For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither does God respect any person: yet does he devise means, that his banished one be not expelled from him.
All Commentaries on 2 Samuel 14:14 Go To 2 Samuel 14
John Cassian
AD 435
For God’s purpose, according to which he did not make the human being to perish but to live forever, abides unchanging. When his kindness sees shining in us the slightest glimmer of good will, which he himself has in fact sparked from the hard flint of our heart, he fosters it, stirs it up and strengthens it with his inspiration, “desiring all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” For, he says, “it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” And again he says, “God does not wish a soul to perish, but he withdraws and reflects, lest one who has been cast down perish utterly.”
