To Florus 2.222

As he proceeds, the apostle explains himself more clearly. He teaches that, when human salvation was being lost, God, moved by the abundance of his compassion, brought a medicine more effective than usual to a desperate situation. Those whom he had not corrected by commands he would bind to himself by benefits, requiring devotion for the future while not imputing past deeds. People should then strive to preserve the righteousness they had obtained by the direct path of belief. The abundance of preceding sins therefore called for the help of such abundant mercy: unless the forgiver’s generosity had been so great, no other discipline could have helped diseases so serious. But in commending this divine benefit, the apostle saw room for an objection from people who might say: ‘If we rightly assess the worth of causes by their effects, and the abundance of sins obtained an outpouring of God’s mercy, we should persist in sins so that grace’s abundance does not fail.’ Anticipating such an opinion, he says: ‘What, then, shall we say? Shall we remain in sin so that grace may abound? Far from it! For we who died to sin, how shall we still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ rose in the Father’s glory, we too might walk in newness of life’ (Romans 6:1–4).