Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Simon's Retreat.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XLIX.—Simon’s Retreat.
Then the people in indignation cast Simon from the
court, and drove him forth from the gate of the house; and only one
person followed him when he was driven out.700
| 700 [This account of
the close of the discussion is peculiar to the
Recognitions.—R.] |
Then silence being obtained, Peter began to address the people in this
manner: “You ought, brethren, to bear with wicked men
patiently; knowing that although God could cut them off, yet He suffers
them to remain even till the day appointed, in which judgment shall
pass upon all. Why then should not we bear with those whom God
suffers? Why should not we bear with fortitude the wrongs that
they do to us, when He who is almighty does not take vengeance on them,
that both His own goodness and the impiety of the wicked may be
known? But if the wicked one had not found Simon to be his
minister, he would doubtless have found another: for it is of
necessity that in this life offences come, ‘but woe to that man
by whom they come;’701
and therefore Simon
is rather to be mourned over, because he has become a choice vessel for
the wicked one, which undoubtedly would not have happened had he not
received power over him for his former sins. For why should I
further say that he once believed in our Jesus, and was persuaded that
souls are immortal?702
Although in
this he is deluded by demons, yet he has persuaded himself that he has
the soul of a murdered boy ministering to him in whatever he pleases to
employ it in; in which truly, as I have said, he is deluded by demons,
and therefore I spoke to him according to his own ideas: for he
has learned from the Jews, that judgment and vengeance are to be
brought forth against those who set themselves against the true faith,
and do not repent. But here are men to whom, as being perfect in
crimes, the wicked one appears, that he may deceive them, so that they
may never be turned to repentance.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
