l
always have to leave it, or at least till we come to know even as we
are known.

In the quotations from the Old Testament, with which the section
concludes, we notice that St. Paul varies the original application of
the passages from Hosea. In the prophet they refer to the recovery of
dejected and dishonoured _Israel_, while the apostle applies them to
the exaltation of _the Gentiles_ from their low estate. As is often
the case, while other passages in the prophets were there to prove
exactly what he wanted[11], St. Paul takes the words which come {43}
into his mind with a considerable latitude of application, and without
any critical argument. Thus, if he makes somewhat free with the
particular texts, it is in order to vindicate the real teaching of the
Old Testament. He has, if not exact criticism, what is much better,
profound spiritual insight.

The passages quoted from Isaiah are characteristic and central. This
great prophet first clearly perceived that most striking law of human
history--that progress comes, not mostly through the majority of a
nation, but through the faithful remnant. It is the few best through
whom alone God can freely work. It is the best who in the long run
determine the moral level of the nation, and either keep the mass of
men around them from corruption, or, if that is impossible, provide a
fresh point of departure and hope in a society now inevitably, as a
whole, hastening to decay and judgement. 'As a terebinth, and as an
oak, whose stock remaineth, when they are felled; so the holy seed is
the stock thereof[12].'

[1] Isa. xxix. 16, xlv. 9, lxiv. 8; Jer. xviii. 6; Ecclus. xxxiii. 13.

[2] xv. 7.

[3] 1 Cor. xii. 22-5; 2 Tim. ii. 20.

[4] Jer. xviii. 4. The passage continues with a strong assertion of
God's freedom to govern the destinies of nations on moral principles.

[5] When Moses asked to see God's glory (Exod. xxxiii. 18), what was
revealed to him was His goodness and free mercy, and what St. Paul here
means by God's glory is His mercy especially.

[6] In the original the words run, 'For this cause have I made thee to
stand,' i.e. probably, 'I have preserved thy life under the plague of
boils, and other plagues, in order to make thee an example of a more
conspicuous judgement.' But St. Paul, departing from the Greek Bible,
uses a word 'raised thee up,' which in Pharaoh's case, or in that of
Cyrus, means to bring upon the stage of history. Isa. xli. 2; cf