one, that absolution given maketh them contrite that are not; the other, even in them which are contrite, the cause why God remitteth sin is the purpose or desire they have to receive absolution;a we are not to stand against a sequel so clear and manifest as this, that always remission of sin proceedeth from absolution either had or desired.

But should a reasonable man give credit to their bare conceit, and because their positions have driven them to imagine absolving of insufficiently-disposed penitents to be a real creating of farther virtue in them, must all other men think it due? Let them cancel henceforward and blot out of all their books those old cautions touching necessity of wisdom, lest priests should inconsiderately absolve any man in whom there were not apparent tokens of true repentance; which to do, was in Saint Cyprian's judgment," pestilent deceit and flattery, not only not avoidable, but hurtful toth emthat had transgressed: a frivolous, frustrate, and false peace, such as caused the unrighteous to trust to a lie, and destroyed them unto whom it promised safety." What needeth observation whether penitents have worthiness and bring contrition, if the words of absolution do infuse contrition? Have they borne us all this while in hand that contrition is a part of the matter of their sacraments; a condition or preparation of the mind towards grace to be received by absolution in the form of their sacraments? And must we now believe, that the form doth give the matter? That absolution bestoweth contrition, and that the words do make presently of Saul, David; of Judas, Peter? For what was the penitency of Saul and Judas, but plain attrition; horror of sin through fear of punishment, without any long sense, or taste of God's mercy?

Their other fiction, imputing remission of sin to desire of absolution from the priest, even in them which are truly contrite, is an evasion somewhat more witty, but no whit more possible for them to prove. Belief of the world and judgment to come, faith in the promises and sufferings of Christ for mankind, fear of his majesty, love of his mercy, grief for sin,

Legitima contritio votum sacramenti pro suo tempore debet inducere, atque adeo in virtute futuri sacramenti peccata remittit. Id. art. 3.

b Tunc sententia sacerdotis judicio Dei et totius cœlestis Curiæ approbatur, et confirmatur, cnm ita ex discretione procedit, ut reorum merita non contradicant. Sent. 1. iv. d. 18.

Non est periculosum Sacerdoti dicere, Ego te absolvo, illis in quibus signa contritionis videt, quæ sunt dolor de præteritis, et propositum de cætero non peccandi ; alias absolvere non debet. Tho. Opusc. 22. Cypr. de lapsis.

hope for pardon, suit for grace, these we know to be elements of true contrition: suppose that besides all this, God did also command that every penitent should seek his absolution at the priest's hands; where so many causes are concurring unto one effect, have they any reason to impute the whole effect unto one? any reason in the choice of that one, to pass by faith, fear, love, humility, hope, prayer, whatsoever else, and to enthronize above them all, a desire of absolution from the priest, as if in the whole work of man's repentance God did regard and accept nothing, but for and in consideration of this? Why do the Tridentine council impute it to charity, "that contrites are reconciled in God's sight before they receive the sacrament of penance," if desired absolution be the true cause?

But let this pass how it will; seeing the question is not, what virtue God may accept in penitent sinners, but what grace absolution actually given doth really bestow upon them.

If it were, as they would have it, that God regarding the humiliation of a contrite spirit, because there is joined therewith a lowly desire of the sacrament of priestly absolution, pardoneth immediately and forgiveth all offences; doth this any thing help to prove that absolution received afterward from the priest, can more than declare him already pardoned which did desire it? To desire absolution, presupposing it commanded, is obedience: and obedience in that case is a branch of the virtue of repentance, which virtue being thereby made effectual to the taking away of sins without the sacrament of repentance, is it not an argument that the sacrament of absolution hath here no efficacy, but the virtue of contrition worketh all? For how should any effect ensue from causes which actually are not? The sacrament must be applied wheresoever any grace doth proceed from it. So that where it is but desired only, whatsoever may follow upon God's acceptation of this desire, the sacrament, afterward received, can be no cause thereof. Therefore the farther we wade, the better we see it still appears, that the priest doth never in absolution, no, not so much as by way of service and ministry, really either forgive them, take away the uncleanness, or remove the punishment of sin; but if the party penitent come contrite, he hath, by their own grant, absolution before absolution; if not contrite, although the priest should seem a thousand times to absolve him, all were in vain. For which

cause the ancients and better sort of their school-divines, Abulensis, Alexander Hales, and Bonaventure, ascribe "the real abolition of sin, and eternal punishment, to the mere pardon of Almighty God, without dependeney upon the priest's absolution as a cause to effect the same." His absolution hath in their doctrine certain other effects specified, but this denied. Wherefore having hitherto spoken of the virtue of repentance required; of the discipline of repentance which Christ did establish; and of the sacrament of repentance invented sithence, against the pretended force of human absolution in sacramental penitency; let it suffice thus far to have shewed how God alone doth truly give, the virtue of repentance alone procure, and private ministerial absolution but declare remission of sins.

Now the last and sometimes hardest to be satisfied by repentance, are our minds; and our minds we have then satisfied, when the conscience is of guilty become clear. For, as long as we are in ourselves privy to our most heinous crimes, but without sense of God's mercy and grace towards us, unless the heart be either brutish for want of knowledge, or altogether hardened by wilful atheism; the remorse of sin is in it, as the deadly sting of the serpent. Which point since very infidels and heathens have observed in the nature of sin (for the disease they felt, though they knew no remedy to help it), we are not rashly to despise those sentences which are the testimonies of their experience touching this point. They knew that the eye of a man's own conscience is more to be feared by evil doers than the presence of a thousand witnesses, inasmuch as the mouths of other accusers are many ways stopped, the ears of the accused not always subject to glowing with contumely and exprobation; whereas a guilty mind being forced to be still both a martyr and a tyrant in

a Areata mortis æternæ absolvitur homo a Deo per contritionem; manet autem reatus ad quandam pœnam temporalem, et minister ecclesiæ quicunque virtute clavium tollit reatum cujusdam partis pœnæ illias. Abul. in defens. p. 1. c. 7. Signum bujus sacramenti est causa effectiva gratiæ sive remissionis peccatorum; non simpliciter, sicut ipsa prima pœnitentia, sed secundum quid; quia est causa efficaciæ gratiæ qua fit remissio peccati, quantum ad aliquem effectum in pœnitente, ad minus quantum ad remissionem sequelæ ipsius peccati, scilicet pœnæ : Alex. p. 4. q. 14. memb. 2. Potestas clavium proprie loquendo non se extendit supra culpam : ad illud quod objicitur, To. 22. Quorum remiseritis peccata; dicendum, quod vel illud de remissione dicitur quantum ad offensionem, vel solum quantum ad pœnam : Bon. sent. l. i. d. 18. q. 1. Ab æterna pœna nullo modo solvit sacerdos, sed a purgatorio ; neque hoc per se, sed per accidens, quod cum in pœnitente, virtute clavium, minuitur debitum pœnæ temporalis, non ita acriter punietur in purgatorio, sicut si non esset absolutus. Sent. 1. iv. d. 18. q. 2.

itself, must of necessity endure perpetual anguish and grief; for, as the body is rent with stripes, so the mind with guiltiness of cruelty, lust, and wicked resolutions. Which furies brought the emperor Tiberius sometimes into such perplexity, that writing to the senate, his wonted art of dissimulation failed him utterly in this case; and whereas it had been ever his peculiar delight so to speak that no man might be able to sound his meaning, he had not the power to conceal what he felt through the secret scourge of an evil conscience, though no necessity did now enforce him to disclose the same. "What to write, or how to write, at this present, if I know (saith Tiberius), let the gods and goddesses, who thus continually eat me, only be worse to me than they are." It was not his imperial dignity and power that could provide a way to protect him against himself; the fears and suspicions which improbity had bred, being strengthened by every occasion, and those virtues clean banished which are the only foundation of sound tranquillity of mind. For which cause it hath been truly said, and agreeably with all men's experience, that if the virtuous did excel in no other privilege, yet far happier they are than the contrary sort of men, for that their hopes be always better.

Neither are we to marvel, that these things, known unto all, do stay so few from being authors of their own woe.

For we see by the ancient example of Joseph's unkind brethren, how it cometh to remembrance easily when crimes are once past, what the difference is of good from evil, and of right from wrong: but such considerations, when they should have prevented sin, were over-matched by inordinate desires. Are we not bound then with all thankfulness to acknowledge his infinite goodness and mercy, which hath revealed unto us the way how to rid ourselves of these mazes; the way how to shake off that yoke, which no flesh is able to bear; the way how to change most grisly horror into a comfortable apprehension of heavenly joy?

Whereunto there are many which labour with so much the greater difficulty, because imbecility of mind doth not suffer them to censure rightly their own doings. Some fearful lest the enormity of their crimes be so unpardonable that no repentance can do them good; some lest the imperfection of their repentance make it ineffectual to the taking away of sin. The one drive all things to this issue, whether they be

not men that have sinned against the Holy Ghost; the other to this, what repentance is sufficient to clear sinners, and to assure them that they are delivered.

Such as by error charge themselves of unpardonable sin must think, it may be, they deem that unpardonable, which is not. Our Saviour speaketh indeed of blasphemy which shall never be forgiven: but have they any sure and infallible knowledge what that blasphemy is? If not, why are they unjust and cruel to their own souls, imagining certainty of guiltiness in a crime concerning the very nature whereof they are uncertain? For mine own part, although where this blasphemy is mentioned, the cause why our Saviour spake thereof, was the pharisees' blasphemy, which was not afraid to say, "he had an unclean spirit, and did cast out spirits by Matt. the power of Beelzebub;" nevertheless I dare not precisely xxi. 31. deny, but that even the pharisees themselves might have re- iii. 33. pented and been forgiven, and that our Lord Jesus Christ peradventure might but take occasion at their blasphemy, which, as yet, was pardonable, to tell them farther of an unpardonable blasphemy, whereinto he foresaw that the Jews would fall. For it is plain, that many thousands, at the first, professing Christian religion, became afterward wilful apostates, moved with no other cause of revolt, but mere indignation that the gentiles should enjoy the benefit of the gospel as much as they, and yet not be burdened with the yoke of Moses's law.

Mark

The apostles by preaching had won them to Christ, in whose name they embraced with great alacrity the full remission of their former sins and iniquities; they received by the imposition of the apostles' hands that grace and power of the Holy Ghost whereby they cured diseases, prophesied, spake Acts with tongues; and yet in the end, after all this, they fell ut- ii. 38. terly away, renounced the mysteries of Christian faith, blasphemed in their formal abjurations that most glorious and blessed Spirit, the gifts whereof themselves had possessed; and by this means sunk their souls in the gulf of that unpardonable sin; whereof, as our Lord Jesus Christ had told them beforehand, so the apostle at the first appearance of such their revolt, putteth them in mind again, that falling now to their former blasphemies, their salvation was irrecoverably gone. It was for them in this case impossible to be renewed Heb. by any repentance; because they were now in the state vi. 6.