are free when we perfectly comprehend the laws of nature, _i. e._, of God, perfectly and cheerfully comply with them, and so know how to get the advantage and profit of them. All progress in material civilization has been attained by increasing knowledge of the divine laws, and consequently an increased use of them. We have yet to learn the gain that there is in a similar comprehension of and obedience to the intellectual and the spiritual laws of the universe. Thus it is that the _truth_ makes _free_ (ver. 32). 37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed: but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. 38 I[338] speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. [338] ch. 14:10, 24. =37, 38. I know that ye are Abraham’s seed.= Not equivalent to _I know that ye regard yourselves as Abraham’s seed_. The reference is to the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:4-8), which involved a promise of divine protection and blessing to the nation. The Pharisees adhere to the idea of political freedom. Christ assents to their declaration that they are the seed referred to in that covenant, but returns to the spiritual idea which underlies his discourse, and emphasizes the extent to which, in character, they have wandered from the pattern set by Abraham.--=Nevertheless= (ἀλλὰ, notwithstanding you are Abraham’s seed) =ye seek to kill me= (chaps. 7:1, 19, 32; 8:59; 10:31, 39). To whom were these words spoken?--to the believing Judeans mentioned in ver. 30, or to enemies? The true answer is that believers and unbelievers were intermixed in the crowd, and that it is as little possible for the reader now as it would have been for the observer then to distinguish between them.--=Because my word makes no progress in you.= They heard it--nay, crowded round him to hear it, were willing and interested listeners. But the truth did not get entrance into their hearts, nor permeate their character. It was not like the leaven hid in three measures of meal. They were thus a type of many modern hearers who listen to the truth, but in whom the truth does not work. The words rendered _hath no place_ (οὐ χωρεῖ) signify, literally, does not _work, spread, go forward_.--=I do that which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that which ye have heard with your father= (ἠκούσατε, _heard_, not ἑωράκατε, _seen_, is the better reading). Christ approaches a truth whose depths, in our ignorance of the spirit world, we cannot sound. This is that every soul draws its inspiration from an invisible world--either belongs to the kingdom of light and is taught of God, or belongs to the kingdom of darkness and is taught of evil spirits. The unseen companions of the soul are the most influential. Demoniacal possession is only an exceptional fruitage of a universal demoniacal inspiration. See below, on ver. 44.