gnt.ion. For exnmple, Hookcr, 1 in opening hia argumont on law, defines it thns: "Tlrnt which doth n11sign unto ench thing the kind, thnt which doth modcmte tho forco nnd power, thnt which doth nppoint the form nnd measure, of working, the Mmo wo term o. lnw." And he distinguishes four kind11 of lnw: (1) "Th9 law which Goel from before the beginning hath act for himsel£;" (2) "the law which nnturnl ngents hnve given them to observe; " (3) "the law which nngels do work by;" (4) "the lnw whereby mnn is in hfa nctions directed to the imitation of God." There are objections .. both to the definition and to the distinctions which it jg unnecessnry to discuss; but for our nrgnment, the cl,ief objection is thnt the one most importnnt distinction is not sufficiently marked, vi?:. the difference between such laws ns those which we call laws of nature-by which is meant the order in which certain physical events_ succeed one nnother as sequences of cause an,! effect-and such laws as those of the State, which originate in the authority of the Inwgiver and o.re enforced by the punishment of the transgressor. The latter are laws in the strict sense of the word, as 01·dinarily understood in humnn lnnguage. The Hebrew word Torah in Holy Scripture seems hardly ever to be used in any other sense than as a direction to a rational being,2 this involving a prohibition of the contrary. 3 The Greek word voµoi; is sometimes used in a wider sense, ns the English "law" is; e. g. St. Paul speaks of the "law of the spirit of life," nnd the" law of sin," where he means not any external direction, but a principle of causation; but these are exceptions both to the Scriptural usage of the word (which is ordinarily the equivalent of Torah), and to the classical usage, in which vo,.oi;, when not lnw in its strict sense, is the opposite of <f,udrt;. As, however, the argument of this introduction will be·analytical and not synthetfoal, it is unnecessary to discuss fnrther nt present the exact force of the term, because its complete menning must be gathered from that portion of Holy Scripture which is emphatically and distinctively "the LAW."
LAW DEFORE THE FALL. 7. For the origin of Divine law, both as regards those fundamental principles of the religious and ·moral duty of man of which "the law" is the formal exponent, anr1 in respect of the reasons 'which mnke law, in its strict sense, necessary for man as man, we must look to that history of creation and of man's original state which is contained in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis. That these ~rinciples nnd reasons are to .be found there, or must be concluded from the history, will very clenrly app~ar when we 'examine it. Indeed, the fact that the Torah begins with this history sufficiently indicates that the law given by God to man has its origin in and with man's own origin. In the law itself, the fourth of the Sinaitic commandments points expre~sly to that beginning of man's history as its own source and reason. That the connection of Divine law with man's creation is generally assumed, instead of. being expressly enunciated, in the law given by Moses, is accounted for when we consider (1) that this law was primarily a national covenant, and therefore in it the relations of God with his chosen people have special prominence ; and (2) that law ns law is based on o.uthority, not on reasons, and all that would be needed as the basis of the law was the assertion of the authority of Jehovnh as God of the whole earth, which truth was kept contimrnlly before the mind of the nation in all the 1 'Eccles. Pol.,' I. ii. 2. 2 'l'ho expression in Prov. xxxi. 26, "In l1er tongno is tho law of kin,lness," is probably no exception, as its meaning is that her commands to her household. a.re given with kinuness, oven as God's law is the law of love. 3 In rcforcuco to iunuimato natnro th~ wo1d clwq is nsed (cf. Job xxviii. 26; Ps. cxl..iii. 6 ; Prov viii 29 ; J or. v. 22). ,·i 'INTRODllCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH.