testimony. God does not seek to amuse the mind of man by stories to no purpose, but to instruct his heart by truth. This might sometimes make it rather difficult to balance the whole, as a mere narrative; but there are two ways of explaining the cause of a difficulty-the ignorance of him who feels the difficulty, or the impossibility of the thing which has perplexed him. And man willingly attributes to the latter cause, that which proceeds from the former. He who understands the design of the Holy Ghost in what He says, seizes the perfection of the Word, where the mind of man is perplexed by a thousand obstacles. ABBA, FATHER. 'ABBâ (Abba) occurs but three times in the New Testament. In all three of which occurrences, it is, evidently, an invocation, and has the Greek word which is equivalent to it placed immediately after it. The passage in Mark is in the narration of the agony in the garden: "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt." The citation from Romans viii. is from the epitome of Christian privileges presented in that blessed portion: "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption (violeσías), whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The third occurrence is in the laboured argument of the apostle to recover certain Galatians from error. After urging, "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (chap. iii. 26, [i. e. the present standing of acceptance in the family of God to all that have faith]), he goes on to shew the result of this in them; for there was, "I in you" to those to whom "ye in me" (of John xiv.) was made good; and so he says, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." It is a blessed truth, that our "Lord and God," who has called us "Brethren," as the sons, by adoption, of God, thus puts into our hearts (as in Galatians) the power which leads us in daily habitual communion (as in Romans) towards His Father; according to the title, Abba, even that by which He, the only begotten Son, addressed Him. The word Abba is not Greek, nor Hebrew, but appears to be Chaldee, and to be in what is called the status emphaticus. In the little Chaldee which exists in the Bible, we do not meet with it; but it exists in the Talmud (Fürst says) frequently N. It may be as well to observe, that while each of the occurrences is an invocation, the vocative Tarep is not the form which is used after it, but d warǹp, that is, the nominative. W. NO. VI. THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK OF JONAH. I HAVE been much struck with the way in which the Bock of Jonah and the 139th Psalm mutually illustrate each other. There are several points of coincidence which may have escaped even intelligent readers and which it may be well to notice. First, as to the import of the name Jonah. It signifies 66 a dove." This at least seems to be one of the meanings of the word (see Cruden). It was a godly wish in the Psalmist, "O that I had wings like a dove" to escape from the presence of the ungodly (see Ps. lv. 6). But it was a most ungodly wish in Jonah to seek to flee from the presence of the Lord. And the presence of the Lord is the thought with which the 139th Psalm opens: "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me." This taken by itself is one of the simplest truths of natural religion. It needs no grace to perceive (though it needs much grace to remember and act upon it) that He that formed the eye can see, that He that planted the ear can hear. This nature itself teaches us; and thus learned men of the world are very familiar with the doctrine of God's omnipresence. They admit it without hesitation, they prove it logically from the very being of a God, nay, from the existence of anything at all, or as if all proof were superfluous, rank it among the first and simplest axioms of philosophy. Still they know rather than believe it. But this truth sat heavy on the mind of Jonah, he felt the omnipresence of God. And whether in the case of Jonah, the Lord's disobedient servant, or in that of Adam immediately after his fall, the conscience of a sinner can only suggest to him the false and fruitless endeavour to get away from the presence of God. Adam seeks to screen himself behind the trees in the garden. Jonah's plan, if possible, is more deliberate. "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Here then we have the "silly dove without heart" taking the wings of the morning (i. e. going from the east), and preparing to dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, forgetting that there should God's hand lead her, and his right hand hold her. And God's right hand does overtake her. Strictly speaking, with God there is no time. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever God had formed the earth and the world, God knew what the heart of Jonah would be, and knew the precise spot at which the storm would overtake him. "But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." To the eyes of men the storm was an accident, the natural accompaniment, perhaps, of that season of the year. But to the eye of faith it was the Lord that sent it. If God makes His angels spiritsa it is also true that he makes the winds his angels (i. e. messengers). Or, again, some may advance a step farther and do more than merely attribute the storm to natural causes. They may know something of morality and something of Providence, but they know nothing of grace. And these might say, "Jonah was an Israelite, the mariners were heathens, therefore God sent the storm against them." But this would have been a mistake. Servants of God were not yet called Christians, and the discipline of God's house was not yet set up; but the same principle was so far in exercise that even then it was true "them that are without God judgeth (or will judge)." "You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities." Jonah's conscience does its office, "For my sake this tempest is come upon you." He was the lightning conductor of the vessel, at once attracting and carrying off the storm. "The men rowed hard." Men have often prevailed against wind and tides but no one has ever prevailed against God. Who has hardened himself against God and prospered? And here I would Wind and spirit are the same word in Hebrew, and also in Greek. Only let it be remembered that there are places where none but a Socinian would substitute the one for the other. In other words and veûμа in many parts of Scripture signify the Person of God the Holy Ghost. notice the striking contrast between Jonah's history and the event recorded in John vi. In both cases the problem is to bring the ship to land. In the one case, Jonah must be cast out; in the other, Jesus must be taken in. Jonah is cast out and the sea ceases from its raging. Jesus is taken in, and the boat is "immediately at the land whither they went." God is Jonah's God, therefore Jonah is afflicted. It is now time to remark, that a greater than Jonah is here. One antitype in Scripture has often many types; and sometimes, though not so frequently, one type has several antitypes. This will be found to be the case in several of the Psalms. I would instance the fortieth. There we have David, the Lord Jesus, the Jewish people, and less strictly the Church, and every individual saint belonging to the Church. We must, of course, bear in mind that sometimes the antitype goes beyond the type, and also that neither David nor any other mere man can come up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of that character which exactly describes the Lord Jesus. None but Jesus could say in the same high sense, "Thy law is within my heart: Lo I come to do thy will, O God." The case of Jonah, however, is more simple. He is a real, historical, and at the same time, typical personage. He represents, as a little Sunday-school child knows, the Lord Jesus laid in the heart of the earth and raised again. He also represents the Jewish people, and every individual saint. In other words the following order is found in the case of all three of the parties: death, resurrection, testimony. There was of course, this dif ference, that Jesus could be a witness without death, but not be the head of His people. They, whether Jews or gentiles, must pass through death before they can testify. And here again we find a coincidence between the Book of Jonah and Psalm cxxxix. That Psalm may be divided into three parts:-The unburied, unraised, unquickened soul, apprehends (at all events may apprehend the truth of God's searching presence carnally. There is no echo of the spirit to the voice of God, no heart Amen, to bid the light welcome as it enters the in one. recesses of the soul. There is all this at the end of the Psalm; but this is the very doctrine we are taught, as it seems to me, by the threefold division of it, that death and consequently resurrection must come between the beginning and the end. The Apostle, once alive without the law-Jonah, without the experience of the whale's belly—the Psalmist, contemplating the naked doctrine of God's omnipresence apart from grace-these three agree And the Apostle thanking God through Jesus Christ when the law of the spirit of life had made him free from the law of sin and death Jonah knowing that Jehovah was God, and that salvation was of the Lord, and the Psalmist, crying at the end of the Psalm, "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts," all bear witness to the same gospel fact that spiritual life can only be attained through death. It is one of our Father's most glorious titles that He is "God which raiseth the dead;" and it would seem that He would have us acknowledge the principle of resurrection in several distinct and what some might think dissimilar processes. I would especially mention the finding the lost, and the ushering an infant into the light of the natural world from the place where it was "made in secret" and visible to no eye but God's. Birth and resurrection are clearly associated in the mystic generation of our Lord from the grave (who we know was the Son of God in another sense from all eternity). "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee." Again, resurrection and finding the lost one are identified in the case of the Prodigal Son: "This my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." May we not then, seeing that not man, but God has joined these ideas together, consider that both in Jonah and the 139th Psalm the Spirit (to say the least), glances at the finding the lost tribes of Israel (qy. the body of Moses?) which God buried, whose sepulchre no man knows of, and which none but God can find? But we must not forget that in each of these cases of deliverance the Lord has a practical purpose to answer, "Let my people go that they may serve me." "This people have I formed for myself and they shall show |