The life and work of St. Paul

PREDESTINATION AND FEEE WILL. 491
of confidence and rapture 1 which we will not degrade by the name of peroration,
because in St. Paul no such mere artificiality of construction is conceivable, but
which fitly closes this long and intricate discussion, in which he has enunciated
truths never formulated since the origin of the world, but never to be forgotten till
its final conflagration. The subtleties of dialectic, the difficulties of polemical argu-
ment, the novelties of spiritualising exegesis, are concluded ; and, firm in his own
revealed conviction, he has urged upon the conviction of the world, and fixed in the
conviction of Christians for ever, the deepest truths of the Gospel entrusted to his
charge. What remains but to give full utterance to his sense of exultation in spite
of earthly sufferings, and " to reduce doubt to absurdity " by a series of rapid, eager,
triumphant questions, which force on the minds of his hearers but one irresistible
answer ? In spite of all the anguish that persecution can inflict, in spi^e of all the
struggles which the rebellious flesh may cause, " we are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor
angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor
depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us for a moment 2 from
God's love manifested towards us in Christ Jesus our Lord." In spite of failure,
in spite of imperfection, our life is united with the life of Christ, our spirit quickened
by the Spirit of Christ, and what have we to fear if all time, and all space, and
all nature, and all the angels of heaven, and all the demons of hell, are utterly
powerless to do us harm ? 8
CHAPTER XXXYIH.
PREDESTINATION AND FEEE WILL.
"Everything is foreseen, and free will is given. And the world is judged by
grace, and everything is according to work." K. AKHIBHA in Pirke AbMth, iii. 24.
'Op$s STI ov s o68i uAoojj avdyitris tffrl rd tlvai -jfjfvffovv ff bff-rpiKivov &AA.&
TTJS qntTtpas TTpoaipfffews. CHRYS. ad 2 Tim. ii. 21.
"
Reasoned high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end in wandering mazes lost."
MILTON, Paradise Lott, ii.
"
Soil ich dir die Gegend Zeigen
Musst du erst das Dach besteigen." GO"THH.
WE now come to the three memorable chapters (ix.,
x.. xi.) in which St. Paul
faces the question which had, perhaps, led him to state to the Jews and Gentiles
of Rome the very essence of his theology. He has told them " his
Gospel" that revealed message which he had to preach, and by virtue of
1
Compare the outburst in 1
"
Cor. xv. 54. In fact, as verses 19 23 may be called
a sacred elegy, so we may term 31 39 a sacred ode ; that is as tender and fervent as this
Is bold and exalted that, an amplification of "we do groan being burdened" (2 Cor.
v. 4) ; this, a commentary on " this is the victory that overcometh the world" (1 John,
T. 4). Philippi, ad loc.
*
viil. 39, xiapLuai..
8
Compare this rapture of faith and hope with the aching despair of materialism.
" To modern unbelief the
philosophical beginning of the world, as well as its end, is sunk
in mist and night, because to it the centre of the world the historical Christ is sunk
"
in mist and night (Lange). The time was ripe for the recognition of a deliverer. Plato
and Seneca had clearly realised and distinctly stated that man was powerless to help
himself from his own misery and sin. (Sen. JEp. 53. Cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 18 : Cic. De Off.
14,18.)