the origin and nature of Religion in the second of these Lectures, it was necessary to follow the order of thought, and beginning with Duty to end with God.  But the order of fact is not the same.  In actual fact man began with God and ends with a clearer perception of Duty.  Hence in all the earlier stages the morality is imperfect.  The profaneness of Esau is a serious offence.  The ungenerous temper, the unfairness and duplicity of Jacob are light in comparison.  Truth is not an essential.  Blood-shedding and impurity when in horrible excess are treated as most grievous sins; but restrained within limits are easily condoned.  Women are placed below their true and natural place; polygamy if not distinctly allowed is certainly condoned; divorce is permitted on one side, not on the other.  Slavery is allowed though put under regulation.  But the unity and spirituality of God are guarded with the strongest sanctions, and nothing could be said against idolatry and polytheism now, in sterner and clearer language than was used then.  The reverence for God required then was as great as the reverence required now.  But the conception of the holiness which is the main object of that reverence has changed; has in fact been purified and cleared.  And the change is traceable in the Old Testament.  The prophets teach a higher morality than is found in the earlier books.  Cruelty is condemned as it had not been before.  The heathen are not regarded as outside God’s love, and the future embraces them in His mercy even if the present does not.  Conscience begins to be recognised and appealed to.  Idolatry is not merely forbidden, its folly is exposed; it is treated not only with condemnation, but with scorn.  Individual responsibility is insisted on.  Children are not held responsible for their fathers, though the inheritance of moral evil and of the consequences of moral evil is never denied.  And even trust in God rises to a higher level in Habakkuk’s declaration that that trust shall never be shaken by any calamity that may befall him, than in the earlier belief that calamities would never befall those who held fast that trust.

If we review this progress in moral teaching we recognise that it corresponds to the natural and for the most part unconscious working of that instinctive test which, as was pointed out before, we apply to all moral questions, the test of universality.  The pivots of all the prophetical teaching are the incessant inculcation of justice and mercy; justice which requires us to recognise the rights of others side by side with our own; mercy which demands our sympathy with the feelings of other creatures that can feel.