Article November 13, 1948 Issue

HEAVEN'S FIRST LAW

NELL AMNA SHELTON

When Pope wrote, "Order is Heaven's first law," in the early eighteenth century, he set forth an axiom which has since been almost universally accepted. About one hundred and fifty years later Mary Baker Eddy wrote in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 391): "Justice is the moral signification of law. Injustice declares the absence of law." An individual's expression of justice inevitably brings into his affairs a sense of law and order.

A house set in order, whether that of a family, a church, a corporation, or a nation, implies the establishment of just and harmonious relationships of all members with one another or an arrangement of things which promotes a tranquil and free state, permitting men, churches, businesses, and nations to realize and maintain their proper place and function. A dictionary defines order as "a condition in which everything is so arranged as to play its proper part," thereby bringing out the importance of order in all things pertaining to the well-being and activity of men.

The orderly and just procedure given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you," is the rule we must all follow, and it is as effectual today as when these words were first spoken. Jesus was really stating the First Commandment (Ex. 20:3), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," in another way. Was it not love for those whom he taught that often inspired him to state a commandment affirmatively in terms of what obedience to the commandment would do for the individual, thus showing them the justice of God?

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