II. 18 Instance of Rahab an encouragement to penitent sinners. LECT. the breadth of God's loving-kindness, extending over the 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. (6.) 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.11, 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. 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, Exod. 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 of the Fathers considered, that, besides 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 II. 2 Sam. 12. 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 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 Solomon, Ahab, Jeroboam, and Manasseh. 21 should thence ascend to heaven. And when Shimei cursed 2 Sam. 16, 10. him bitterly, he said, Let him alone; for he knew that he who 11. forgiveth, shall be forgiven. Prov. 24, 32. 13. Thou seest how excellent it is to confess; thou seest (8.) that to the penitent there is salvation. Solomon also fell; but what saith he? Afterwards I repented. Though Ahab, king of Samaria, was a most abandoned idolater, a monster, Septuag. the murderer of prophets, a stranger to godliness, the coveter vers. of other men's fields and vineyards, yet when the prophet Elias came to him after he had slain Naboth through Jezebel, and only threatened him, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth; and what says the merciful God to Elias? Seest thou 1 Kings how Ahab humbleth himself before Me? as if, almost, He would 21, 29. persuade the fiery temper of the prophet to condescend to the penitent: for I will not bring, He saith, the evil in his days. Thus, though Ahab on his pardon was not about to leave his evil courses, the God of pardon pardoned him;-not as ignorant of the future, but bestowing on the penitence of the moment its corresponding pardon: for a just judge suitably answers each case as it arises. 14. Again, as Jeroboam stood sacrificing to idols on the (9.) altar, his hand withered, when he bade seize the Prophet who denounced him. On this experience of his power, he says, Entreat the face of the Lord thy God; and for this 1 Kings word his hand was restored. If the Prophet healed Jero- 13, 6. boam, has not Christ healing power to deliver thee from thy sins? Manasses, again, was most extravagant in his crimes, who sawed asunder Esaias, and was polluted with idolatries of every kind, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood: yet, when he was led captive to Babylon, he converted his afflictions into a healing course of penitence: for Scripture says, that Manasses humbled himself greatly before the God of his 2 Chron. fathers, and prayed to Him; and He was entreated of him,13. and heard his supplications, and brought him again into his kingdom. If he who sawed a Prophet in sunder, was saved through penitence, mayest not thou be saved, who hast not done ought so great? The following Fathers agree with Cyril in considering that Solomon repented; Hilar. in Ps. 52. n. 12. Ambros. Apol. David. 3. n. 13. Hieron. Ep. 85 init. vid. also in Eccles. 1, 12. The op- 33, 12. LECT. II. 20, 1. 15. 22 In the instances of Hezekiah, 15. Beware lest thou rashly mistrust its power; wouldest thou know how great force it hath? wouldest thou know this (10.) strong weapon of salvation, and learn what strength Confession hath? An hundred and eighty-five thousand enemies did Hezekias turn to flight through Confession. Yet great as this really is, it is but trifling compared with what is still to be told. Through repentance, the same king recalled a Divine decree which had already gone forth. For when he was sick, 2 Kings Esaias said to him, Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. What was there to expect more? what remaining hope of life, when the Prophet said, For thou shalt die. Yet Ezekias did not stop from penitence; for remembering Isa. 30, what was written, For turning away and sighing thou shalt be saved, he turned away to the wall, and lifting his thoughts from his bed heavenwards, (for no thickness of walls hinder prayers devoutly offered up,) he said, " Lord, remember me: for it is sufficient for my cure that Thou remember me. Thou art not controlled by times, but Thou Thyself givest law to life; for not on our nativity, and on stars in conjunction, depends our life, as some idly talk; but of life and its duration Thou Thyself art the Lawgiver, according to Thy will." And thus he, who through the prophet's sentence despaired of life, received an addition of fifteen years, the sun, in sign of it, tracing his course back. Now the sun turned back for Ezekias; for Christ, it was eclipsed; not retracing his steps, but suffering eclipse, and thereby shewing the difference of the two, Ezekias and Jesus. Ezekias prevailed to the cancelling of a sentence of God; and will not Jesus vouchsafe His free gift, the forgiveness of sins? Turn away, and bewail thyself, shut to thy door, and pray Him to forgive thee, and remove from around thee Dan. 3. the burning fires; for Confession" has strength to quench and 6. even fire; has strength to tame even lions. d The ecclesiastical word ooλoynris, here translated Confession, means properly a declaration in God's presence of the facts of religion of whatever kind, with relation to God or man; and is thus contrasted with Prayer, which contemplates objects not realized as yet. Praise, thanksgiving, profession of our faith, are parts of it, as well as confession of sin. Psalms, Hymns, Creeds, are Confessions. 'Ekopeλoysłali and Confitemini, are the words used respectively in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Psalms, for "Praise," and " Give thanks to the Lord." Hence S. Cyril here calls the Song of the Three Children, and the meditations of Daniel in the lions' den, Confessions; whereas, grant |