Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/206

 thus without understanding? Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Then comes a very beautiful and magnificent description of God’s power, and Job says, “I know it; he is a man without knowledge who thinks he may hide his counsel.” This subjection is what is finally reached; on the one hand, there is the demand that it should go well with the righteous, and on the other, even the feeling of discontent when this is not the case, has to be given up. It is this resignation, this acknowledgment of God’s power, which restores to Job his property and the happiness he had before. It is on this acknowledgment of God’s power that there follows the re-establishment of his happiness. Still, at the same time, this good fortune is not regarded as something which can be demanded by finite man as a right, independent of the power of God.

This confidence in God, this unity, and the consciousness of this harmony of the power, and at the same time of the wisdom and righteousness of God, is based on the thought that God is determined within Himself as end, and has an end.

We have further to consider in this connection this fact, that Spirit becomes inward, the movement of Spirit within itself. Man must do right. That is the one absolute command, and this doing of what is right has its seat in his will. Man is by this means thrown back upon his inner nature, and he must occupy himself in thus considering his inner life, and finding out whether it is righteous, whether or not his will is good.

This examination into and anxiety about what is wrong, the crying of the soul after God, this descent into the depths of the spirit, this yearning of the spirit after what is right, after what is in conformity with the will of God, is something specially characteristic of this form of religion.

This end further appears as being at the same time limited. The end is, that men should know and