22 But I wonder that some are so obstinate as to think that repentance is not to be granted to the lapsed, or to suppose that pardon is to be denied to the penitent, when it is written, “Remember whence you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works,” which certainly is said to him who evidently has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise up again by his works, because it is written, “Alms do deliver from death,” and not, assuredly, from that death which once the blood of Christ extinguished, and from which the saving grace of baptism and of our Redeemer has delivered us, but from that which subsequently creeps in through sins.
Moreover, in another place time is granted for repentance; and the Lord threatens him that does not repent: “I have,” says He, “many things against you, because you suffer your wife Jezebel, which calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols; and I gave her a space to repent, and she will not repent of her fornication. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds;” whom certainly the Lord would not exhort to repentance, if it were not that He promises mercy to them that repent.
And in the Gospel He says, “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.” For since it is written, “God did not make death, neither has He pleasure in the destruction of the living,” assuredly He who wills that none should perish, desires that sinners should repent, and by repentance should return again to life. Thus also He cries by Joel the prophet, and says, “And now, thus says the Lord your God, Turn even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and return unto the Lord your God; for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repents Him of the evil appointed.” In the Psalms, also, we read as well the rebuke as the clemency of God, threatening at the same time as He spares, punishing that He may correct; and when He has corrected, preserving.
“I will visit,” He says, “their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them.”
Source: The Epistles of Cyprian (New Advent)