Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XI/Chapter 16

Chapter XVI.&#8212;All Things Work for Good to Them that Love God.

&#8220;But no one of us can suffer such a thing; but they themselves are punished by us, when, having entered into any one, they entreat us that they may go out slowly.&#160; But some one will say perhaps, Even some of the worshippers of God fall under such sufferings.&#160; I say that is impossible.&#160; For he is a worshipper of God, of whom I speak, who is truly pious, not one who is such only in name, but who really performs the deeds of the law that has been given him.&#160; If any one acts impiously, he is not pious; in like manner as, if he who is of another tribe keeps the law, he is a Jew; but he who does not keep it is a Greek.&#160; For the Jew believes God and keeps the law, by which faith he removes also other sufferings, though like mountains and heavy. &#160; But he who keeps not the law is manifestly a deserter through not believing God; and thus as no Jew, but a sinner, he is on account of his sin brought into subjection to those sufferings which are ordained for the punishment of sinners.&#160; For, by the will of God prescribed at the beginning, punishment righteously follows those who worship Him on account of transgressions; and this is so, in order that having reckoned with them by punishment for sin as for a debt, he may set forth those who have turned to Him pure in the universal judgment.&#160; For as the wicked here enjoy luxury to the loss of eternal blessings, so punishments are sent upon the Jews who transgress for a settlement of accounts, that, expiating their transgression here, they may there be set free from eternal punishments.