).  Hooper moves from this parallel between the climate of unrest in his time and Jonah’s, to using this as a platform for establishing the validity of his argument, that he is speaking God’s truth when he rejects the wearing of vestments.

    Hooper cites the first two verses of the first chapter of Jonah, drawing another parallel between God’s calling Jonah to Hooper’s understanding of the holy commissioning of his own mission:  “The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their