15.  Take heed lest without reason thou mistrust the power of repentance.  Wouldst thou know what power repentance has?  Wouldst thou know the strong weapon of salvation, and learn what the force of confession is?  Hezekiah by means of confession routed a hundred and fourscore and five thousand of his enemies.  A great thing verily was this, but still small in comparison with what remains to be told:  the same king by repentance obtained the recall of a divine sentence which had already gone forth.  For when he had fallen sick, Esaias said to him, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live 2 Kings xx. 1..  What expectation remained, what hope of recovery, when the Prophet said, for thou shalt die?  Yet Hezekiah did not desist from repentance; but remembering what is written, When thou shalt turn and lament, then shalt thou be saved Is. xxx. 15., he turned to the wall, and from his bed lifting his mind to heaven (for thickness of walls is no hindrance to prayers sent up with devotion), he said, “Remember me, O Lord, for it is sufficient for my healing that Thou remember me.  Thou art not subject to times, but art Thyself the giver of the law of life.  For our life depends not on a nativity, nor on a conjunction of stars, as some idly talk; but both of life and its duration.  Then art Thyself the Lawgiver according to Thy Will.”  And he, who could not hope to live because of the prophetic sentence, had fifteen years added to his life, and for the sign the sun ran backward in his course.  Well then, for Ezekias’ sake the sun turned back but for Christ the sun was eclipsed, not retracing his steps, but suffering eclipse Isaiah xxxviii. 8., and therefore shewing the difference between them, I mean between Ezekias and Jesus.  The former prevailed to the cancelling of God’s decree, and cannot Jesus grant remission of sins?  Turn and bewail thyself, shut thy door, and pray to be forgiven, pray that He may remove from thee the burning flames.  For confession has power to quench even fire, power to tame even lions From this point the mss. differ so widely that the Benedictine Editor gives two complete recensions of the whole Lecture.  The Codd. Coislin, Ottob. 2, and Grodec, with the editions of Prevot and Milles, forming as it were one family of mss., constitute the received text.  On the other hand the older Munich Codex, with Codd. Roe and Casaubon, exhibit a recension of the Lecture differing from the editions.  Reischl wishing to retain the received text unaltered, though preferring the other in particular passages, intended to append the other recension complete, but having left his work half finished, failed to do so.  The chief variations are given in the following notes..