XXVII. Quod Joannes ad poenitentiam hortatur

XXVII. Quod Joannes ad poenitentiam hortatur

Just as John urges, he says: "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?"^✦ Therefore, produce fruits worthy of repentance, and don’t say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you, God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. His sense is such. Regarding punishment, repentance is necessary, and the one who prays will have their faults forgiven, and each soul will find a dwelling place for its works. For who can give a dwelling in another life, except God, from whom rewards are also given? God, having become man, found in His tabernacle what pleased Him greatly, namely to forgive the sins of those who repent. But those who live in sin and want to persist in their sins are called the offspring of vipers, because they have been conceived in the deception of the viper; for Adam and Eve tore apart the royal life within themselves: therefore, they also lost their holy innocence and bore children into the mortality of sin until they were made clean in the flesh of the Son of God. And what person among you, in this way of being born into sin, has shown you that you can escape the impending punishment of the Lord's indignation without repentance? This shows that no one can escape the wrath of God, because neither the first angel, nor Adam, nor his descendants were able to avoid it; for whoever has fought against God from the beginning has fallen, defeated. Therefore, through faithful works, you should believe in God to be freed from sins, approach Him with tearful prayer, and leave behind your wicked deeds. Redeem each one with a good work that is worthy of repentance, and truly say: Ah, Ah! Lord, I have sinned against you with these sins! But don't claim, through false righteousness, that you have a defense in Abraham, to whom God showed many miracles and gave the beginning of the Old Testament, because only God, and no one else, can free you. Therefore, in that certainty which is true, I declare to you who hear these things with goodwill, that by the power of His grace, the Creator of all can bring forth faithful people from the hardest hardness of unbelief, turning back to Him, who cultivate the truth and true faith, and who may be children of the highest blessedness, because the Son of God is the cornerstone, from whom all the stones, namely the saints, sprout and are renewed, for He is holy, and in Him the saints will remain.