But I wonder that some are so obstinate as to think that repentance is
not to be granted to the lapsed, or to suppose that pardon is to be denied to
the penitent, when it is written, “Remember from where you have fallen, and
repent, and do the first works,” which certainly is said to him who evidently
has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise up again by his works, because it
is written, “Alms do deliver from death,” and not, assuredly, from that death
which once the blood of Christ extinguished, and from which the saving grace of
baptism and of our Redeemer has delivered us, but from that which subsequently
creeps in through sins.
Moreover, in another place time is granted for repentance; and the Lord
threatens him that does not repent: “I have,” He says, “many things against you,
because you tolerate your wife Jezebel, which calls herself a prophetess, to
teach and to seduce My servants to commit fornication, and to eat things
sacrificed to idols; and I gave her a space to repent, and she will not repent
of her fornication. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit
adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds;” whom
certainly the Lord would not exhort to repentance, if it were not that He
promises mercy to them that repent.
And in the Gospel He says, “I say to you, that likewise joy shall be in
heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety nine just persons
that need no repentance.” For since it is written, “God did not make death,
neither has He pleasure in the destruction of the living,” surely He who wills
that none should perish desires that sinners should repent, and by repentance
should return again to life.
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