Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/144

116 suffering and of tender compassion, have pity upon me." From the service appointed in the Khudhra for the third Sunday in Lent.

§ 4. "The multitude of my sins had driven me to the brink of despair, and I was bereft of all consolation; but I called to mind and remembered Him who promised when He said, 'Ask and pray of Him who giveth freely, for He can heal every secret disease.' Therefore, with a broken spirit I beseech Thee, who only art the lover of mankind, to have mercy upon me." From the Khudhra ut supra.

I have not been able to discover any passages in the rituals bearing upon the sin against the ; but enough is contained in the quotations already adduced, together with the above extracts, to show that according to the Nestorian doctrine, repentance is to be denied to none, i. e. to no Christian men. The service books of the Nestorians, like our own, are designed for the use of such as are baptized, and consequently the pardon so largely offered in them to the penitent believers in can only have reference to sin after Baptism. If any further proof were necessary to establish this point, the following extract from the Sinhadòs amply supplies the deficiency: "If a bishop, priest, or deacon, does not receive back one who turns from his sin, but contemns him, let such an one be excommunicated, because he thereby despises, Who has said 'that there is joy in heaven over one who repents. Canon L.