Mosaic teaching. Vlhen we pass to the New Testnment we find that Christ mor& than once, refers expressly to the prime.I state of mnn ne supplying the standard by v,hich the law itself must be interpreted. These cases we shn\l examine hcrenfter, St.. Paul nnd other npostolic writers not unfrcquently base duties ,vhich man owes, both to God and in the mutual relations of human life, not on any positive law or on responsibilities formed by redemption, but on those principles, antecedent to all lo.w, which are involved in cre11tion and ita teachings. 1 But even without such authority it would be impossible not to conclude that a trne history of man's origin must include and in"Vo!ve the fundamental principles of his duty both to God o.nd to his neighbour. For these duties must be founded on the relations between God and man, nnd between man and man. And whatever relations might be formed, and responsibilities ari8e out of these relations, during the subsequent history of mankind, those which arc involved in his origin must be primary, and all that aro subsequently developed must have their basis in them. 8. (I.) It is evident, for example, that the first element in God's relation to uR, the foundation of hie universal and absolute authority, is that which the very first sentence of the book of the law expresses : "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The eternity of God, liis almighty power, his infinite superiority to all things created, are all revealed in those few words. In the rest of the first chapter of Genesis the process of the creation by the will and word and spirit of God is described in language which is necessarily symbolical and ideal, because no other language could represent the opera,tions of the eternal and infinite God. It was not, we are there taught, by a solitary and immediate exercise of power that the universe assumed the form which we no,v behold. Through suc- cessive periods of the creative energy of God, and of the expression of the Divin!' mind, gradually from the dark and formless void, in due order and i_n connecte\l, sequences, all the manifold existences of the universe, the forms of dead matter, Jiving organisms, vegetable and animal, are evolved after their several kinds. All the truths as to the being of God on which his law is founded, are implied in this work of creation. Nothing in heaven or earth is self-existent a_nd eternal but God only. .All being and all personality are derived from God and subsist in God. Nature is but the effect of which he is tbe cause. His unity is manifested in the unity and continuity of creation from its beginning to its consummation ; his reason in its order and in the harmony and mutual adaptations of il:.s infinitely varied parts; l1is Divine power and energy in the causation through which this universal order hna been developed. Another general conclusion from creation is specially indicated by Rt. Paul at! antecedent to all law, being manifested (he says) to man in God's visible works ever since crea.tion, 2 viz. that he, being eternal and of infinite power, mul!t be one who cannot be represented by any material form, so that idolatry, no less than polytheism, is a contradiction of his being. 9. (II.) But no Iese essential to the foundation of man's duty both to Gori and to Lis neighbour,-eesential i.udeed as being the reason why there can be any such thing d.8 religion and morality,-is th11t relation of man to God which was established in tho origin of the human race. Of all this marvellous work, the creation of man fa the climax and consummation. In the sublime representation given in the sacred record, we ascend from a state of chaos, through the successive stages of the development of the universe, to man, for whom this earth bad been prepared as his habitation. 3 As
1 Of. e. g. Acts xiv. 15, xvii ·24, 25; Rom. i. 19, 20 ; 1 Cor, xi. 7-9; 1 Tim. ii. 12-14, ff, 3, 4 j J llilleS iii 9, 2 ,i:irb ,:riuEw, "6uµo11, Rom. i. 20. 8 Isa, :tlv. 18. INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH. vii