3.

Think how great that weeping must be which deserves to be compared to a flood of waters. Whosoever so weeps and says with the prophet Jeremiah “let not the apple of mine eye cease” ¹ shall straightway find the words fulfilled of him: “mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other;” ² so that, if righteousness and truth terrify him, mercy and peace may encourage him to seek salvation.

The whole repentance of a sinner is exhibited to us in the fifty-first ³ psalm written by David after he had gone in unto Bathsheba the wife of Uriah the Hittite, ⁴ and when, to the rebuke of the prophet Nathan he had replied, “I have sinned.” Immediately that he confessed his fault he was comforted by the words: “the Lord also hath put away thy sin.” ⁵ He had added murder to adultery; yet bursting into tears he says: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” ⁶ A sin so great needed to find great mercy. Accordingly he goes on to say: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned”—as a king he had no one to fear but God—“and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.” ⁷ For “God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” ⁸ And such was the progress that David made that he who had once been a sinner and a penitent afterwards became a master able to say: “I will teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.” ⁹ For as “confession and beauty are before God,” ¹⁰ so a sinner who confesses his sins and says: “my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness” ¹¹ loses his foul wounds and is made whole and clean. But “he that covereth his sins shall not prosper.” ¹²

The ungodly king Ahab, who shed the blood of Naboth to gain his vineyard, was with Jezebel, the partner less of his bed than of his cruelty, severely rebuked by Elijah. “Thus saith the Lord, hast thou killed and also taken possession?” and again, “in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine;” and “the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.” ¹³“And it came to pass”—the passage goes on—“when Ahab heard those words that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth…and the word of the Lord came to Elijah saying, Because Ahab humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days.” ¹⁴ Ahab’s sin and Jezebel’s were the same; yet because Ahab repented, his punishment was postponed so as to fall upon his sons, while Jezebel persisting in her wickedness met her doom then and there.

P. 228 Moreover the Lord tells us in the gospel, “the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas;” ¹⁵ and again He says “I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” ¹⁶ The lost piece of silver is sought for until it is found in the mire. ¹⁷ So also the ninety and nine sheep are left in the wilderness, while the shepherd carries home on his shoulders the one sheep which has gone astray. ¹⁸ Wherefore also “there is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth.” ¹⁹ What a blessed thought it is that heavenly beings rejoice in our salvation! For it is of us that the words are said: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ²⁰ Death and life are contrary the one to the other; there is no middle term. Yet penitence can knit death to life. The prodigal son, we are told, wasted all his substance, and in the far country away from his father “would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.” Yet, when he comes back to his father, the fatted calf is killed, a robe and a ring are given to him. ²¹ That is to say, he receives again Christ’s robe which he had before defiled, and hears to his comfort the injunction: “let thy garments be always white.” ²² He receives the signet of God and cries to the Lord: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee;” and receiving the kiss of reconciliation, he says to Him: “Now is the light of thy countenance sealed upon us, O Lord.” ²³

Hear the words of Ezekiel: “as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth.” ²⁴ The Lord judges every man according as he finds him. It is not the past that He looks upon but the present. Bygone sins there may be, but renewal and conversion remove them. “A just man,” we read “falleth seven times and riseth up again.” ²⁵ If he falls, how is he just? and if he is just, how does he fall? The answer is that a sinner does not lose the name of just if he always repents of his sins and rises again. If a sinner repents, his sins are forgiven him not only till seven times but till seventy times seven. ²⁶ To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much. ²⁷ The harlot washed with her tears the Saviour’s feet and wiped them with her hair; and to her, as a type of the Church gathered from the nations, was the declaration made: “Thy sins are forgiven.” ²⁸ The self-righteous Pharisee perished in his pride, while the humble publican was saved by his confession. ²⁹

God makes asseveration by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down and to destroy it: if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.” And immediately he adds: “Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. And they said, there is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.” ³⁰ The righteous Simeon says in the gospel: “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many,” ³¹ for the fall, that is, of sinners and for the rising again of the penitent. So the apostle writes to the Corinthians: “it is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. And ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.” ³² And in his second epistle to the same, “lest such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow,” ³³ he calls him back, and begs them to confirm their love towards him, so that he who had been destroyed by incest might be saved by penitence.

“There is no man clean from sin; even though he has lived but for one day.” ³⁴ And the years of man’s life are many in number. “The stars are not pure in his sight, ³⁵ and his angels he charged with folly.” ³⁶ If there is sin in heaven, how much more must there be sin on earth? If they are stained with guilt who have no bodily temptations, how much more must we be, enveloped as we are in frail flesh and forced to cry each one of us with the apostle: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? ³⁷ For in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing.” ³⁸ For we do not what we would but what we would not; the soul desires to do one P. 229 thing, the flesh is compelled to do another. If any persons are called righteous in scripture, and not only righteous but righteous in the sight of God, they are called righteous according to that righteousness mentioned in the passage I have quoted: “A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again,” ³⁹ and on the principle laid down that the wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him in the day that he turns to repentance. ⁴⁰ In fact Zachariah the father of John who is described as a righteous man sinned in disbelieving the message sent to him and was at once punished with dumbness. ⁴¹ Even Job, who at the outset of his history is spoken of as perfect and upright and uncomplaining, is afterwards proved to be a sinner both by God’s words and by his own confession. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the prophets also and the apostles were by no means free from sin and if the finest wheat had chaff mixed with it, what can be said of us of whom it is written: “What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?” ⁴² Yet the chaff is reserved for future burning; as also are the tares which at present are mingled with the growing corn. For one shall come whose fan is in His hand, and shall purge His floor, and shall gather His wheat into the garner, and shall burn the chaff in the fire of hell. ⁴³