Tertullian

“ The sins which are (thus) cleansed are such as a man may have committed against his brother, not against God. We profess, in short, in our prayer, that we will grant remission to our debtors; [30] but it is not becoming to distend further, on the ground of the authority of such Scriptures, the cable of contention with alternate pull into diverse directions; so that one (Scripture) may seem to draw tight, another to relax, the reins of discipline—in uncertainty, as it were,—and the latter to debase the remedial aid of repentance through lenity, the former to refuse it through austerity. ”

“ Such and so great futilities of theirs wherewith they flatter God and pander to themselves, effeminating rather than invigorating discipline, with how cogent and contrary (arguments) are we for our part able to rebut,— (arguments) which set before us warningly the “severity” [13] of God, and provoke our own constancy? ”

“ God is ‘good,’ and ‘most good,’ [1] and ‘pitiful-hearted,’ and ‘a pitier,’ and ‘abundant in pitiful-heartedness,’ [2] which He holds ‘dearer than all sacrifice,’ [3] ‘not thinking the sinner’s death of so much worth as his repentance’, [4] ‘a Saviour of all men, most of all of believers.’ [5] And so it will be becoming for ‘the sons of God’ [6] too to be ‘pitiful-hearted’ [7] and ‘peacemakers;’ [8] ‘giving in their turn just as Christ withal hath given to us;’ [9] ‘not judging, that we be not judged.’ [10] For ‘to his own lord a man standeth or falleth ”