May we not extend the reference of a sentence so absolute in its oracular brevity, and take it to speak the secret of an indefectible mercy not only to nation, but to individual? Here as elsewhere we shall need to remember the rule which bids us, in the heights and depths of all truth, "go to both extremes." Here as elsewhere we must be reverently careful how we apply the oracle, and to whom. But does not the oracle say this, that where the eternal Love has, without merit, in divine speciality, settled upon a person, there, not arbitrarily but by a law, which we cannot explain but which we can believe, it abides for ever? Still, this is a reflection to be made only in passing here. The immediate matter is a chosen people, not a chosen soul; and so he proceeds: [Sidenote: Ver. 30.] =For as once you obeyed not our (τῷ) God, but now,= in the actual state of things, in His grace, =found mercy, on occasion of their disobedience;= [Sidenote: Ver. 31.] =so they too now obeyed not, on occasion of your mercy,= in mysterious connexion with the compassion which, in your pagan darkness, revealed salvation to you,[204] =that they too may find mercy.= Yes, even their "_disobedience_," in the mystery of grace, was permitted _in order to_ their ultimate blessing; it was to be overruled to that self-discovery which lies deep in all true repentance, and springs up towards life eternal in the saving "confidence of self-despair." The pagan (ch. i.) was brought to self-discovery as a rebel against God indicated in nature; the Jew (ch. ii.) as a rebel against God revealed in Christ. This latter, if such a comparison is possible, was the more difficult and as it were advanced work in the divine plan. It took place, or rather it is taking and shall take place, later in order, and nearer to the final and universal triumph of redemption. [Sidenote: Ver. 32.] =For God shut them all (τοὺς πάντας) up into disobedience, that He might have mercy upon them all.= With a _fiat_ of judicial permission He let the Gentile develop his resistance to right into unnatural outrage. He let the Jew develop his into the desperate rejection of his own glorious Messiah. But He gave the _fiat_ not as a God who did not care, a mere supreme Law, a Power sitting unconcerned above the scene of sin. He let the disease burst into the plague-spot in order that the guilty victim might ask at last for His remedy, and might receive it as mere and most astonishing mercy.