Lactantius — Divine Institutes 6.13
Whenever therefore you ask, believe you are being tested by God whether you are worthy to be heard. Look round your conscience and, as much as you can, heal the wounds. Yet do not think that because sins are taken away by giving you are given license to sin: for they are abolished if you give for this reason, because you have sinned. For if you sin by confidence in giving, they are not abolished. For God most of all desires the human to be purged from sins and therefore commands that repentance be done: but to do repentance is nothing else than to profess and affirm that one will sin no further. So those who slip into sin unwisely and carelessly are forgiven; the one who sins knowingly has no pardon. Yet if someone has been purified from every stain of sin, let him not think he should hold back from the work of giving because he has no sins to wipe out. On the contrary, then he ought all the more to work justice when he has been made just, so that what he had done before for the healing of wounds he may afterward do for the praise and glory of virtue.
To this is added that no one can be without fault as long as he is burdened with the clothing of flesh. Its weakness lies under the dominion of sin in a threefold way — by deeds, words, thought: through these steps justice advances to the highest peak. The first step of virtue is to abstain from evil works; the second also from evil words; the third also from the thought of evil things. Whoever has climbed the first step is just enough; whoever the second, already of perfect virtue, if indeed he fails neither in deeds nor in speech; whoever the third seems truly to have attained the likeness of God. For it is almost beyond human measure not even to admit into thought what is evil to do or base to say. And so even just humans, who can rein themselves from every unjust work, are nevertheless sometimes overcome by that very fragility, so that either in anger they say evil or at the sight of delightful things they desire with silent thought. But if the mortal condition does not allow a human to be pure from every stain, sins of the flesh must therefore be abolished by perpetual giving.
For there is one work of the wise and just and living man: to place his riches in justice alone — without which, though he surpass Croesus or Crassus in wealth, he is to be counted poor, naked, a beggar. Effort must therefore be given that we be clothed with the garment of justice and piety, which no one may strip from us, which may furnish us everlasting adornment. For if worshipers of the gods dress up senseless images and pour whatever precious they have into things that can neither use what they have received nor give thanks, how much more just and true is it to dress up the living images of God, so that you may earn the living God? As those make use of whatever they have received and give thanks, so God, in whose sight you have done good, will both approve and pay out the wage of piety.
Latin
Quotiens igitur rogaris, temptari te a deo crede an sis dignus audiri. circumspice conscientiam tuam et quantum potes, medere uulneribus. nec tamen quia peccata largitione tolluntur, dari tibi licentiam peccandi putes: abolentur enim, si ideo largiare, quia peccaueris. nam si fiducia largiendi pecces, non abolentur. deus enim purgari hominem a peccatis maxime cupit ideoque agi paenitentiam iubet: agere autem paenitentiam nihil aliut est quam profiteri et adfirmare se ulterius non peccaturum. ignoscitur itaque iis qui ad peccatum inprudenter incauteque labuntur, ueniam non habet qui sciens peccat. nec tamen si aliquis purificatus fuerit ab omni labe peccati, temperandum sibi ab opere largitionis existimet, quia non habeat peccata quae deleat. immo uero tum magis iustitiam debet operari, cum factus est iustus, ut quod ante in medellam uulnerum fecerat, postmodum faciat in laudem gloriamque uirtutis.
eo accedit quod nemo esse sine delicto potest, quamdiu indumento carnis oneratus est. cuius infirmitas triplici modo subiacet dominio peccati, factis dictis cogitatione: per hos gradus ad summum columen iustitia procedit. primus est uirtutis gradus malis operibus abstinere, secundus etiam malis uerbis, tertius etiam cogitatione rerum malarum. qui primum gradum ascenderit, satis iustus est, qui secundum, iam perfectae uirtutis, siquidem neque factis neque sermone delinquat, qui tertium, is uero similitudinem dei adsecutus uidetur. est enim paene supra humanum modum ne in cogitationem quidem admittere quod sit uel factu malum uel inprobum dictu. itaque etiam iusti homines, qui frenare se possunt ab omni opere iniusto, nonnumquam tamen ipsa fragilitate uincuntur, ut uel in ira malum dicant uel in aspectu rerum delectabilium cogitatione tacita concupiscant. quodsi mortalis condicio non patitur esse hominem ab omni macula purum, debent ergo largitione perpetua peccata carnis aboleri. unum est enim sapientis et iusti et uitalis uiri opus diuitias suas in sola iustitia conlocare: qua profecto qui eget, licet ille Croesum aut Crassum diuitiis superet, hic pauper, hic nudus, hic mendicus putandus est.
danda igitur opera ut indumento iustitiae pietatisque uelemur, quo nos exuat nemo, quod nobis sempiternum praebeat ornatum. nam si deorum cultores simulacra insensibilia excolunt et quidquid pretiosi habent in ea conferunt, quibus nec uti possunt nec gratias agere, quod acceperint, quanto iustius est et uerius uiuentia dei simulacra excolere, ut promereare uiuentem ? quae sicut usui habent quidquid acceperint et gratias agunt, ita deus, in cuius conspectu bonum feceris, et probabit et mercedem pietatis exsoluet.