Chapter VIII.—Examples from Scripture to Prove the Lord’s Willingness to Pardon.

This if you doubt, unravel69    Evolve: perhaps simply ="read.” the meaning of “what the Spirit saith to the churches.”70    Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 29; iii. 6, 13, 21. He imputes to the Ephesians “forsaken love;”71    Rev. ii. 4. reproaches the Thyatirenes with “fornication,” and “eating of things sacrificed to idols;”72    Rev. ii. 20. accuses the Sardians of “works not full;”73    Rev. iii. 2. censures the Pergamenes for teaching perverse things;74    Rev. ii. 14, 15. upbraids the Laodiceans for trusting to their riches;75    Rev. iii. 17. and yet gives them all general monitions to repentance—under comminations, it is true; but He would not utter comminations to one unrepentant if He did not forgive the repentant. The matter were doubtful if He had not withal elsewhere demonstrated this profusion of His clemency. Saith He not,76    Jer. viii. 4 (in LXX.) appears to be the passage meant. The Eng. Ver. is very different. “He who hath fallen shall rise again, and he who hath been averted shall be converted?” He it is, indeed, who “would have mercy rather than sacrifices.”77    Hos. vi. 6; Matt. ix. 13. The words in Hosea in the LXX. are, διότι ἕλεος θέλω ἤ θυσίαν (al. καὶ οὐ θυσίαν). The heavens, and the angels who are there, are glad at a man’s repentance.78    Luke xv. 7, 10. Ho! you sinner, be of good cheer! you see where it is that there is joy at your return.  What meaning for us have those themes of the Lord’s parables? Is not the fact that a woman has lost a drachma, and seeks it and finds it, and invites her female friends to share her joy, an example of a restored sinner?79    Luke xv. 8–10. There strays, withal, one little ewe of the shepherd’s; but the flock was not more dear than the one: that one is earnestly sought; the one is longed for instead of all; and at length she is found, and is borne back on the shoulders of the shepherd himself; for much had she toiled80    Or, “suffered.” in straying.81    Luke xv. 3–7. That most gentle father, likewise, I will not pass over in silence, who calls his prodigal son home, and willingly receives him repentant after his indigence, slays his best fatted calf, and graces his joy with a banquet.82    Luke xv. 11–32. Why not?  He had found the son whom he had lost; he had felt him to be all the dearer of whom he had made a gain. Who is that father to be understood by us to be?  God, surely: no one is so truly a Father;83    Cf. Matt. xxiii. 9; and Eph. iii. 14, 15, in the Greek. no one so rich in paternal love. He, then, will receive you, His own son,84    Publicly enrolled as such in baptism; for Tertullian here is speaking solely of the “second repentance.” back, even if you have squandered what you had received from Him, even if you return naked—just because you have returned; and will joy more over your return than over the sobriety of the other;85    See Luke xv. 29–32. but only if you heartily repent—if you compare your own hunger with the plenty of your Father’s “hired servants”—if you leave behind you the swine, that unclean herd—if you again seek your Father, offended though He be, saying, “I have sinned, nor am worthy any longer to be called Thine.”  Confession of sins lightens, as much as dissimulation aggravates them; for confession is counselled by (a desire to make) satisfaction, dissimulation by contumacy.

CAPUT VIII.

Id si dubitas, evolve quae Spiritus Ecclesiis dicat (Apoc., I, II, III). Desertam dilectionem Ephesiis imputat, stuprum et idolothytorum esum Thyatirenis exprobrat, Sardos non plenorum operum incusat, Pergamenos docentes perversa reprehendit; Laodicenos fidentes divitiis objurgat: et tamen omnes ad 1242B poenitentiam commonet, sub comminationibus quidem. Non comminaretur autem non poenitenti, si non ignosceret poenitenti. Dubium, si non et alibi hanc clementiae suae profusionem demonstrasset. Non, ait (Jer., VIII, 4; Osee, VI, 6), qui ceciderit, resurget, et qui aversatus fuerit convertetur? Ille est scilicet, ille est qui misericordiam mavult quam sacrificia . Laetantur coeli, et qui illic Angeli, poenitentia hominis (Matth., IX, 13). Heus tu, peccator, bono animo sis, vides ubi de tuo reditu gaudeatur. Quid illa similitudinum dominicarum argumenta nobis volunt? Quod mulier drachmam perdidit et requirit, et reperit, et amicas ad gaudium invitat, nonne restituti peccatoris exemplum est? Errat et una pastoris ovicula, sed grex una carior non erat: una illa conquiritur, una pro 1242C omnibus desideratur, et tandem invenitur, et humeris pastoris ipsius refertur: multum enim errando laboraverat. Illum etiam mitissimum patrem non tacebo, qui prodigum filium revocat, et post inopiam poenitentem libens suscipit, immolat vitulum praeopimum, convivio gaudium suum oxornat. Quidni? 1243A filium enim invenerat, quem amiserat; cariorem senserat, quem lucri fecerat. Quis ille nobis intelligendus pater? Deus scilicet: tam pater nemo, tam pius nemo. Is ergo te filium suum, etsi acceptum ab eo prodegeris, etsi nudus redieris, recipiet, quia redisti, magisque de regressu tuo, quam de alterius sobrietate laetabitur, sed si poeniteat ex animo, si famem tuam cum saturitate mercenariorum paternorum compares, si porcos immundum relinquas pecus, si patrem repetas vel offensum, Deliqui, dicens, pater, nec dignus ego jam vocari tuus. Tantum relevat confessio delictorum , quantum dissimulatio exaggerat. Confessio enim satisfactionis consilium est, dissimulatio contumaciae.