'Earlier' in the Bible

Consider therefore. Moses gave you the rite of circumcision (not that it began with Moses, but with your earlier forefathers)

Even as Isaiah says in an earlier place, "Were it not that the Lord, the God of Hosts, had left us some few descendants, we should have become like Sodom, and have come to resemble Gomorrah."

which in earlier ages was not made known to the human race, as it has now been revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets through the Spirit--

On the one hand we have here the abrogation of an earlier code because it was weak and ineffective--