ill reform some vice, repair it by repentance, call to Him
for grace, and thou shalt have it; "For we are freely justified by His
grace," Rom. iii. 24. If thine enemy repent, as our Saviour enjoined Peter,
forgive him seventy-seven times; and why shouldst thou think God will not
forgive thee? Why should the enormity of thy sins trouble thee? God can do
it, he will do it. "My conscience" (saith [6767]Anselm) "dictates to me
that I deserve damnation, my repentance will not suffice for satisfaction:
but thy mercy, O Lord, quite overcometh all my transgressions." The gods
once (as the poets feign) with a gold chain would pull Jupiter out of
heaven, but all they together could not stir him, and yet he could draw and
turn them as he would himself; maugre all the force and fury of these
infernal fiends, and crying sins, "His grace is sufficient." Confer the
debt and the payment; Christ and Adam; sin, and the cure of it; the disease
and the medicine; confer the sick man to his physician, and thou shalt soon
perceive that his power is infinitely beyond it. God is better able, as
[6768]Bernard informeth us, "to help, than sin to do us hurt; Christ is
better able to save, than the devil to destroy." [6769]If he be a skilful
Physician, as Fulgentius adds, "he can cure all diseases; if merciful, he
will." _Non est perfecta bonitas a qua non omnis malitia vincitur_, His
goodness is not absolute and perfect, if it be not able to overcome all
malice. Submit thyself unto Him, as St. Austin adviseth, [6770]"He knoweth
best what he doth; and be not so much pleased when he sustains thee, as
patient when he corrects thee; he is omnipotent, and can cure all diseases
when he sees his own time." He looks down from heaven upon earth, that he
may hear the "mourning of prisoners, and deliver the children of death,"
Psal. cii. 19. 20. "And though our sins be as red as scarlet, He can make
them as white as snow," Isai. i. 18. Doubt not of this, or ask how it shall
be done: He is all-sufficient that promiseth; _qui fecit mundum de
immundo_, saith Chrysostom, he that made a fair world of nought, can do
this and much more for his part: do thou only believe, trust in him, rely
on him, be penitent and heartily sorry for thy sins. Repentance is a
sovereign remedy for all sins, a spiritual wing to rear us, a charm for our
miseries, a protecting amulet to expel sin's venom, an attractive loadstone
to draw God's mercy and graces unto us. [6771]_Peccatum vulnus,