Tertullian, Against Marcion 2.17
Dismiss these facts and you still see the whole economy of God the Judge—or, to put it more worthily, the defender of that catholic and supreme goodness which the Marcionites refuse to recognize in the same God who rains on the good and the bad and makes his sun rise on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45), a feat no other god can match. Even if Marcion dared to cut this saying of Christ out of the Creator's Gospel, the world itself is written large and read by every conscience. And the Creator's patience will stand as evidence against Marcion at the judgment—the patience that waits for a sinner's repentance rather than death and prefers mercy to sacrifice, turning aside the doom ordained for Nineveh, granting Hezekiah a reprieve through his tears, and restoring the Babylonian tyrant's kingdom after he repented. I mean the mercy that spared Saul's doomed son out of devotion to the people, that pardoned David when he confessed his guilt over Uriah's house, that restored Israel again and again whenever it judged and whenever it rebuked. So do not merely stare at the Judge to convert and to the highest examples: mark when he avenges, weigh when he indulges; set leniency against severity. Bring both together in the Creator and you will find in him the very thing that makes you believe in another god. Come, then, to an inspection of his teachings, disciplines, precepts, and counsels. You may object that these are also fixed by human laws. But Moses and God stand before every Lycurgus and Solon; no later generation fails to receive from the origins. Yet my Creator did not learn from your god to command: You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet what belongs to another, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself. To these chief counsels of innocence and chastity, justice and piety, are added the prescriptions of humanity: every seventh year servitudes are released into freedom; at the same time the land is spared, yielding its place to the needy; even the ox treading grain is unmuzzled for the fruit of its present labor—so that humanity, premeditated in the treatment of beasts, might more easily instruct the refreshment of human beings.
Latin
Haec ita dispecta totum ordinem dei iudicis operarium et, ut dignius dixerim, protectorem catholicae et summae illius bonitatis ostendunt, quam (ut) semotam a iudiciariis sensibus et in suo statu puram nolunt Marcionitae in eodem deo agnoscere, pluente super bonos et malos et solem suum oriri faciente super iustos et iniustos, quod alius deus omnino non praestat. nam etsi hoc quoque testimonium Christi in creatorem Marcion. de euangelio eradere ausus est, sed ipse mundus inscriptus est et omni a conscientia legitur. et erit haec ipsa patientia creatoris in iudicium Marcionis, illa patientia, quae expectat paenitentiam potius peccatoris quam mortem et mauult misericordiam quam sacrificium, auertens destinatum iam exitium Niniuitis et largiens spatium uitae Ezechiae lacrimis et restituens statum regni Babylonis tyranno paenitentia functo: illam dico misericordiam, quae et filium Saulis moriturum ex deuotione populo concessit et Dauid delicta in domum Uriae confessum uenia liberauit et ipsum Israhel totiens restituit quotiens iudicauit, totiens refouit quotiens et increpuit. non solum igitur iudicem aspiciens conuertere et ad optimi exempla: notans cum ulciscitur considera cum indulget; repende austeritati lenitatem. cum utrumque conueneris in creatore, inuenies in eo et illud, propter quod alterum deum credis. ueni denique ad inspectationem doctrinarum disciplinarum praeceptorum consiliorumque eius. dices forsitan haec etiam humanis legibus determinari. sed ante Lycurgos et Solonas omnes Moyses et deus. nulla posteritas non a primordiis accipit. tamen non a tuo deo didicit creator meus praescribere : non occides, non adulterabis, non furaberis, non falsum testimonium dices, alienum non concupisces, honora patrem et matrem, et diliges proximum tuum ut temetipsum. ad haec innocentiae et pudicitiae, iustitiae et pietatis principalia consulta accedunt etiam humanitatis praescripta, cum septimo quoque anno seruitia libertate soluuntur, cum eodem tempore agro parcitur egenis cedendo locum, (cum) boui etiam terenti uincula oris remittuntur ad fructum praesentis laboris, quo facilius in pecudibus praemeditata humanitas in hominum refrigeria erudiretur.