Above and Around Author:John Hamilton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3and know him as he is ; we know textit{that he is, not the less surely if we do not know textit{what he is. Like God, his existence proclaims,. " / textit{am." If man were only a body o... more »f flesh, with its own senses and capabilities, he could never be educated into a state to partake of spiritual joy, and could not be blamed for not giving heed and obedience to spiritual teaching and law. But he is textit{not only a body of flesh. There is a mortal fleshly body and nature of man ; and also a spiritual body and nature, not created, but the offspring of God, and of His kind. He is therefore textit{capable of receiving the teaching and of obeying the law of his Father (1 Cor. ii. 12-14); and so can become partaker of the joy of his Father. This capacity and capability constitute the Divine nature which is attributed to man throughout these textit{Thoughts. DISCIPLES AND OTHERS. All men may be thus divided into two sorts. The meaning of textit{discip7e is textit{one who learns by inquiring, as we read in Luke viii. 9, 10, " His textit{disciples asked Him saying, What might this parable be? And He said, Unto textit{you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to textit{others in parables." So again Jesus charges His disciples, " Go ye and make textit{disciples of all nations," and then He adds, c "teaching them" (Matthew xxviii. 9, 10, textit{Revised New Testament). To teach anything to pupils who are not desirous to learn is slow and imperfect work, but when we come to the highest subjects, such as God and man, the attempt ' is peculiarly vain until the spirit of disciples (the inquiring spirit) is stirred up. If the preachers or teachers alone are active, and the textit{others remain merely passive, however good may be the thing taught, and however successful may b...« less