Chapter 22

1He exhorts such as have been concerned in these divisions to repent, and return to their unity, confessing their sin to God, 7 which he enforces from the example of Moses, 10 and of many among the heathen, 23 and of Judith and Esther among the Jews . LET us therefore, as many as have transgressed by any of the suggestions of the adversary, beg God's forgiveness.
2And as for those who have been the heads of the sedition and faction among you, let them look to the common end of our hope.
3For as many as are endued with fear and charity, would rather they themselves should fall into trials than their neighbours: And choose to be themselves condemned, rather than that the good and just charity delivered to us, should suffer.
4For it is seemly for a man to confess wherein he has transgressed.
5And not to harden his heart, as the hearts of those were hardened, who raised up sedition against Moses the servant of God; whose punishment was manifest unto all men; for they went down alive into the grave, death swallowed them up.
6Pharaoh and his host, and all the rulers of Egypt, their chariots also and their horsemen, were for no other cause drowned, in the bottom of the Red Sea, and perished; but because they hardened their foolish hearts, after so many signs done in the land of Egypt, by Moses the servant of God.
7Beloved, God is rot indigent of any thing; nor does he demand any thing of us, but that we should confess our sins unto him.
8For so says the Holy David, I will confess unto the Lord, and it shall please him better than a young bullock that hath horns and hoof. Let the poor see it and be glad.
9And again he saith, Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy vows unto the Most Highest. And call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit.
10Ye know, beloved, ye know full well the Holy Scriptures; and have thoroughly searched into the oracles of God: call them therefore to your remembrance.
11For when Moses went up into the mount, and tarried there forty days and forty nights in fasting and humiliation; God said unto him, Arise, Moses, and get thee down quickly from hence, for thy people whom thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have committed wickedness: Click to enlarge THE RED SEA SWALLOWING UP THE ARMY OF PHARAOH, AFTER THE ISRAELITES HAD PASSED THROUGH. FROM A FRAGMENT OF THE BIBLE, IN GREEK MANUSCRIPT, OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. they have soon transgressed the way that I commanded them, and have made to themselves graven images.
12And the Lord said unto him, I have spoken unto thee several times, saying I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiffnecked people: let me therefore destroy them, and put out their name from under heaven. And I will make unto thee a great and a wonderful nation, that shall be much larger than this.
13But Moses said, Not so, Lord; Forgive now this people their sin; or if thou wilt not, blot me also out of the book of! the living. O admirable charity! O insuperable perfection! The servant speaks freely to his Lord; He beseeches him either to forgive the people, or to destroy him together with them.
14Who is there among you that is generous? Who that is compassionate? Who that has any charity? Let him say, if this sedition, this contention, and these schisms, be upon my account, I am ready to depart; to go away whithersoever you please; and do whatsoever ye shall command me: Only let the flock of Christ be in peace, with the elders that are set over it.
15He that shall do this, shall get to himself a very great honour in the Lord; and there is no place but what will be ready to receive him: For the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof.
16These things they who have their conversation towards God not to be repented of, both have done and will always be ready! to do.
17Nay and even the Gentiles themselves have given us! examples of this kind.
18For we read, How many kings and princes, in times of pestilence, being warned by their oracles, have given up themselves unto death: that by their own blood, they might deliver their country from destruction.
19Others have forsaken their cities, so that they might put an end to the seditions of them.
20We know how many among ourselves, have given up themselves unto bonds, that thereby they might free others from them.
21Others have sold themselves into bondage that they might feed their brethren with the price of themselves.
22And even many women, being strengthened by the grace of God, have done many glorious and manly things on such occasions.
23The blessed Judith, when her city was besieged, desired the elders, that they would suffer her to go into the camp of their enemies: and she went out exposing herself to danger for the love she bore to her country and her people that were besieged; and the Lord delivered Holofernes into the hands of a woman.
24Nor did Esther, being perfect in faith, expose herself to any less hazard, for the delivery of the twelve tribes of Israel, in danger of being destroyed. For, by fasting and humbling herself, she entreated the Great Maker of all things, the God of spirits; so that beholding the humility of her soul, he delivered the people, for whose sake she was in peril.