The necessity and usefulness of the doctrine of repentance.
The necessity and usefulness of the doctrine of repentance.
§ 2. Yet the great necessity of this doctrine is conjoined with equal usefulness. For since repentance is necessary for all people (as Christ teaches: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish,” Luke 13:3, 5) and since a return to God is open to us after the fall only through repentance (as He teaches: “Turn to Me, and you will be saved, all the ends of the earth,” Isa. 45:22), who will be able to entertain any more doubts about the necessity and usefulness of this doctrine? Lactantius says it beautifully (Divin. instit., 6, ch. 24): “God knows our weakness, and, because of His pity, He opened the harbor of salvation for man so that the medicine of repentance might provide help against this need, to which our frailty is subject.”
Augustine (De spiritu et lit., ch. 36): “Of whatever kind or however great is the righteousness we are able to define in this life, there is no one in this life who has no sin at all; and it is necessary for everyone to give that it may be given to him, to forgive that it may be forgiven him.”
Therefore repentance is necessary for all. And that we may be rightly and properly repentant, let us treat this doctrine as our object of study. “It is easier to find a person who has preserved his innocence than one who repents appropriately,” writes Ambrose (De poenit., 2, ch. 10, which is cited in [Ius canonicum,] De poenit., ch. Reperiuntur, dist. 3).
1 Ninety-Five Theses (1517), WA 1:233 (cf. AE 31:25).