cause, have abandoned the grosser of them. But who empowered us to say that Christ's is an easy yoke to those who have again drawn back to the flesh? Our God has indeed once rescued us: our God will still receive those "who, with hearty repentance and true faith, turn unto Him." But the God of the New Testament is not different from the God of the Old. "Our God is a consuming fire." "Repentance," says St. Ambrose[1], "must be not in words but in deed. And this will be, if thou settest before thine eyes from what glory thou hast fallen, and out of what book of life thy name has been blotted, and if thou believest that thou art placed close by the outer darkness, where shall be weeping of eyes and gnashing of teeth, endlessly. When thou shalt have conceived this in thy mind, as it is, with an undoubting faith, that the offending soul must needs be delivered to the infernal pains, and the fires of hell, and that after the one Baptism no other remedy is appointed than the solace of repentance, be content to undergo any affliction, any suffering, so thou mayest be freed from eternal punishment." "Such a life," he adds, in a case still miserably common, since the bodies of all Christians are the temples of the Holy Ghost, "such a life, such a performance of repentance, if it be persevering, may venture to hope, if not for glory, at least for freedom from punishment."
Hereby it is not meant to imply that the efficacy of Baptism for the remission of sin ceases altogether after it has once been bestowed, which is the error of the Romanists; for we are by Baptism brought into covenant with God, and are made members of Christ, and are entitled to His all-prevailing intercession, when with hearty repentance we again turn to Him: but only that we are then washed, once for all, in His blood; and that, if we again sin, there remaineth no more such complete ablution in this life. We must bear the scars of the sins, which we have contracted: we must be judged according to our deeds. The sense of Scripture in either case is clearly expressed by St.
- ↑ De Lapsu Virginis Consecratæ c. 8; or it may be St. Nicetas, Bp. of Dacia before A.D. 392, a man celebrated for piety, learning, and eloquence. See Tillemont Mémm. t. x. pp. 128, 263, sqq.
