SECTION LXXVI.

In treating of the moral law as the expression of the divine will, we have two points to consider, first, the communication of this law by God to man, and then its inner essence.

I. THE REVELATION OF THE DIVINE WILL TO MAN.

This revelation reveals to us not only the contents of the divine law, but must also reveal it as the divine will. This manifestation of the holy will of God is of a twofold character. In reason, which is the more especial embodiment of the divine image, and which is consequently the God-ward phase of man, man has the power of recognizing the divine will in regard to reason,—the rational life-purpose of the rational spirit. Hence, by virtue of his rationality, man has the divine law in himself as a personal knowledge attained to through free self-development. The divine will-revelation is therefore primarily an inner revelation within the rational spirit conditioned by the creative will itself. As, however, this knowledge cannot be a directly-given one, but must be first attained to by morally-spiritual activity, hence it cannot be for morality the sufficient antecedent condition. There is a necessity therefore, in order to the commencement of the morally-rational life of humanity, of a special training of the same by God unto moral knowledge,—of a direct extraordinary objective revelation by means of which man may have from the very beginning a definite consciousness as to the divine will, and a firm guarantee of the truth.