On Repentance 2

But if they acted as men possessed of God, and therefore of reason too, they would first weigh the merits of repentance and would never apply it to prove a perverse correction; in short, they would regulate the measure of repenting because they would also keep a measure in sinning, fearing the Lord, of course. But where there is no fear, there is likewise no correction; where there is no correction, repentance is necessarily vain, since it lacks its fruit, for which God sowed it, that is, the salvation of man. For God, after so many and so great offenses of human rashness, begun by Adam, the head of the race; after man was condemned together with the world, his dowry; after he was cast out of paradise and made subject to death: when he had hastened again to his own mercy, from that time he consecrated repentance in himself, rescinding the sentence of his former wrath and covenanting to pardon his work and his image. And so he gathered a people for himself, cherished them with many bounties of his goodness, and, though he had found them most ungrateful so many times, always exhorted them to repentance, and sent forth the mouths of all the prophets to prophesy. Soon, having promised the grace which in the last times he would shed as light on the whole world through his Spirit, he commanded that the baptism of repentance should go before, so that those whom he would call by grace to the promise appointed for the seed of Abraham he might first prepare by the seal of repentance. John does not keep silent, saying: “Enter upon repentance, for salvation will now draw near to the nations,” that is, the Lord, bringing salvation according to God's promise. As his forerunner, John appointed repentance, set over the cleansing of minds, so that whatever the old error had defiled, whatever ignorance had polluted in the heart of man, repentance, sweeping and scraping it and throwing it out of doors, might prepare the house of the heart clean for the Holy Spirit who was to come upon it, so that he might gladly bring himself in with his heavenly goods. Of these goods there is one title: the salvation of man, the abolition of former crimes having gone first. This is the reason for repentance; this is its work, taking in hand the business of divine mercy. What profits man serves God. But its rule, which we learn once the Lord is known, keeps a definite form: that no violent hand, as it were, is ever to be laid on good deeds or thoughts. For God does not ratify the rejection of good things, since they are his own; being their author, he must also be their defender, and so also their accepter, and if their accepter, also their rewarder. Let human ingratitude look to it, then, if it forces repentance even for good deeds. And let gratitude look to it, if the pursuit of it is an incentive to doing good; both are earthly and mortal. For how little is the gain if you have done good to a grateful man, or the loss if to an ungrateful one? A good deed has God as its debtor, just as an evil one does, since every judge rewards the case. But since God as judge presides over the exacting and guarding of justice, which is most dear to him, and sanctions in it the whole sum of his discipline, can there be any doubt that, as in all our actions, so also in the matter of repentance, justice must be rendered to God? And this can be fulfilled only if repentance is applied to sins alone. Now nothing deserves to be called sin except an evil deed; and no one sins by doing good. And if he does not sin, why does he seize on repentance, the private property of sinners? Why does he impose on his goodness a duty belonging to wickedness? So it comes about that when something is applied where it ought not to be, it is neglected where it ought to be.