Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION CXIX.

(a) The duty of moral sparing is here the preserving of one’s own existence and of its normal peculiarity and development, as prompted by a consciousness of the divine will, and hence also the warding off of all therewith-conflicting and disturbing or destroying influences on the part of nature or of the spiritual world. To this end it is necessary that in all things the true relation of the body, as a serving power, to the rational spirit, as the dominating power, be preserved, and that the image of God, which though originally inherent in man. is yet in need of fuller development, be preserved pure even in its corporeally-symbolical manifestation.

The moral sparing of one’s self is the higher moral application of a law that pervades the entire totality of being. That which is cohesion in a nature-body, and the law of gravitation in the natural world in general, and the instinct of self-defense and of self-preservation in the animal world, becomes with man a moral duty. When man seeks to preserve himself, to ward off injury and death, out of mere natural instinct, his action is not yet moral; it becomes moral only when it springs from a consciousness that it is God’s will,—that God has pleasure in our existence as his own creative work, that He has a purpose in us which we are morally to fulfill. Of a duty of self-destruction there can never be any possibility; and for a duty of entire self-sacrifice, of the giving up of life for the sake of a higher end, there is, in a state of sinlessness, also no possibility; otherwise the divine government would be in anarchy. God who gave existence to man wills also its preservation,—has willed it as a moral end, and not simply as a means to an end. Death is simply the wages of sin, and not a condition of virtue, save alone where on account of sin there is need of a sacrifice.

In a sinless state the duty of self-sparing is of easy fulfillment, partly for the reason that it corresponds to a natural law immanent in all living creatures, and partly because disturbing influences are conceivable only where they are occasioned by the fault of man himself,—for example, when he presumptuously exposes himself to such natural influences as he is not yet able to resist,—which is in fact possible seeing that, also for the unfallen state, the complete mastery over nature is presented as a condition yet to be attained to by moral effort. Also from the influence of spiritual beings an injuring of the moral person is possible, so long as the rational creature has not as yet attained to its ultimate perfection, so that here also there is place for the duty of watchfulness, in order that the diverse personalities that are as yet in process of development may not act hinderingly upon each other. And this duty of sparing watchfulness is still more increased when the moral person stands no longer in the presence of simply sin-free beings, but is assaulted by spiritual temptation, as in the case of Adam and Eve; here the duty of self-preserving sparing assumes at once the form of a positive warding off.—In the Scriptures the duty of sparing one’s self, even in relation to the corporeal life, is presented as per se strictly valid; “no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church” [Eph. v, 29]. Man is also to exercise this duty of sparing in view of his own possible sinning; in protecting his moral innocence, man protects also the image of God as created in him.