:htiee as to the othor. For the nnthority of parenfa is to b1: respected and their persons aro to be honoured, beco.uso they represent God to ns, from whom the paren tr.l rela- tion is derived 11.nd in whom it i~ constitute<l. 1 And certainly we rnny adapt to this cnso the nrgument which St. John uses mure generally: "He that honoureth not hi~ eo.rthly parents whom he hath seem, how can he hononr God, his r.;javc11ly Father, whom he hath not seen?'' And the family, being a. Divine ordinance involved in that o.f mnrriage,2 is, so to Apenk, God's nursery in which man may he trained from his infancy in those habits of self-control, and in that respect and reverence for authority, without which nil the bonds both of social and of natural life are of no avail. The duties which man owes to duly constituted authority in all these sphcBB are therefore included in this commandment; and it is certain, as indicated in its language, that, in what we understand by God's providential government of the world, the welfare of mankind depends on nothing so much as on that due respect for human o.uthority,a as acting for God, o.nd that obedience to law, which are first taught by the parental relation, the ties of which are of all the tenderest, the strongest, and the most sacred. 41. (VI.) The next four commandments of the law are nearly related together, for they all refer to those natural rights of man, which either directly or by necessary inference are derived from bis creation. Of these the first of all is man's right to liis own existence, as o. being created by God in bis image, whose life therefore cannot be used merely as means to other ends, for he must be an end in himself. The sixth commandment asserts in the form of law, as had been asserted after the Deluge many centuries before, the intrinsic sacredness of the life of man. In its negative aspect, the prohibition, "Thou shalt do no murder," forbids all those feelings which, if un- controlled and matured, would end, as Cain's jealousy and anger ended, in murder, and which, even if checked in their course, would tend to the injury of another in some degree. Even the Talmud and other Jewish traditions recognise the truth that minor injuries to our neighbour are, in the eye of God's law, equivalent to murder. 1 On the positive side, this commandment requires that active and practical and loving concern for the lives of our brethren, above all for their spiritual being, the true and eternal life, which must proceed from the full belief of the truth that man is made in the image of God. 6 At the same time it must be remembered that all the rights of man as regards this present life, must from the very nature of the case be limited by the rights of other men; in other words, by those of human society. The principle of the sacredness of man's life is asserted as the basis for all law; the application of the principle, wherever it is not detennined (as it was for Israel under special circum- stances) by Divine direction, is left ~o that authority which is "God's minister" for h111nan society. 0 . 42. (VII.) The seventh commandment guards man's rights under the ordinance of m:i.rriage, the mutual duties and responsibilities of which, as we havo already fournl, the history of man's creation plainly declares. And marriage being ordained for the: following reasons,7-to to.ke them in tho ordor which its institution in man's state oE Ier. Ephos. iii. 15, •Et 0~ 'IT"QO'a 'l!"arp,a EV oupavoi, ,ra1 /,r, yijc ovoµtil:Erai, and vi I. 2 Seo § 11. s Rom. xiii 1-7. ' "Ho who mnkos tho faco of his neighbour pale with shamo is like a mo.n th,,t shc,ls blood." "He who mo.kes his fellow-creuture siu commits a greater crime thnu the mur- derer." Quoted by Ki,lisch on Exo<l. xx. 13: but the modern, ratioualistic Jewish con, monto.tor, in a spirit similar to thnt of the Scribes nnd Pharisees in our Lord's time, refuses to recognise anything but tho letter in tbo law itself. 6 er. in illustrntion the remarko.blo.passago, Prov. xxiv. 11, 12, aut.l om Saviour's worJs,
Mntt. xvi. 25, 2G 0 Ilo111. xiii. 1, "ITc lwarot.h not the swor•l in vain." 7 En_:;lish :lfani:lgc S, n-i,·~. INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH.