Kind
Formula
Interpretive layers
Biblical typology
Teaching pattern
Three levels of understanding the same scriptural truth: stone is the literal truth (the commandments written on tablets of stone for those who can see nothing deeper), water is its psychological meaning, the living water that makes the stories a living reality, and wine, the spiritual understanding, one must make for oneself by the wise use of that water. The Bible is to each man what he is to himself: 'such as men themselves are, such will God appear to them to be'.
Collections
Lectures
Bible wordings
John 4:10 | I give you living waters
Other quotations
John Smith, the Cambridge Platonist | Such as men themselves are, such will God appear to them to be
Sir Walter Scott | Man’s greatest education is that which he gives to himself
Own wordings
The stones of the Bible are its literal truths
The water of the Bible is the psychological meaning hidden in these literal truths of stone
The wine you must make for yourself through the wise use of this living water or psychological truth
Stone represents the most external and literal form of spiritual truth, and water refers to another way of understanding the same truth. Wine or spirit is the highest form of understanding it
Are You Stone, Water or Wine?
No man’s conduct will be higher than his conception of God, and his conception of God is determined by the kind of man he, himself, is