On the question, Who is the Heir of Divine Things (116-120)

And is not nature the fountain, and root, and foundation of all arts and sciences, or any other name you please to give to the oldest of principles, nature, upon which all speculations are built up? And if nature be not first laid as the foundation, everything is imperfect, and on this account some one seems to me to have said with great felicity:— The first beginning is quite half the whole.

Very appropriately therefore does the sacred scripture command the first-fruits to be offered up to the all-ruling God. And in another passage we read "The Lord spake unto Moses saying, Sanctify to me all the first-born: all that is first brought forth, all that openeth the womb among the children of Israel, whether of man or beast is mine," [*]

so that it is openly asserted in these words, that all the first things, whether in point of time or of power, are the property of God, and most especially all the first-born; since the whole of that race which is imperishable shall justly be apportioned to the immortal God; and if there is anything, in short, which openeth the womb, whether of man which here means speech and reason, or of beast which signifies the outward sense and the body;

for that which openeth the womb of all these things, whether of the mind, so as to enable it to comprehend the things appreciable only by the intellect, or of the speech so as to enable it to exercise the energies of voice, or of the external senses, so as to qualify them to receive the impressions which are made upon them by their appropriate subjects, or of the body to fit it for its appropriate stationary conditions or motions, is the invisible, spermatic, technical, and divine Word, which shall most properly be dedicated to the Father.

And, indeed, as are the beginnings of God so likewise are the ends of God; and Moses is a witness to this, where he commands to "separate off the end, and to confess that it is due to God." [*] The things in the world do also bear witness. [*] [*]