Miscellanies 4.24.154

Here, then, the good God trains for these three reasons: first, so that the one trained may become better than himself; then, so that those who can be saved through examples may be warned and turned back beforehand; and third, so that the one wronged may not be easily despised and apt to be wronged. There are also two ways of correction: the one instructive, the other punitive, which we have also called educative. It must be known, however, that those who fall into sins after the washing are the ones who are trained; for what was done before has been forgiven, but what follows is cleansed. About unbelievers it is said that they have been reckoned “as chaff which the wind drives away from the face of the earth,” and “as a drop from a bucket.”