16 No extent of sin is beyond the power of repentance. LECT. him;) but having been framed good, he became a devil from II. his own purpose of mind, and received his name from his 12-17. conduct. For being an Archangel, he was called devil, or slanderer, from his slandering; and from a good servant of God, he became Satan fitly so named; for Satan means an Adversary. These doctrines are not mine, but the inspired prophet Ezekiel's. For he, taking up a lamentation against him, says, Ez. 28, Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; and soon after, Thou wast perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Very rightly bath he said, was found in thee; for it was not brought in from without, but thou thyself didst beget evil. And the reason he assigns afterwards: thine heart was lifted up, because of thy beauty; I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God, I will cast thee to the ground. Parallel to this, is what the Lord says in the Gospel, I beheld Satan as lightning fallen from heaven. Thou seest the harmony of the Old Testament with the New. He, on his falling, drew many away with him. He puts lusts into those who listen to him: from him is adultery, fornication, and all evil: through him our forefather Adam was cast out, and exchanged a paradise of wonderful and spontaneous fruits, for this earth with its thorns and thistles. (4.) 5. What then? some one will say. We have been seduced and are lost; is there no chance of salvation? We have fallen; cannot we rise? We have been blinded; cannot we recover our sight? We have been crippled; cannot our feet become straight again? In a word, we are dead; is there no resurrection? Shall not He, O man, who woke Lazarus, a corpse of four days, which stank, shall not He much more easily raise up thee, a living man? He who shed His precious blood for us, the same shall rescue us from sin. Let us not give sentence against ourselves, brethren; let us not abandon our case as hopeless: not to believe there is hope in penitence, is dreadful indeed. For he who is without expectation of salvation, spares not to increase the evil; but he who hopes for a cure, is easily induced to spare himself. Thus the robber who expects no mercy runs into recklessness; but if he hopes for pardon, often betakes himself Instances of Adam, Cain, and the Antediluvians, 17 to repentance. Nay does the serpent strip himself of old age, and shall not we cast the slough of wickedness? Does thorny ground by good tillage become fruitful, and is salvation to us irrecoverable? Nature then admits of salvation; all that is wanting is the purpose of mind. 20. 6. God is loving to man, and that not a little. For say (5.) not, "I have committed whoredom and adultery: fearful things have been done by me, nor once only but often; will He forgive, will He forget?" Hear what the Psalmist says; Ps. 31, O how plentiful is Thy goodness, O Lord. Thy accumulated sins surpass not the multitude of the mercies of God; thy wounds baffle not the skill of the chief Physician. Only give thyself to Him in faith: tell the Physician thine ailment; say thou also as David did; I said, I will confess my Ps. 32, sins unto the Lord: and what he says next shall also be fulfilled in thee; And so Thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin. 5. 7. Wouldest thou see the loving-kindness of God, O thou that art lately come to the Catechising? wouldest thou see the loving-kindness of God, and the abundance of His longsuffering? Hear thou concerning Adam. Adam disobeyed, the first whom God created; might He not at once have visited him with death? But see what the Lord does, in His great love towards man: though He casts him out of Paradise, his sin making him unfit to continue there, yet He places him opposite to Paradise, that seeing what he had ariaforfeited, and what a downfall he had suffered, he thenceforth might be saved by repentance. Cain, the first born man, 3, 24. became a fratricide, a deviser of evils, the cause of mur- Septuag. ders, and the first who envied; yet when he had slain his brother, to what is he doomed? a fugitive and a vagabond Gen. 4, shalt thou be in the earth. How great the sin, how light the doom! 8. This then in very deed is loving-kindness in God, yet it is small compared with what follows: for consider, I pray, the history of Noe. The giants sinned, and lawlessness was there lavishly poured out upon the earth; and in consequence the deluge was ordained to come upon it. In his five hundredth year God puts forth the threat, and in his six hundredth He brought the deluge on the earth. Seest thou C τι τοῦ Gov. Gen. vers. 12. 18 Instance of Rahab an encouragement to penitent sinners. LECT. the breadth of God's loving-kindness, extending over the II. (6.) space of a hundred years? what He did then after the hundred years, could He not have done at once? but on purpose did He extend it, to give room for repentance. Seest thou the goodness of God? And had those men repented, they would not have come short of His loving-kindness. 9. Let us proceed to others, who have been saved by repentance. Perchance some among the women will say, "I have committed whoredom and adultery, I have defiled my body with excesses; is there salvation?" Cast thine eyes, O woman, to Rahab, and do thou also expect salvation; for if she who openly and publicly committed whoredom was saved through repentance, shall not she, who has committed one such act before the gift of grace, be saved through penitence and by fastings? For enquire how she was saved: this only said Josh. 2, she, The Lord your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. Your God, for she dared not call Him her own, on account of her unchastity. And if thou wouldest receive a written witness that she was saved, thou hast it Ps. 87, recorded in the Psalms, I will think upon Rahab and Babylon with them that know me". Oh the great loving-mercy of God, which makes mention even of harlots in the Scriptures: and not simply I will think upon Rahab and Babylon, but with this added, with them that know me. On men therefore, and likewise on women, is salvation, viz. that which is secured to us through repentance. 11. 4. Exod. 10. And though the people sin as one body, it does not surpass God's loving-kindness. The people made a calf, yet did not God give over His loving-kindness. Men denied God, but God denied not Himself. These are thy gods, O Israel, they said; yet again, as was His wont, The God of Israel 63, 8. became their Saviour. And not only did the people sin, but Deut. 9, Aaron too the high-priest. For it is Moses who says, And upon Aaron came the wrath of the Lord; and I entreated, 32, 4. Vid. Is. 20. a In the Psalm referred to, Rahab stands for Egypt. Vid. Ps.89, 10. Isai. 51,9. S. Jerome, in Ps. 87, 4. considers Rahab a type of the Gentile Church called out of Jericho, the world. Egypt in the Psalm is a type of the same. Penitent Rahab then may as naturally stand for a type of penitent Egypt, as the abandoned woman in the Revelations for impenitent Babylon. And as what is said of Hagar in Gen. 21, 10. is meant of Jerusalem, so Rahab may really be named in this Psalm, yet Egypt meant as its scope, and beyond that the Gentile Church. Instance of the Israelites and Aaron in making the golden calf. 19 he says, for him, and God forgave him. What then? Did Moses, entreating for a high-priest who had sinned, prevail with the Lord, and does not Jesus, the Only- begotten, when He entreats for us, prevail with God? And did He admit Aaron, in spite of his fall, to the high-priesthood, and will He obstruct thy entrance to salvation who art come from the Gentiles? Repent, O man, henceforth thyself, and the gift shall not be withheld thee. Present thy conduct unrebukable before Him henceforward: for God is in very truth loving to man, nor can the whole race of man worthily tell out His loving-kindness. No, not if all the tongues of men were to come together, could they even thus unfold some part of His loving-kindness. For we declare some part of what is written concerning His loving-kindness to men: but we know not how much He forgave to Angels: for them also did He forgive, since One only is sinless, Jesus, who purgeth our sins;-but of these enough. 11. If thou wilt, I will set before thee additional precedents (7.) respecting our state. Let us come to the blessed David, and take him for an ensample of repentance. He fell, that highly gifted man. Walking in the evening-tide on the house-top b Very little having been authoritatively delivered to the Apostles on the subject of the Angels, what was believed or surmised in the early Church seems to have been gathered from various sources, trustworthy and not; and of the latter especially Platonism. The proof that the sources in question were not apostolic, is the discordance or uncertainty of the opinions themselves. The Fathers indeed bear witness concordantly to the truth, that God alone is singly and absolutely perfect and above all judgment, using it as an argument for the divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost, that they too are sinless or beyond judgment. (vid. Clem. Pædag. i. 2. Origen. in Cant. Hom. 3. fin. Theodor. in Num.9. Ambros. de Sp. S. iii. 18. n. 132, &c. Hieron. in Pelag.3.p.203.col.1.Athan.Orat.in Arian. ii. 6. Ambros. in Fid. v. 11. n. 140, 141. Cyril Alex. Thesaur. 21. They built this doctrine on such passages of Scripture as Job 4,18. Rev. 2. and 3. (which they considered to imply the truth of the literal sense in the truth of the figurative, which was primarily and directly intended.) Col. 1, 20. Eph. 3, 10. Acts 17,31. &c. Some Am of the Fathers considered, that, besides 12. II. 20 The power of Confession in the instances of David, LECT. after his sleep, he looked unguardedly, and was moved by human passion. His sin was completed; but in it perished not that nobleness of mind which confesses a transgression. Nathan the prophet came, swiftly, to detect and to heal his 2 Sam. wound. The Lord is wroth, he says, and thou hast sinned. So spoke the subject to him who had the kingdom; yet the king, though in purple clad, did not take it ill, as regarding not the speaker, but Him that sent him. He was not blinded by the military circle which stood about him; for his mind discerned the Lord's angelical host, and as seeing the Invisible, he submitted in the anguish, replying to his visitor, or rather through him to Him who sent him, I have sinned against the Lord. Thou seest how a king could be humbleminded, how he could make confession. Had it been brought home to him by any one? Were many privy to the matter? The matter was done quickly, and forthwith the Prophet came an accuser, and the sinner acknowledges the crime. And according to the frankness of his confession was the speed of his cure, for the prophet Nathan who had threatened him, says straightway, And the Lord hath put away thy sin. Thou seest how very quick was the relenting of the God of loving-kindness. Yet he says, Thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. For though on account of thy righteousness thou hadst many foes, yet thy self-command was thy protection; but now that thou hast let go thy best weapon, thy foes, who were standing ready, are risen up against thee. The Prophet then thus comforted him. 10. 12. But holy David, for all he heard it said, The Lord hath put away thy sin, shrunk not from penitence, king though he was: but put on sackcloth for purple, and for his gilded throne sat down, a king, in ashes on the ground; not only Ps. 102, sat but fed on ashes, (as he saith himself, I have eaten ashes as it were bread,) and wasted with tears his lustful eye. Ps. 7, 7. Every night, he says, wash I my bed and water my couch with my tears. When his lords urged him to eat bread, he would not: for seven whole days he prolonged his fast. If a king thus made confession, oughtest not thou a private man to make confession? And after Absalom's rebellion, though he had many roads for escaping, he chose to flee by the Mount of Olives, all but invoking mentally the Redeemer who |