Chapter 22: The Necessity of Divine Teaching The manner in which the Spirit of God does this, is what we can never know in this world. But the fact is undeniable, that he can reach the mind without the use of words, and can put our minds in possession of the ideas themselves, of which the types, or figures, or words, of the human teacher, are only the signs or imperfect representatives. The human teacher can only use words to our senses, and finds it impossible to possess us of the ideas of that which we have never experienced. But the Spirit of God, having direct access to the mind, can, through the outward sign, possess us of the actual idea of things. What Christian does not know this, as a matter of fact? What Christian does not know, from his own experience, that the Spirit of God does lead him instantly to see that in a passage of scripture, which all his study and effort of mind to know the meaning of could never have given him in the world?
Take the case again, of a painting on the wall there, and suppose that all the congregation were blind, and I was trying to describe to them this painting. How, suppose, while I was laboring to make them understand the various distinctions and combination of colors, and they are bending their minds to understand it, all at once their eyes are opened! You can then see for yourselves the very things which I was vainly trying to bring to your minds by words. Now, the office of the Spirit of God, and what he alone can do, is to open the spiritual eye, and bring the things which we try to describe by analogy and signs, in all their living reality before the mind, so as to put the mind in complete possession of the thing as it is.
It is evident, too, that no one but the Spirit of God so knows the things of God as to be able to give us the idea of those things correctly. "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man that is in him?" What can a beast know of the things of a man, of a man's character, designs, etc.? I can speak to your consciousness being a man, and knowing the things of a man. But I cannot speak these things to the consciousness of a beast, neither can a beast speak of these things, because he has not the spirit of a man in him, and cannot know them. In like manner the Bible says, "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."
The Spirit of God, knowing from consciousness the things of God, possesses a different kind of knowledge of these things from what other beings can possess; and therefore, can give us the kind of instruction we need, and such as no other being can give.
IV. The needed influences of the Spirit of God may be possessed by all men, freely, and under the gospel.
A few passages from the Bible will show this:
Jesus Christ says God is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him, than parents are to give their children bread. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." "And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." James says, "If any of