It appears harsh to you that after adultery, spouse should be reconciled to spouse. If faith is present, it will not be harsh. Why do we still regard as adulterers those who we believe have either been cleansed by baptism or have been healed by penance? Under the old law of God, no sacrifices wiped away these crimes, which, without a doubt, are cleansed by the blood of the new covenant. Therefore, in former times, it was forbidden in every way to take back to oneself a woman sullied by another man, although David, as a figure of the New Testament, took back, without any hesitation, the daughter of Saul, whom the father of the same woman had given to another after her separation from David.^[1] But now, afterwards, Christ says to the adulteress, Neither will I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on sin no more.^[2] Who fails to understand that it is the duty of the husband to forgive what he knows the Lord of both has forgiven, and that he should not now call her an adulteress whose sin he believes to have been eradicated by the mercy of God as a result of her penance?

He had bound the people to himself freely in doing his duty; first, when during the division among the people he preferred to live like an exile at Hebron rather than to reign at Jerusalem;^[1] next, when he showed that he loved valor even in an enemy. He had also thought that justice should be shown to those who had borne arms against himself the same as to his own men. Again, he admired Abner, the bravest champion of the opposing side, while he was their leader and was yet waging war. Nor did he despise Abner when suing for peace, but honored him by a banquet. When killed by treachery, David mourned and wept for him. He followed him and honored his obsequies and evinced his good faith in desiring vengeance for the murder; for he handed on that duty to his son in the charge that he gave him, being anxious rather that the death of an innocent man should not be left unavenged than that any one should mourn for his own.^[2]

Although he [Saul] was a king, he sinned if he killed the innocent. Finally, even David, when he was in possession of his kingdom and had heard that an innocent man named Abner was slain by Joab, the leader of his army, said, I and my kingdom are innocent now and forever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner, and he fasted in sorrow.

These things I have written not to disconcert you but that the example of kings may stir you to remove this sin from your kingdom, for you will remove it by humbling your soul before God.^[1] You are a man, you have met temptation—conquer it. Sin is not removed except by tears and penance. No angel or archangel can remove it; it is God himself who alone can say, I am with you;^[2] if we have sinned, he does not forgive us unless we do penance.

Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, is killed through a ruse at the hands of Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon, the Beerothite. And, when they announced the news to David and showed him the head of his enemy, they were killed by David, who said, Wicked men have slain a just man in his own house upon his bed. Ish-bosheth was certainly not a just man, and yet he is called a just man because he was innocently killed.