oubt there
are in St. Paul detachable texts. But on the whole St. Paul, least of
all men, admits of being judged by detached fragments. His thought is
always in process. It looks before and after. He is seriously wronged
by the mere fact of his epistles being divided into separate verses,
and sometimes arbitrary chapters, as in the Authorized Version. Thus
in the case of these three chapters, the common mistake as to the
meaning of particular phrases could hardly have arisen if the argument
had been kept in mind as a whole, and especially its conclusion as to
the universal purpose of divine love--'to have mercy upon all.'

2. For, among other things, the true meaning {8} of 'election' in
these chapters would then have been apparent. St. Paul has been
popularly misunderstood to be referring to God's 'election' of some
individual men to salvation in heaven, and His abandonment of the rest
to hell. Whereas the argument as a whole and its conclusion make it
quite certain that what he is speaking of is the election of men in
nations or churches (only subordinately of individuals)[4] to a
position of special spiritual privilege and responsibility in this
world, such as the Jews had formerly occupied, and the Christians were
occupying now--an election to be the people of God, and bear His name
in the face of the world--the sort of election which carries with it a
great joy and a special opportunity, but not by any means a certainty
of final personal acceptableness to {9} God, apart from moral
faithfulness. Apart from such faithfulness the 'children of the
kingdom shall be cast into the outer darkness,' and the highest shall
be put lowest, while the lowest are raised highest.

3. Another cause of misunderstanding has been forgetfulness of the
point of view of the opponent with whom St. Paul is arguing. In modern
times assertions of divine absoluteness, like St. Paul's, have been
made by teachers who were refusing to recognize any such freedom of the
will in the individual human being--any such power to control his own
personal destiny--as seems to our common sense to be involved in moral
responsibility in any real sense. St. Paul has therefore been
supposed, like these more recent teachers, to be asserting divine
absoluteness, or the unrestricted freedom of divine choice, as against
human freedom, or in such a way as to destroy the idea of moral
responsibility. But in fact St. Paul is vindicating moral
responsibi