5. As we read the words, 'And so all Israel shall be saved,' we cannot help asking ourselves--Does St. Paul mean us to believe this of all Israelites without exception, or even of Israel in general with an absolute necessity? I think the answer should be a negative in both cases[16]. Just above St. Paul says, looking at the matter from the side of Israel, 'They also, _if they continue not in unbelief_, shall be grafted in.' Here he is looking at the matter from the side of God. It lies in the divine purpose that the establishment of the catholic church, and the experience of alienation on the part of the Jews, should stimulate them to regain their ancient privileges on a new basis; 'and so,' looking at the matter from the point of view of the divine intention, 'all Israel shall be saved.' Just below, from the same point of view, it is stated to be God's purpose {83} 'to have mercy upon all men.' But, in interpreting this latter passage, we are doing violence to what St. Paul says elsewhere with emphatic distinctness, if we imagine that he asserts that all individual men without exception shall ultimately attain the end of their being and the fellowship of God. In these passages, as elsewhere, St. Paul looks at things from two points of view, without attempting to present us with a harmony of them. From one point of view we have spread out before us the 'mystery,' or revealed secret of God, and discern the purpose of His love working on, and finding its opportunities even in the gravest moral disasters. From the other point of view we detect human wilfulness, able in a measure, but never completely or on the whole, to baffle and thwart the divine purpose. St. Paul, I say, is content to recognize both points of view, and not to hold them in complete combination. He uses the perception of the divine purpose--in this case, the recovery of the Jews--as a motive for hope and thankfulness and renewed energy; but he does not, apparently, ask himself the metaphysical questions whether God foreknows how particular individuals or groups of men will act, or, if we must say that God does so foreknow how each {84} man will act, how this is reconcilable with his moral freedom. He is content to adore the divine purpose, and rest upon it; and recognize, on the other hand, the thwarting power of human wilfulness.