DE РАТ.

346 Patience lays up with God; aids all obedience; her portrait;

his mouth save thanks to God! when he denounced his wife X. 14. already wearied out with afflictions, and advising a wicked Job 2,9. remedy! Well! God was rejoiced. Well! the Evil one was cut asunder, while Job was wiping away with great patience the filthy discharge from his boils, while he was Job 7, 5. bringing back, in mockery, the worms, which broke out from them, into the same holes and pastures in his perforated" flesh. Wherefore this labourer for the victory of God, having Eph. 6, beaten back all the darts of his temptations by the coat of mail and the shield of patience, presently both recovered from God the soundness of his body, and had in possession Job 42, twice as much as he had lost; and, if he had wished that his sons should be restored, he would have been again called their father. But he had rather they should be given back 2 Tim. to him at that Day. Having full confidence in the Lord, he 4, 8. deferred a joy so great to another season. He endured this voluntary bereavement, that he might not live without some kind of patience.

16.

10.

XV. Thus is God an abundantly sufficient depository of Patience. If thou placest a wrong in His hands, He is an avenger; if a loss, He is a restorer; if pain, He is a physician; if death, He is the Resurrection. What a licence hath Patience, in having God for her debtor! And not without cause for she observeth all His pleasure, she interposeth her aid in all His commands. She fortifieth Faith, guideth Peace, assisteth Charity, instructeth Humility, waiteth for Penitence, setteth her mark upon Confession, ruleth the flesh, preserveth the spirit, bridleth the tongue, restraineth the hand, treadeth temptations under foot, driveth away offences, perfecteth martyrdoms, consoleth the poor, ordereth the rich, straineth not the weak, wasteth not the strong, delighteth the believer, inviteth the heathen, comPhile- mendeth the servant to his master, his master to God; adorneth the woman, approveth the man; is loved in the boy, praised in the young man, respected in the old; is beautiful in every sex, in every age. Come now, let us describe her form and her demeanour.

mon.

z As an object of God's displeasure, (exsecraretur); "foolish" (Job 2, 10.) in Scripture signifying "ungodly."

She hath a counte

a foraminosa. Rig. conjectures refor mosæ, P. &c. having reformasse.

Abode of HOLY SPIRIT; Christian and heathen patience. 347

tatur

nance serene and mild, a forehead smooth, contracted with no wrinkle of grief or of anger, her brows evenly and cheerfully relaxed, her eyes cast down in humility, not in melancholy. Her mouth beareth the seal of honourable silence. Her colour is such as those have who are free from care and crime. Her head is often shaken at the Devil, and her smile defieth him. For the rest, her clothing about her bosom is white and closely fitted to the body, as being neither puffed out nor ruffled'. For she sitteth on the throne of that most1 inquiekind and gentle Spirit, Who is not in the gathering of the restored whirlwind, nor in the blackness of the cloud, but belongeth to the soft calm, clear and single, such as Elias saw Him at 2 Kings 19, 11. the third time. For where God is, there also is His foster- 12. child, to wit, Patience. When therefore the Spirit of God descendeth, Patience, never divided from Him, accompanieth Him. If we receive her not together with the Spirit, will He abide with us always? Nay, I know not whether He would continue any longer. Without His companion and handmaid, He must needs be grieved at every place and time. Whatsoever His enemy inflicteth He cannot endure alone, lacking the instrument of endurance. This is the way, this the rule, these the works of an heavenly and true, that is a Christian, patience; not like the patience of the nations of the earth false and shameful. For that the Devil might rival the Lord in this thing also, as if altogether on an equality with Him, (save that the difference between the evil and the good is on a par with their greatness,) he hath taught his people also a patience of their own: such an one I mean as subjecteth to the power of their wives, husbands who have sold themselves for a dowry, or are driving the trade of pimps; which, in hunting after bereaved persons, beareth all the toil of a forced courtesy with false pretences of feeling such a patience as putteth under an insulting patronage those who labour for their belly, by the sub-2 patrojection of their liberty to their gluttony3. Such pursuits of restored patience do the Gentiles know, and they seize upon the 3 gulæ name of so good a thing for their foul deeds. They live with patience towards rivals, and rich men, and such as bid them to feasts; with impatience towards God alone. But no matter for their and their master's patience, which

:

restored

348

Hope of the resurrection ground of patience.

DE endurance of the fire below awaiteth? Let us on the PAT. X. 15. other hand love the patience of God, the patience of Christ. Let us pay back to Him that which He hath Himself paid for us. Let us offer to Him the patience of the spirit, the patience of the flesh, we that believe in the resurrection of the flesh and of the spirit.

b Sed viderint sua et sui præsidis, quam patientia subter ignis expectat. i. e. since their endurance is in sin,

they shall endure in punishment. Rig. adopts Urs.'s conjecture viderit-præs. patientia, quam subter &c.

OF REPENTANCE.

[The de Pœnitentia furnishes no materials for determining its date; its whole tone is however Catholic; Lumper objects, that T. no where distinctly says, that the pardon which he speaks of as open once for all sin, was given through the Church also, and so that what he says of Exomologesis might equally have been written by him as a Montanist, since they too held the necessity and benefit of penitence, although they denied to the Church authority, in great crimes, to pronounce upon it. But since T. says there was one penitence after Baptism, and one only, he plainly is speaking of a public restoration to the Communion of the Church, after the public penitence which he describes; for none denied that a person might repent even after a relapse, although the Church did not receive such. Repentance towards God might take place more than once; T. then in limiting it to one, plainly means one, upon which the Church would pronounce. There seems no doubt that T. in rejecting his former agreement with the Church's doctrine on penitence (de Pudic. c. 1.) alluded to this Treatise. It seems strange that Erasmus should have questioned its genuineness on the ground of style, which is so fully Tertullian's.]

I. THE men of this world, such as we ourselves also were in time past", blind without the light of the Lord, know, as far as nature teacheth, that repentance is a certain affection of the mind, which ariseth from dislike of some worse opinion: but from the reason of the thing they are as far distant as from the Author of reason Himself. For reason is a thing of God; seeing that God, the Creator of all things, hath provided, hath disposed, hath ordained nothing without reason, and hath willed that nothing should be handled and understood save by reason. All therefore who are ignorant of God, must needs be ignorant of the thing which is His; for no treasure is ever opened to strangers. Wherefore, floating through the whole business of life without the pilotage of reason, they know that hangeth over the world.

Apol. c. 18.

not how to avoid the storm But how unreasonably they

former opinion," is a conjecture of Rhen.

b pejoris, Rh. 1." Prioris," "of some adopted by others.

PENIT.

350 Men by nature repent of good, more than of evil.

DE demean themselves in the act of penitence it will suffice to XI. 1. make plain by this one fact, that they apply it even to their good deeds. They repent them of their faith, love, simplicity, patience, compassion. According as an act hath met with ingratitude, they curse themselves because they have done a good deed, and they fix in their heart that sort of repentance chiefly, which is employed upon the best acts, taking care to remember never again to perform any good service: on repentance for evil deeds, on the contrary, they lay but a light stress. In fact, they more readily sin through this same repentance, than act rightly by its means.

II. But if they acted with a right apprehension of God, and hence of reason also, they would first weigh the merits of repentance, and would never use it as an aggravation of the change from the better to the worse: finally, they would regulate the limit of their repentance, because they would have reached the limit of their sin also, that is, by fearing the Lord. But where there is no fear, there is therefore no amendment; and where there is no amendment, repentance is of necessity vain, because it wanteth its proper fruit, unto which God hath sown it, that is, unto the salvation of man. For God, after so many and so great sins of human rashness, beginning in Adam the first of human kind, after that man had been condemned together with his portion in this world', after that he had been cast out from Paradise, and made subject to death, when He had hasted back to His own mercy, from thenceforth He made a solemn beginning of repentance in His own self, in rescinding the sentence of His former wrath, covenanting to pardon him who was His own work and image. Wherefore also He gathered together

"Of repentance as to almsgiving, the Devil is the author," Quæstt. ad Antioch. q. 83. S. Jerome, Ep. 147. ad Sabin. imitates T. " in perversum acta pœnitentia." S. Ambrose de Pœnit. ii. 9." they who perform penitence, should of this only not repent, lest they perform penitence of their very penitence. These seem to have asked to do penitence for things evil, to do it for things good."

dad augmentum; in contrast with what follows,"modum pœnitendi temperarent." Rig. adopts Urs.'s conjecture "ad argumentum" as a ground."

99 66

i. e. using repentance to restrain sin, they restrain repentance to things sinful.

f the ground, cursed for his sake. g "When God by His unchangeable counsel changeth His works, He, on account of this same change, not of counsel but of work, is said to repent." Aug. in Ps. 131. "When God repenteth, He is not changed and changeth; as, when He is angry, He is not changed, and avengeth." Id. c. adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 20.