Each of our merits will hang in the
balance, and it is often inclined to this side or that by the superior weight
either of our good works or of our degenerate crimes. If evil deeds turn the
scale, alas for me! But if good, then pardon is at hand. No one is free of sin;
but where good works prevail, sins are lightened, overshadowed, and covered up.
On the day of judgment either our works will assist us or they will plunge us
into the abyss, as if dragged down by a millstone. (Ambrose, Letter to
Constantinius, a Bishop 2.16, A.D. 379, The Faith of the Early Fathers,
3 vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press,
1979], 2:147)