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Shorter Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 12: How the Soul is Convinced that God Has Forgiven Its Sins

When if sees in itself the state of mind of him who said: “I hate and abhor iniquity.”1 For God by sending down His only begotten Son for the remission of our sins has already remitted sins so far as His part is concerned.2 But since holy David sings of mercy and judgment3 and testifies that God is merciful and just, it is necessary that what the prophets and apostles say in their passages about repentance should be done by us, that the judgments of God’s righteousness should be manifested and His mercy perfected unto the forgiveness of sins.

Notes

  1. Ps. cxix. 163.
  2. The “evangelical *’ standpoint could not be more clearly defined.
  3. Ps. ci. 1.

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