CHAPTER XV.
GENESIS.
And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. — Exodus.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing
made that was made. In him was Life; and the Life was the light of
men. — John.
SCIENTIFIC interpretation of the Scriptures most
properly begins with the beginning of the Old
Smothered utterances.
Testament, — chiefly because the spiritual
import of the Word, in its earliest articulations,
often seems so smothered by the immediate context as
to require explication; whereas the New Testament
narratives are clearer, and come nearer the heart. Jesus
illumines them, showing the poverty of mortal existence,
but richly recompensing human want and woe with
spiritual gain. The incarnation of Truth, that amplification
of wonder and glory which angels only could
whisper, and God illustrated in light and harmony, is
consonant with ever-present Love. So-called mystery and
miracle, which subserve the end of natural goodness,
are explained by that Love for whose rest the weary
ones sigh, when needing something more native to their
immortal cravings than the history of perpetual evil.
A second necessity for beginning with Genesis is this, — that the living and real prelude of the elder Scriptures
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