631st ordinary GENERAL MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, S.W., ON MONDAY, MAY 2nd, 1921, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



The Rev. Prebendary H. E. Fox, M.A., in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the previous meeting were read, confirmed and signed, 

 and the Hon. Secretary announced the following Elections : — Miss C. 

 Nelson-Smith as a Member, Lieut. Louis S. Lee, Dr. Ellis T. Powell, 

 Miss Mercy Mayhead and Mrs. W. R. Houghton as Associates, and the 

 Rev. Dr. S. M. Zwemer of Cairo as a Missionary Associate. 



The Chairman then called on the Rev. James Gosset-Tanner, M.A., 

 to read his paper on " The Tripartite Nature of Man." 



THE TRIPARTITE NATURE OF MAN. By the Rev. 

 James Gosset-Tanner, M.A. 



VARIOUS philosophers have perceived a threefold nature in 

 man. Aristotle distinguished between the rou?, the "^vxv, 

 and the crw/xa, as the intellect, the soul, and the body. It 

 was reserved for the Word of God, and especially for St. Paul, to 

 point out the true division, which is spirit, soul, and body. This 

 comes out very markedly in 1 Thess. v, 23, "I pray God your 

 whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the 

 coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." I conclude that the spirit is 

 what we receive more definitely and immediately from the 

 Creator than the other. " So God created man in His ovm 

 image, in the image of God created He him" (Gen i, 27). 

 Again, " The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of 

 life (lives, Hebr.) ; and man became a living soul " (Gen. ii, 7). 

 In Heb. xii, 9, God is expressly called "the Father of 

 spirits." The soul is what we derive mediately from our 

 parents. It includes the affections, passions, intellect, tastes 

 and capacities, many of which are reproduced in children in 

 a minute and startling way. It is probable that even genius, 

 which is often regarded as independent and quite per se, had its 



