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An Address to Demetrianus

25.

Provide, therefore, while you may, for your safety and your life. We offer you the wholesome help of our mind and advice. And because we may not hate, and we please God more by rendering no return for wrong, we exhort you while you have the power, while there yet remains to you something of life, to make satisfaction to God, and to emerge from the abyss of darkling superstition ¹ into the bright light of true religion. We do not envy your comforts, nor do we conceal the divine benefits. We repay kindness for your hatred; and for the torments and penalties which are inflicted on us, we point out to you the ways of salvation. Believe and live, and do ye who persecute us in time rejoice with us for eternity. When you have once departed thither, there is no longer any place for repentance, and no possibility of making satisfaction. Here life is either lost or saved; here eternal safety is provided for by the worship of God and the fruits of faith. Nor let any one be restrained either by his sins or by his years from coming to obtain salvation. To him who still remains in this world no repentance is too late. The approach to God's mercy is open, and the access is easy to those who seek and apprehend the truth. Do you entreat for your sins, although it be in the very end of life, and at the setting of the sun of time; and implore God, who is the one and true God, in confession and faith of acknowledgment of Him, and pardon is granted to the man who confesses, and saving mercy is given from the divine goodness to the believer, and a passage is opened to immortality even in death itself.

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Ad Demetrianum [CSEL]

§ 25

Secnritati igitur et uitae dum licet prouidete. offerimus uobis animi et consilii nostri salutare munus. et quia odisse non licet nobis et sic Deo plus placemus, dum nullam pro iniuria uicem reddimus, hortamur, dum facultas adest, dum adhuc aliquid de saeculo superest, Deo satisfacere et ad uerae religionis candidam lucem de profundo tenebrosae superstitionis emergere. non inuidemus commodis uestris nec beneficia diuina celamus. odiis uestris beniuolentiam reddimus et pro tormentis ac ¹²³[P. 370] suppliciis quae nobis inferuntur salutis itinera monstramus. credite et uiuite et qui nos ad tempus persequimini in aeternum gaudete nobiscum. quando istinc recessum fuerit, nullus iam paenitentiae locus est, nullus satisfactionis effectus. hic uita aut amittitur aut tenetur: hic saluti aeternae cultu Dei et fructu fidei prouidetur. nec quisquam aut peccatis retardetur aut annis quominus ueniat ad consequendam salutem. in isto adhuc mundo manenti paenitentia nulla sera est. patet ad indulgentiam Dei aditus et quaerentibus adque intellegentibus ueritatem⁴ facilis accessus est. tu sub ipso licet exitu et uitae temporalis occasu pro delictis roges et Deum qui unus et uerus est confessione et fide agnitionis eius inplores, uenia confitenti datur et credenti indulgentia salutaris de diuina pietate conceditur et ad inmortalitatem sub ipsa morte transitur.