The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 55

" 0 Saviour, precious Bn.viour, Whom yet unseen we love ; 0 No.me of might n 11d favour, All other names above : We worship thee, we bless thee, To thee alone we sing; We praise thee and confess thee, Our holy Lord and King." J.E. H. Vere. 5-10.-Deliverance waiting on the aBB11,1'ed hope of ie. It is 11.n obvioue reme.rk that 1111 men are ingenuous with God. There is no thought of trying to mislead his judgment or escape his lidless eye. They know that he knows them, knows them truly, knows them thoroughly. Accordingly, when religious profession is false and religious converse is suppressive, and other religious acts are hollow and formal, secret prayer, if it be offered at all, is both honest and open. Only tell us what a man says into the secret ear of God, and you have told ns all that is in his heart-have revealed what micro- scope could not detect, nor scalpel lay bare. It is in this way that our text is apoca- lyptic. It unveils for us the inner life of Jonah as this is done by no other portion of his book. And the revelation raises him not a little in our estimation. It shows him at bottom a regenerate and saintly man. It reveals a beaten path between his soul and God's throne, a path unused during a wayward hour, but resorted to instinctively when disaster bas come and has sobered him into thought. Learn here- I. '!'HE ESSENTIAL SOLITUDE OF BUFFERING. (Vers. 5, 6.) We find matter around us of different degrees of density, from the light volcanic ash to the heavy metallic ore. But men of science tell us that no material substance is absolutely solid. In the closest-grained rock, in the diamond itself, the ultimate particles are not in actual contact. They approach each other inconceivably close, but when attraction has brought them thus far, a mysterious repulsion intervenes and forbids that they should altogether touch. This fact of the material world bas, no doubt, its counterpart in the world of spirit. There is an individuality about the soul that cannot be destroyed. We may be united to others by the closest ties. We may be of one mind, and one heart, and one taste, and one aim. We may thus approach men and be approached. by them on many sides, and feel in union, and, to many effects and purposes, be in union with each other. But it is plain that we never coalesce, never actually touch.. The shock of personal disaster proves this. Then all ties seem loosened and fall. away, Friends drift apart. We are thrown in upon ourselves. Others cannot follow us into the depths. We are in a relation to the event into which no one else can come. In the last appeal we have to meet it alone. It was so with Christ (John xvi 31, 32). Disciples, friends, kinsmen,-with none of them could the Redeemer share the pangs of death. He had to die alone. Even the earlier thought, "I am not alone, the Father is with me," gave way in the hour of mortal agony to the question of sore amaze, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It was so with Jonah. He was pressed by a feeling of utter isolation. The depths closed over him. The earth with her bars was about him. This he felt, and in proportion as he felt it did be realize that he was cut off from his kind, engulfed in the horrors of a living grave, and left to face them all alone. "I shall die alone." "Yes; and alone you live. No soul touches another soul except at one or two points, and those chiefly external-a fearful and lonely thought, but one of the truest life. Death only realizes that which has been the fact all along. In the central deeps of our being we are alonen (F. W. Robertson). II. 'l'HEBE 18 AN ANTJIJJP.ATIVE POWER IN .ALL TBUE FAITH. (Vers. 7, 9.) Jone.h's prayer has really no petiiion in it. It becomes in the offering a song of praise. Still in the shark's maw, with the sea grass around his head, and going down through the deep sea caves to the foundations of the mountains, be speaks as a man delivered, and knowina only occasion of thanks. This is the grand attitude and achievement of faith. It stes 0 the end from the beginning. It expects the end because there has been a beainnin", It anticipates the end at the beginning, and deals with it as an accom- pli~lrnd fact. "Thou hast brought up my life from corruption, 0 Lord my God." "I know nothing more sublime in all the range ofrccorded human uttemuces. What  li2 THE BOOK OF JONAH. [OH, D, 1-10,