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

(c) In that the morally-good becomes an acquired possession of man, his real property, it has become an essential element of his moral nature, and hence is not an inert state, but an active power generative of new moral life,—has become a creative, operative disposition, and is consequently itself per se a directly active motive to moral action. The morally-good has become virtue, which is accordingly, on the one hand, a good not innate and embraced in the nature itself of man, but a morally-acquired possession, and on the other a power generative in turn itself of the good.

“All Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is also profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in , that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” [2 Tim. iii, 16, 17]; the moral perfection attained to by the activity is itself in turn a stimulus to the good, a capacitation, a skilledness and power for moral activity; such is the inner idea of virtue. Man as come into possession of virtue is no longer the original man possessed of merely naturally-moral power, but he is man as armed with morally acquired and hence heightened power. There are no innate virtues, but only innate capabilities of virtue. The merely natural man has moral freedom as a simple and as yet undetermined freedom of choice; the virtuous man has his freedom as exalted to a determinedness for the good; he has no longer an equally balanced choice between good and evil, but his morally acquired peculiarity of character inclines spontaneously to the good. Man can never merely possess virtue, he must let it be operative; a dormant virtue is none at all. Hence, varying from the usual view which distinguishes and contrasts goods and virtues, we consider virtue directly as a good. The contrasting of virtue as a power and of goods as a possession is inaccurate; all power is a good, and every good is a heightening of power; hence men of the world seek so zealously after earthly goods, as they thereby enlarge their power. That virtue is not a dormant possession, but strictly an operative power, does not make it differ essentially from all other goods; no real property exists merely to lie idle, no talent is to be buried; but it is to be put to usury and made constantly to acquire more. Money is a good; for him, however, who does not put it to use, it does not really exist; it becomes a real good only when it becomes a power, when it is employed in heightened life-activity. Virtue, however, is a much higher good than that which is given us directly and from nature, or as an outward possession.

In the New Testament the notion of virtue is variously expressed; ἀρετή [Phil. iv, 8; 1 Peter ii, 9; 2 Peter i, 3, 5] is not strictly virtue, but is rather the notion of the morally good in general. Usually the notion of virtue is expressed by δικαιοσύνῃ, in so far as this quality is a personal possession [Luke i, 75; Rom. vi, 13; Eph. iv, 24; v, 9, and other passages], also by ἁγιωσύνῃ [1 Thess. iii, 13], by ἀγαθωσύνη [Rom. xv, 14; Eph. v, 9], and likewise also by εὐσέβεια, in so far as the root of virtue rather than virtue itself is meant; for Christian virtue, χάρισμα is also used, as designating its resting upon divine . In the Old Testament the notion proper of virtue is wanting; under the predominance of the thought of the law and of right, the morally correct character is designated as “,” in virtue of its answering to the law and claims of God; hence this is merely a designation of the form. Before the full accomplishment of , the inner essence of virtue was neither fully realizable nor comprehensible.