Similar are the views of the Apostle Paul. According to him, while many other purposes were effected by the Incarnation, there is one great purpose running through all divine revelation. In several passages he affirms that its influence extends far beyond that which it exerts on the race of man. He again and again asserts that it was the gradual unfolding of an idea or purpose which existed from eternity in the divine mind. Thus he writes: “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Eph. iii. and ix.) “Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and in earth, even in Him.” (Eph. i. 9, 10.) “And having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself: by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.” (Col. i. 20.) I fully admit that the Apostle affirms that the design of bringing man into union with God was a portion of this purpose. Nothing however is more foreign to the ideas of St. Paul than that revelation is an afterthought adopted as a remedy for a marred plan. Nor are the views of the other writers of the New Testament different. St. Peter tells us that the angels desire to look into the redemption wrought by Christ. St. James assures us that, “known unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world.” The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks to the same effect: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers in (by) the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in His Son.” So far from its being the idea of the sacred writers that redemption is an afterthought designed to remedy the failure of the original purpose of creation, that both of them are viewed as parts of the same whole; both are purposes which have existed in the divine mind during the eternal ages, and have been gradually evolved in time. Nothing is further from their mind than that the divine mode of working is by fits or starts, or sudden interventions. Man was the last form of life which God has introduced into the world, and in that sense He is said to have rested from His creative work. But God is no less distinctly affirmed to be always working in nature and in providence, so that Sabbath days form no exception: “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”