Tertullian of Carthage: Repentance, the Church as Christ

 With one and two individuals, there is the Church; and the Church, indeed, is Christ. Therefore, when you cast yourself at the knees of the brethren, you are dealing with Christ, you are entreating Christ. In the same say, when they shed tears over you, it is Christ who suffers, Christ who implores the Father. When it is a son who asks, the request is always more easily granted. How very grand is the reward of modesty, which the concealing of our sin promises! If in fact we conceal something from the notice of men, shall we at the same time hide it from God? Are, then, the good opinion of men and the knowledge of God to be equated? Is it better to be damned in secret than to be absolved in public? "But it is a miserable thing thus to come to confession!". Yes, evil leads to misery. But where there is repentance misery ceases, because it is thereby turned to salvation.

+Tertullian of Carthage, from Of the Second Baptism, from Ante-Nicene Fathers