III.¹⁶ Seeing then¹⁷ that the chiefest cause of spiritual jurisdiction is to provide for the health and safety of men’s souls, by bringing them to see and repent their grievous offences committed against God, as also to reform all injuries offered with the breach of Christian love and charity, towards¹⁸ their brethren, in matters of ecclesiastical cognizance¹⁹; the use of this power shall by so much the plainlier appear, if first the nature of repentance itself be known.

We are by repentance to appease whom we offend by sin. For which cause, whereas all sins deprive²⁰ us of the favour of Almighty God, our way of reconciliation with him is the inward secret repentance of the heart; which inward repentance alone sufficeth, unless some special thing, in the quality of sin committed, or in the party that hath done amiss, require more. For besides our submission in God’s sight, repentance must not only proceed to the private contentation of men, if the sin be a crime injurious; but also further²¹, where the wholesome discipline of God’s Church exacteth a more exemplary and open satisfaction²². Now the Church being satisfied with outward repentance, as God is with inward, it shall not be amiss, for more perspicuity, to term this latter always the Virtue, that²³ former the Discipline of Repentance: which discipline hath two sorts of penitents to work upon, inasmuch as it hath been accustomed to lay the offices of repentance on some seeking, others shunning them; on some at their own voluntary request, on others altogether against their wills; as shall hereafter appear by store of ancient examples. Repentance being therefore either in the sight of God alone, or else with the notice also of men: without the one, sometimes throughly performed, but always practised more or less, in our daily devotions and prayers, we have no remedy for any fault; whereas the other is only required in sins of a certain degree and quality: the one necessary for ever, the other so far forth as the laws and orders of God’s Church shall make it requisite: the nature, parts, and effects of the one always the same; the other limited, extended, varied by infinite occasions²⁴.

²⁵ The virtue of repentance in the heart of man is God’s handy work, a fruit or effect of divine grace. Which grace continually offereth itself, even unto them that have forsaken it, as may appear by the words of Christ in St. John’s Revelation²⁶, “I stand at the door and knock:” nor doth he only knock without, but also within assist to open²⁷, whereby access and entrance is given to the heavenly presence of that saving power, which maketh man a repaired Temple for God’s good Spirit again to inhabit. And albeit the whole train of virtues which are implied in the name of grace be infused at one instant²⁸; yet because when they meet and concur unto any effect in man, they have their distinct operations rising orderly one from another; it is no unnecessary thing that we note the way or method of the Holy Ghost in framing man’s sinful heart to repentance.

A work, the first foundation whereof is laid by opening and illuminating the eye of faith, because by faith are discovered the principles of this action, whereunto unless the understanding do first assent, there can follow in the will towards penitency no inclination at all. Contrariwise, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of the world to come, and the endless misery of sinners being apprehended, this worketh fear; such as theirs was, who feeling their own distress and perplexity, in that passion besought our Lord’s Apostles earnestly to give them counsel what they should do²⁹. For fear is impotent and unable to advise itself; yet this good it hath, that men are thereby made desirous to prevent, if possibly they may, whatsoever evil they dread. The first thing that wrought the Ninivites’ repentance, was fear of destruction within forty days³⁰: signs and miraculous works of God, being extraordinary representations of divine power, are commonly wont to stir any the most wicked with terror, lest the same power should bend itself against them. And because tractable minds, though guilty of much sin, are hereby moved to forsake those evil ways which make his power in such sort their astonishment and fear; therefore our Saviour denounced his curse against Corazin and Bethsaida, saying, that if Tyre and Sidon had seen that which they did, those signs which prevailed little with the one would have brought³¹ the other’s repentance³². As the like thereunto did in the men given to curious arts, of whom the apostolic history saith³³, that “fear came upon them, and many which had followed vain sciences, burnt openly the very books out of which they had learned the same.” As fear of contumely and disgrace amongst men, together with other civil punishments, are a bridle to restrain from many³⁴ heinous acts whereinto men’s outrage would otherwise break; so the fear of divine revenge and punishment, where it taketh place, doth make men desirous to be rid likewise from that inward guiltiness of sin, wherein they would else securely continue.

Howbeit, when faith hath wrought a fear of the event of sin, yet repentance hereupon ensueth not, unless our belief conceive both the possibility and means to avert evil: the possibility, inasmuch as God is merciful, and most willing to have sin cured; the means, because he hath plainly taught what is requisite and shall suffice unto that purpose. The nature of all wicked men is, for fear of revenge to hate whom they most wrong; the nature of hatred, to wish that destroyed which it cannot brook; and from hence ariseth the furious endeavour³⁵ of godless and obdurate sinners to extinguish in themselves the opinion of God, because they would not have him to be, whom execution of endless woe doth not suffer them to love. Every sin against God abateth, and continuance in sin extinguisheth our love towards him. It was therefore said to the angel of Ephesus having sinned³⁶, “Thou art fallen away from thy first love;” so that, as we never decay in love till we sin, in like sort neither can we possibly forsake sin, unless we first begin again to love. What is love towards God, but a desire of union with God? And shall we imagine a sinner converting himself to God, in whom there is no desire of union with God presupposed? I therefore conclude, that fear worketh no man’s inclination to repentance, till somewhat else have wrought in us love also. Our love and desire of union with God ariseth from the strong conceit which we have of his admirable goodness. The goodness of God which particularly moveth unto repentance, is his mercy towards mankind, notwithstanding sin: for let it once sink deeply into the mind of man, that howsoever we have injuried God, his very nature is averse from revenge, except unto sin we add obstinacy; otherwise always ready to accept our submission as a full discharge or recompense for all wrongs; and can we choose but begin to love him whom we have offended? or can we but begin to grieve that we have offended him whom we now³⁷ love? Repentance considereth sin as a breach of the law of God, an act obnoxious to that revenge, which notwithstanding may be prevented, if we pacify God in time.

The root and beginning of penitency therefore is the consideration of our own sin, as a cause which hath procured the wrath, and a subject which doth need the mercy of God. For unto man’s understanding there being presented, on the one side, tribulation and anguish upon every soul that doth evil; on the other, eternal life unto them which by continuance in well-doing seek glory, and honour, and immortality: on the one hand, a curse to the children of disobedience; on the other, to lovers of righteousness all grace and benediction: yet between these extremes, that eternal God, from whose unspotted justice and undeserved mercy the lot of each inheritance proceedeth, is so inclinable rather to shew compassion than to take revenge, that all his speeches in Holy Scripture are almost nothing else but entreaties of men to prevent destruction by amendment of their wicked lives; all the works of his providence little other than mere allurements of the just to continue steadfast, and of the unrighteous to change their course; all his dealings and proceedings such towards true converts, as have even filled the grave writings of holy men with these and the like most sweet sentences: “Repentance (if I may so speak³⁸) stoppeth God in his way, when being provoked by crimes past he cometh to revenge them with most just punishments; yea, it tieth as it were the hands of the avenger, and doth not suffer him to have his will.” Again, “³⁹The merciful eye of God towards men hath no power to withstand penitency, at what time soever it comes in presence.” And again, “God doth not take it so in evil part, though we wound that which he hath required us to keep whole, as that after we have taken hurt there should be in us no desire to receive his help.” Finally, lest I be carried too far in so large a sea, “There was never any man condemned of God but for neglect, nor justified except he had care, of repentance.”

From these considerations, setting before our eyes our inexcusable both unthankfulness in disobeying so merciful, and foolishness in provoking so powerful a God, there ariseth necessarily a pensive and corrosive desire that we had done otherwise; a desire which suffereth us to foreslow no time, to feel no quietness within ourselves, to take neither sleep nor food with contentment, never to give over supplications, confessions, and other penitent duties, till the light of God’s reconciled favour shine in our darkened soul.

Fulgentius asking the question, why David’s confession should be held for effectual penitence, and not Saul’s; answereth⁴⁰, that the one hated sin, the other feared only punishment in this world: Saul’s acknowledgment of sin was fear, David’s both fear and also love. This was the fountain of Peter’s tears, this the life and spirit of David’s eloquence, in those most admirable hymns entitled Penitential, where the words of sorrow for sin do melt the very bowels of God⁴¹ remitting it, and the comforts of grace in remitting sin carry him which sorrowed rapt as it were into heaven with ecstasies of joy and gladness. The first motive of the Ninivites unto repentance was their belief in a sermon of fear, but the next and most immediate, an axiom of love⁴²; “Who can tell whether God will turn away his fierce wrath, that we perish not?” No conclusion such as theirs, “Let every man turn from his evil way,” but out of premises such as theirs were, fear and love. Wherefore the well-spring of repentance is faith, first breeding fear, and then love; which love causeth hope, hope resolution of attempt⁴³; “I will go to my Father, and say, I have sinned against heaven and against thee;” that is to say, I will do what the duty of a convert requireth.

⁴⁴ Now in a penitent’s or convert’s duty, there are included, first, the aversion of the will from sin⁴⁵; secondly, the submission of ourselves to God by supplication and prayer; thirdly, the purpose of a new life, testified with present works of amendment: which three things do very well seem to be comprised in one definition, by them which handle repentance, as a virtue that hateth, bewaileth, and sheweth a purpose to amend sin. We offend God in thought, word, and deed. To the first of which three, they make contrition; to the second, confession; and to the last, our works of satisfaction, answerable.

⁴⁶Contrition doth not here import those sudden pangs and convulsions of the mind which cause sometimes the most forsaken of God to retract their own doings; it is no natural passion or anguish, which riseth in us against our wills, but a deliberate aversion of the will of man from sin; which being always accompanied with grief, and grief oftentimes partly with tears, partly with other external signs, it hath been thought, that in these things contrition doth chiefly consist: whereas the chiefest thing in contrition is that alteration whereby the will, which was before delighted with sin, doth now abhor and shun nothing more. But forasmuch as we cannot hate sin in ourselves without heaviness and grief, that there should be in us a thing of such hateful quality, the will averted from sin must needs make the affection suitable; yea, great reason why it should so do: for sith the will by conceiving sin hath deprived the soul of life; and of life there is no recovery without repentance, the death of sin; repentance not able to kill sin, but by withdrawing the will from it; the will unpossible to be withdrawn, unless it concur with a contrary affection to that which accompanied it before in evil: is it not clear that as an inordinate delight did first begin sin, so repentance must begin with a just sorrow, a sorrow of heart, and such a sorrow as renteth the heart; neither a feigned nor a slight⁴⁷ sorrow; not feigned, lest it increase sin; nor slight, lest the pleasures of sin overmatch it.

Wherefore of Grace, the highest cause from which man’s penitency doth proceed; of faith, fear, love, hope, what force and efficiency they have in repentance; of parts and duties thereunto belonging, comprehended in the schoolmen’s definitions; finally, of the first among those duties, contrition, which disliketh and bewaileth iniquity, let this suffice.

⁴⁸And because God will have offences by repentance not only abhorred within ourselves, but also with humble supplication displayed before him, and a testimony of amendment to be given, even by present works, worthy repentance, in that they are contrary to those we renounce and disclaim: although the virtue of repentance do require that her other two parts, confession and satisfaction, should here follow; yet seeing they belong as well to the discipline as to the virtue of repentance, and only differ for that in the one they are performed to man, in the other to God alone; I had rather distinguish them in joint handling, than handle them apart, because in quality and manner of practice they are distinct⁴⁹.

IV.⁵⁰ Our Lord and Saviour in the sixteenth of St. Matthew’s Gospel giveth his Apostles regiment in general over God’s Church⁵¹. For they that have the keys of the kingdom of heaven are thereby signified to be stewards of the house of God, under whom they guide, command, judge, and correct his family. The souls of men are God’s treasure, committed to the trust and fidelity of such as must render a strict account for the very least which is under their custody. God hath not invested them with power to make a revenue thereof, but to use it for the good of them whom Jesus Christ hath most dearly bought.

And because their office herein⁵² consisteth of sundry functions, some belonging to doctrine, some to discipline, all contained in the name of the Keys; they have for matters of discipline, as well litigious as criminal, their courts and consistories erected by the heavenly authority of his most sacred voice, who hath said, Dic Ecclesiæ, Tell the Church⁵³: against rebellious and contumacious persons which refuse to obey their sentence, armed they are with power to eject such out of the Church, to deprive them of the honours, rights, and privileges of Christian men, to make them as heathen and publicans, with whom society was hateful.

Furthermore, lest their acts should be slenderly accounted of, or had in contempt, whether they admit to the fellowship of saints or seclude from it, whether they bind offenders or set them again at liberty, whether they remit or retain sins, whatsoever is done by way of orderly and lawful proceeding, the Lord himself hath promised to ratify. This is that grand original warrant, by force whereof the guides and prelates in God’s Church, first his Apostles⁵⁴, and afterwards others following them successively⁵⁵, did both use and uphold that discipline, the end whereof is to heal men’s consciences, to cure their sins, to reclaim offenders from iniquity, and to make them by repentance just.

Neither hath it of ancient time for any other respect been accustomed to bind by ecclesiastical censures, to retain so bound till tokens of manifest repentance appeared, and upon apparent repentance to release, saving only because this was received as a most expedient method for the cure of sin.

⁵⁶ The course of discipline in former ages reformed open transgressors by putting them unto offices of open penitence; especially confession, whereby they declared their own crimes in the hearing of the whole Church, and were not from the time of their first convention capable of the holy mysteries of Christ, till they had solemnly discharged this⁵⁷ duty.

Offenders in secret, knowing themselves altogether as unworthy to be admitted to the Lord’s table, as the others⁵⁸ which were withheld, being also persuaded, that if the Church did direct them in the offices of their penitency, and assist them with public prayer, they should more easily obtain that they sought, than by trusting wholly to their own endeavours; finally, having no impediment to stay them from it but bashfulness, which countervailed not the former inducements, and besides was greatly eased by the good construction which the charity of those times gave to such actions, wherein men’s piety and voluntary care to be reconciled to God, did purchase them much more love, than their faults (the testimonies of common frailty) were able to procure disgrace; they made it not nice to use some one of the ministers of God, by whom the rest might take notice of their faults, prescribe them convenient remedies, and in the end after public confession, all join in prayer unto God for them.

The first beginners of this custom had the more followers, by means of that special favour which always was with good consideration shewed towards voluntary penitents above the rest. But as professors of Christian belief grew more in number, so they waxed worse, when kings and princes had submitted their dominions unto the sceptre of Jesus Christ, by means whereof persecution ceasing, the Church immediately became subject to those evils which peace and security bringeth forth; there was not now that love which before kept all things in tune, but every where schisms, discords, dissensions amongst men, conventicles of heretics, bent more vehemently against the sounder and better sort than very infidels and heathens themselves; faults not corrected in charity, but noted with delight, and kept for malice to use when deadliest opportunities should be offered. Whereupon, forasmuch as public confessions became dangerous and prejudicial to the safety of well-minded men, and in divers respects advantageous to the enemies of God’s Church, it seemed first unto some, and afterwards generally, requisite, that voluntary penitents should surcease from open confession.

⁵⁹Instead whereof, when once private and secret confession had taken place with the Latins, it continued as a profitable ordinance, till the Lateran council⁶⁰ had decreed, that all men once in a year at the least should confess themselves to the priest. So that being thus made a thing⁶¹ both general and also necessary, the next degree of estimation whereunto it grew, was to be honoured and lifted up to the nature of a sacrament; that as Christ did institute Baptism to give life, and the Eucharist to nourish life, so Penitency⁶² might be thought a sacrament ordained to recover life, and Confession a part of the sacrament.

They define therefore their private penitency⁶³ to be “a sacrament of remitting sins after baptism:” the virtue of repentance, “a detestation of wickedness⁶⁴, with full purpose to amend the same, and with hope to obtain pardon at God’s hands.” Wheresoever the Prophets cry Repent, and in the Gospel Saint Peter maketh the same exhortation to the Jews as yet unbaptized, they will have the virtue of repentance only to be understood; the sacrament, where he adviseth Simon Magus to repent, because the sin of Simon Magus was after baptism.

Now although they have only external repentance for a sacrament, internal for a virtue, yet make they sacramental repentance nevertheless to be composed of three parts, contrition, confession, and satisfaction: which is absurd; because contrition, being an inward thing, belongeth to the virtue and not to the sacrament of repentance, which must consist of external parts, if the nature thereof be external. Besides, which is more absurd, they leave out absolution; whereas some of their school-divines⁶⁵, handling penance in the nature of a sacrament, and being not able to espy the least resemblance of a sacrament save only in absolution (for a sacrament by their doctrine must both signify and also confer or bestow some special divine grace), resolved themselves, that the duties of the penitent could be but mere preparations to the sacrament, and that the sacrament itself was wholly in absolution. And albeit Thomas with his followers have thought it safer, to maintain as well the services of the penitent, as the words of the minister, necessary unto the essence of their sacrament; the services of the penitent, as a cause material; the words of absolution, as a formal⁶⁶; for that by them all things else are perfected to the taking away of sin; which opinion now reigneth in all their schools, sithence the time that the council of Trent⁶⁷ gave it solemn approbation; seeing they all make absolution, if not the whole essence, yet the very form whereunto they ascribe chiefly the whole force and operation of their sacrament; surely to admit the matter as a part, and not to admit the form, hath small congruity with reason.

Again, forasmuch as a sacrament is complete, having the matter and form which it ought, what should lead them to set down any other part⁶⁸ of sacramental repentance, than confession and absolution, as Durandus⁶⁹ hath done? For touching satisfaction, the end thereof, as they understand it, is a further matter, which resteth after the sacrament administered, and therefore can be no part of the sacrament. Will they draw in contrition with satisfaction, which are no parts, and exclude absolution, a principal part, yea, the very complement, form, and perfection of the rest, as themselves account it?

But for their breach of precepts in art, it skilleth not, if their doctrine otherwise concerning penitency, and in penitency⁷⁰, touching confession, might be found true. ⁷¹We say, let no man look for pardon, which doth smother and conceal sin, where in duty it should be revealed. The cause why God requireth confession to be made to him is, that thereby testifying a deep hatred of our own iniquities⁷², the only cause of his hatred and wrath towards us, we might, because we are humble, be so much the more capable of that compassion and tender mercy, which knoweth not how to condemn sinners that condemn themselves. If it be our Saviour’s own principle, that the conceit we have of our debt forgiven, proportioneth our thankfulness and love to him at whose hands we receive pardon⁷³, doth not God foresee, that they which with ill-advised modesty seek to hide their sin like Adam⁷⁴, that they which rake it up under ashes, and confess it not, are very unlikely to requite with offices of love afterwards the grace which they shew themselves unwilling to prize at the very time when they sue for it; inasmuch as their not confessing what crimes they have committed, is a plain signification, how loth they are that the benefit of God’s most gracious pardon should seem great? Nothing more true than that of Tertullian⁷⁵, “Confession doth as much abate the weight of men’s offences, as concealment doth make them heavier. For he which confesseth hath a purpose to appease God; he, a determination to persist and continue obstinate, which keepeth them secret to himself.” St. Chrysostom almost in the same words⁷⁶, “Wickedness is by being acknowledged lessened, and doth⁷⁷ grow by being hid. If men having done amiss let it slip, as though they knew no such matter, what is there to stay them from falling often⁷⁸ into one and the same evil? To call ourselves sinners availeth nothing, except we lay our faults in the balance, and take the weight of them one by one. Confess thy crimes to God, disclose thy transgressions before the⁷⁹ Judge, by way of humble supplication and suit, if not with tongue, at the least with heart, and in this sort seek mercy. A general persuasion that thou art a sinner will neither so humble nor⁸⁰ bridle thy soul, as if the catalogue of thy sins examined severally be continually kept in mind. This shall make thee lowly in thine own eyes, this shall preserve thy feet from falling, and sharpen thy desire towards all good things. The mind I know doth hardly admit such unpleasant remembrances, but we must force it, we must constrain it thereunto. It is safer now to be bitten with the memory, than hereafter with the torment of sin.”

The Jews, with whom no repentance for sin is held⁸¹ available without confession, either conceived in mind or uttered; which latter kind they call usually וִדּוּי, confession delivered by word of mouth⁸²; had first that general confession which once every year was made, both severally by each of the people for himself upon the day of expiation, and by the priest for them all⁸³, acknowledging unto God⁸⁴ the manifold transgressions of the whole nation, his own personal offences likewise, together with the sins, as well of his family, as of the rest of his rank and order.

They had again their voluntary confessions, at all⁸⁵ times and seasons, when men, bethinking themselves of their wicked conversation past, were resolved to change their course, the beginning of which alteration was still confession of sins.

Thirdly, over and besides these, the law imposed upon them also that special confession which they in their books call⁸⁶ וִרּוִי עַל עָוׁן מְיוּחָר, confession of that particular fault for which we namely seek pardon at God’s hands. The words of the law⁸⁷ concerning confession in this kind are as followeth: “When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, and transgress against the Lord, their sin which they have done” (that is to say, the very deed itself in particular) “they shall acknowledge.” In Leviticus, after certain transgressions there mentioned, we read the like⁸⁸: “When a man hath sinned in any one of these things, he shall then confess, how in that thing he hath offended.” For such kind of special sins they had also special sacrifices, wherein the manner was, that the offender should lay his hands on the head of the sacrifice which he brought, and should there make confession to God, saying⁸⁹, “Now, O Lord, that I have offended, committed sin and done wickedly in thy sight, this or this being my fault; behold I repent me, and am utterly ashamed of my doings; my purpose is, never to return more to the same crime.”

⁹⁰Finally, there was no man amongst them at any time, either condemned to suffer death, or corrected, or chastised with stripes, none ever sick and near his end, but they called upon him to repent and confess his sins.

Of malefactors convict by witnesses, and thereupon either adjudged to die, or otherwise chastised, their custom was to exact, as Joshua did of Achan, open confession⁹¹: “My son, now give glory to the Lord God of Israel; confess unto him, and declare unto me what thou hast committed; conceal it not from me.”

Concerning injuries and trespasses which happen between men, they highly commend such as will acknowledge before many. “⁹²It is in him which repenteth accepted as an high sacrifice, if he will confess before many, make them acquainted with his oversights, and reveal the transgressions which have passed between him and any of his brethren; saying, I have verily offended this man, thus and thus I have done unto him; but behold I do now repent and am sorry. Contrariwise, whosoever is proud, and will not be known of his faults, but cloaketh them, is not yet come to perfect repentance; for so it is written⁹³, ‘He that hideth his sins shall not prosper:’ ” which words of Salomon they do not further extend, than only to sins committed against men, which are in that respect meet before men to be acknowledged particularly. “But in sins between man and God, there is no necessity that man should himself make any such open and particular recital of them:” to God they are known, and of us it is required, that we cast not the memory of them carelessly and loosely behind our backs, but keep in mind, as near as we can, both our own debt and his grace which remitteth the same.

⁹⁴ Wherefore, to let pass Jewish confession, and to come unto them which hold confession in the ear of the priest commanded, yea, commanded in the nature of a sacrament, and thereby so necessary that sin without it cannot be pardoned; let them find such a commandment in holy Scripture, and we ask no more. John the Baptist was an extraordinary person; his birth, his actions of life, his office extraordinary. It is therefore recorded for the strangeness of the act, but not set down as an everlasting law for the world⁹⁵, “that to him Jerusalem and all Judæa made confession of their sins;” besides, at the time of this confession, their pretended sacrament of repentance, as they grant, was not yet instituted; neither was it sin after baptism which penitents did there confess. When that which befell the seven sons of Sceva⁹⁶, for using the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in their conjurations, was notified to Jews and Grecians in Ephesus, it brought an universal fear upon them, insomuch that divers of them which had believed before, but not obeyed the laws of Christ as they should have done, being terrified by this example, came to the Apostle, and confessed their wicked deeds. Which good and virtuous act no wise man, (as I suppose,) will disallow, but commend highly in them, whom God’s good Spirit shall move to do the like when need requireth. Yet neither hath this example the force of any general commandment or law, to make it necessary for every man to pour into the ears of the priest whatsoever hath been done amiss, or else to remain everlastingly culpable and guilty of sin; in a word, it proveth confession practised as a virtuous act, but not commanded as a sacrament.

Now concerning St. James his exhortation⁹⁷, whether the former branch be considered, which saith, “Is any sick amongst you? let him call for the ancients of the Church, and let them make their prayers for him;” or the latter, which stirreth up all Christian men unto mutual acknowledgment of faults among themselves, “Lay open your minds, make your confessions one to another;” is it not plain, that the one hath relation to that gift of healing, which our Saviour promised his Church, saying⁹⁸, “They shall lay their hands on the sick, and the sick shall recover health;” relation to that gift of healing, whereby the Apostle imposed his hands on the father of Publius⁹⁹, and made him miraculously a sound man; relation, finally, to that gift of healing, which so long continued in practice after the Apostles’ times, that whereas the Novatianists denied the power of the Church of God in curing sin after baptism, St. Ambrose asked them again¹⁰⁰, “Why it might not as well prevail with God for spiritual as for corporal and bodily health; yea, wherefore,” saith he, “do ye yourselves lay hands on the diseased, and believe it to be a work of benediction or prayer, if happily the sick person be restored to his former safety?” And of the other member, which toucheth mutual confession, do not some of themselves, as namely Cajetan¹⁰¹, deny that any other confession is meant, than only that, “which seeketh either association of prayers, or reconciliation, and pardon of wrongs?” Is it not confessed by the greatest part of their own retinue¹⁰², that we cannot certainly affirm sacramental confession to have been meant or spoken of in this place? Howbeit Bellarmine, delighted to run a course by himself where colourable shifts of wit will but make the way passable, standeth as formally for this place¹⁰³, and no less for that in St. John, than for this.

St. John saith¹⁰⁴, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness;” doth St. John say, If we confess to the priest, God is righteous to forgive; and if not, that our sins are unpardonable? No, but the titles of God, just and righteous, do import that he pardoneth sin only for his promise sake; “And there is not” (they say) “any promise of forgiveness upon confession made to God without the priest¹⁰⁵.” Not any promise, but with this condition, and yet this condition no where exprest? Is it not strange, that the Scripture speaking so much of repentance, and of the several duties which appertain thereunto, should ever mean, and no where mention, that one condition, without which all the rest is utterly of none effect? or will they say, because our Saviour hath said to his ministers, “Whose sins ye retain,” &c. and because they can remit no more than what the offenders have confest, that therefore, by virtue of this¹⁰⁶ promise, it standeth with the righteousness of God to take away no man’s sins, until by auricular confession they be opened unto the priest?

¹⁰⁷ They are men that would seem to honour antiquity, and none more to depend upon the reverend judgment thereof. I dare boldly affirm, that for many hundred years after Christ the Fathers held no such opinion; they did not gather by our Saviour’s words any such necessity of seeking the priest’s absolution from sin, by secret and (as they now term it) sacramental confession: public confession they thought necessary by way of discipline, not private confession, as in the nature of a sacrament, necessary.

For to begin with the purest times, it is unto them which read and judge without partiality a thing most clear, that the ancient ἐξομολόγησις or Confession, defined by Tertullian¹⁰⁸ to be a discipline of humiliation and submission, framing men’s behaviour in such sort as may be fittest to move pity, the confession which they use to speak of in the exercise of repentance, was made openly in the hearing of the whole both ecclesiastical consistory and assembly. ¹⁰⁹This is the reason wherefore he perceiving that divers were better content their sores should secretly fester and eat inward, than be laid so open to the eyes of many, blameth greatly their unwise bashfulness, and to reform the same, persuadeth with them, saying¹¹⁰, “Amongst thy brethren and fellow-servants, which are partakers with thee of one and the same nature, fear, joy, grief, sufferings, (for of one common Lord and Father we all have received one spirit,) why shouldst thou not think with thyself, that they are but thine ownself? wherefore dost thou avoid them, as likely to insult over thee, whom thou knowest subject to the same haps? At that which grieveth any one part, the whole body cannot rejoice, it must needs be that the whole will labour and strive to help that wherewith a part of itself is molested.”

St. Cyprian, being grieved with the dealings of them, who in time of persecution had through fear betrayed their faith, and notwithstanding thought by shift to avoid in that case the necessary discipline of the church, wrote for their better instruction the book intituled De Lapsis; a treatise concerning such as had openly forsaken their religion, and yet were loth openly to confess their fault in such manner as they should have done: in which book he compareth with this sort of men, certain others which had but a purpose only to have departed from the faith; and yet could not quiet their minds, till this very secret and hidden fault was confest: “How much both greater in faith,” saith St. Cyprian¹¹¹, “and also as touching their fear better are those men, who although neither sacrifice nor libel¹¹² could be objected against them, yet because they thought to have done that which they should not, even this their intent they dolefully open unto God’s priests; they confess that whereof their conscience accuseth them, the burden that presseth their minds they discover, they foreslow not of smaller and slighter evils to seek remedy.” He saith, they declared their fault, not to one only man in private, but they revealed it to God’s priests; they confest it before the whole consistory of God’s ministers.

Salvianus, (for I willingly embrace their conjecture, who ascribe those homilies to him, which have hitherto by common error past under the counterfeit name of Eusebius Emesenus¹¹³,) I say, Salvianus, though coming long after Cyprian in time, giveth nevertheless the same evidence for this truth, in a case very little different from that before alleged; his words are these: “¹¹⁴Whereas, most dearly beloved, we see that penance oftentimes is sought and sued for by holy souls which even from their youth have bequeathed themselves a precious treasure unto God, let us know that the inspiration of God’s good spirit moveth them so to do for the benefit of his Church, and let such as are wounded learn to inquire for that remedy, whereunto the very soundest do thus offer and obtrude as it were themselves, that if the virtuous do bewail small offences, the other cease not to lament great. And surely, when a man that hath less need, performeth sub oculis Ecclesiæ, in the view, sight, and beholding of the whole Church, an office worthy of his faith and compunction for sin, the good which others thereby reap is his own harvest, the heap of his rewards groweth by that which another gaineth, and through a kind of spiritual usury, from that amendment of life which others learn by him, there returneth lucre into his coffers.”

The same Salvianus, in another of his Homilies¹¹⁵, “If faults happily be not great and grievous, (for example, if a man have offended in word, or in desire, worthy of reproof, if in the wantonness of his eye, or the vanity of his heart,) the stains of words and thoughts are by daily prayer to be cleansed, and by private compunction to be scoured out: but if any man examining inwardly his own conscience, have committed some high and capital offence, as, if by bearing false witness he have quelled and betrayed his faith, and by rashness of perjury have violated the sacred name of truth; if with the mire of lustful uncleanness he have sullied the veil of baptism, and the gorgeous robe of virginity; if by being the cause of any man’s death, he have been the death of the new man within himself; if by conference with soothsayers, wizards, and charmers, he hath enthralled himself to Satan: these and such like committed crimes cannot throughly be taken away with ordinary, moderate, and secret satisfaction; but greater causes do require greater and sharper remedies: they need such remedies as are not only sharp, but solemn, open, and public.” Again¹¹⁶, “Let that soul,” saith he, “answer me, which through pernicious shamefastness is now so abasht to acknowledge his sin in conspectu fratrum, before his brethren, as he should have been before abasht to commit the same, what he will do in the presence of that Divine tribunal, where he is to stand arraigned in the assembly of a glorious and celestial host?”

I will hereunto add but St. Ambrose’s testimony; for the places which I might allege are more than the cause itself needeth. “There are many,” saith he¹¹⁷, “who fearing the judgment that is to come, and feeling inward remorse of conscience, when they have offered themselves unto penitency and are enjoined what they shall do, give back for the only scar which they think that public supplication will put them unto.” He speaketh of them which sought voluntarily to be penanced, and yet withdrew themselves from open confession, which they that were penitents for public crimes could not possibly have done, and therefore it cannot be said he meaneth any other than secret sinners in that place.

Gennadius, a Presbyter of Marsiles, in his book touching Ecclesiastical Assertions, maketh but two kinds of confession necessary: the one in private to God alone for smaller offences; the other open, when crimes committed are heinous and great¹¹⁸: “Although,” saith he, “a man be bitten with the conscience¹¹⁹ of sin, let his will be from thenceforward to sin no more; let him, before he communicate, satisfy with tears and prayers, and then putting his trust in the mercy of Almighty God (whose wont is to yield unto godly confessions) let him boldly receive the sacrament. But I speak this of such as have not burthened themselves with capital sins: them I exhort to satisfy first by public penance, that so being reconciled by the sentence of the priest, they may communicate safely with others.”

Thus still we hear of public confessions, although the crimes themselves discovered were not public; we hear that the cause of such confessions was not the openness, but the greatness, of men’s offences; finally, we hear that the same being now not held¹²⁰ by the church of Rome to be sacramental, were the only penitential confessions used in the Church for a long time, and esteemed as necessary remedies against sin.

They which will find auricular confessions in St. Cyprian¹²¹, therefore, must seek out some other passage than that which Bellarmine allegeth; “Whereas in smaller faults which are not committed against the Lord himself, there is a competent time assigned unto penitency, and that confession is made, after that observation¹²² and trial had been had of the penitent’s behaviour, neither may any communicate till the Bishop and clergy have laid their hands upon him; how much more ought all things to be warily and stayedly observed, according to the discipline of the Lord, in those most grievous and extreme crimes.” St. Cyprian’s speech is against rashness in admitting idolaters to the holy Communion, before they had shewed sufficient repentance, considering that other offenders were forced to stay out their time, and that they made not their public confession, which was the last act of penitency, till their life and conversation had been seen into, not with the eye of auricular scrutiny, but of pastoral observation, according to that in the council of Nice¹²³, where, thirteen years being set for the penitency of certain offenders, the severity of this decree is mitigated with special caution: “That in all such cases, the mind of the penitent and the manner of his repentance is to be noted, that as many as with fear and tears and meekness, and the exercise of good works, declared themselves to be converts indeed, and not in outward appearance only, towards them the bishop at his discretion might use more lenity.” If the council of Nice suffice not, let Gratian, the founder of the Canon Law, expound Cyprian, who sheweth¹²⁴ that the stint of time in penitency is either to be abridged or enlarged, as the penitent’s faith and behaviour shall give occasion. “I have easilier found out men,” saith St. Ambrose¹²⁵, “able to keep themselves free from crimes, than conformable to the rules which in penitency they should observe.” St. Gregory Bishop of Nyse¹²⁶ complaineth and inveigheth bitterly against them, who in the time of their penitency lived even as they had done always before¹²⁷: “Their countenance as cheerful, their attire as neat, their diet as costly, and their sleep as secure as ever, their worldly business purposely followed, to exile pensive thoughts from their minds, repentance pretended, but indeed nothing less exprest:” these were the inspections of life whereunto St. Cyprian alludeth; as for auricular examinations he knew them not.

¹²⁸ Were the Fathers then without use of private confession as long as public was in use? I affirm no such thing. The first and ancientest that mentioneth this confession is Origen, by whom it may seem that men, being loth to present rashly themselves and their faults unto the view of the whole Church, thought it best to unfold first their minds to some one special man of the clergy, which might either help them himself, or refer them to an higher court, if need were. “Be therefore circumspect,” saith Origen¹²⁹, “in making choice of the party to whom thou meanest to confess thy sin; know thy physician before thou use him: if he find thy malady such as needeth to be made public, that others may be the better by it, and thyself sooner helpt, his counsel must be obeyed and followed.”

That which moved sinners thus voluntarily to detect themselves both in private and in public, was fear to receive with other Christian men the mysteries of heavenly grace, till God’s appointed stewards and ministers did judge them worthy. It is in this respect that St. Ambrose findeth fault with certain men which sought imposition of penance, and were not willing to wait their time, but would be presently admitted communicants. “Such people,” saith he¹³⁰, “do seek, by so rash and preposterous desires, rather to bring the priest into bonds than to loose themselves.” In this respect it is that St. Augustine hath likewise said¹³¹, “When the wound of sin is so wide, and the disease so far gone, that the medicinable body and blood of our Lord may not be touched, men are by the Bishop’s authority to sequester themselves from the altar, till such time as they have repented, and be after reconciled by the same authority.”

Furthermore, because the knowledge how to handle our own sores is no vulgar and common art, but we either carry towards ourselves for the most part an over-soft and gentle hand, fearful of touching too near the quick; or else, endeavouring not to be partial, we fall into timorous scrupulosities, and sometimes into those extreme discomforts of mind, from which we hardly do ever lift up our heads again; men thought it the safest way to disclose their secret faults, and to crave imposition of penance from them whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath left in his Church to be spiritual and ghostly physicians, the guides and pastors of redeemed souls, whose office doth not only consist in general persuasions unto amendment of life, but also in the private particular cure of diseased minds.

Howsoever the Novatianists presume to plead against the Church, saith Salvianus¹³², that “every man ought to be his own penitentiary, and that it is a part of our duty to exercise, but not of the Church’s authority to impose or prescribe repentance;” the truth is otherwise, the best and strongest of us may need in such cases direction: “What doth the Church in giving penance, but shew the remedies which sin requireth? or what do we in receiving the same, but fulfil her precepts? what else but sue unto God with tears and fasts, that his merciful ears may be opened?”

St. Augustine’s exhortation is directly to the same purpose; “¹³³Let every man while he hath time judge himself, and change his life of his own accord; and when this is resolved upon, let him from the disposers of the holy sacraments¹³⁴ learn in what manner he is to pacify God’s displeasure.”

But the greatest thing which made men forward and willing upon their knees to confess whatsoever they had committed against God, and in no wise to be withheld from the same with any fear of disgrace, contempt, or obloquy, which might ensue, was their fervent desire to be helped and assisted with the prayers of God’s saints. Wherein as St. James¹³⁵ doth exhort unto mutual confession, alleging this only for a reason, that just men’s devout prayers are of great avail with God; so it hath been heretofore the use of penitents for that intent to unburthen their minds, even to private persons, and to crave their prayers. Whereunto Cassianus alluding, counselleth¹³⁶, “That if men possest with dulness of spirit be themselves unapt to do that which is required, they should in meek affection seek health at the least by good and virtuous men’s prayers unto God for them.” And to the same effect Gregory, Bishop of ¹³⁷Nyss¹³⁸: “Humble thyself, and take unto thee such of thy brethren as are of one mind, and do bear kind affection towards thee, that they may together mourn and labour for thy deliverance. Shew me thy bitter and abundant tears, that I may blend mine own with them.” But because of all men there is or should be none in that respect more fit for troubled and distressed minds to repair unto than God’s ministers, he proceedeth further¹³⁹: “Make the priest, as a father, partaker of thy affliction¹⁴⁰ and grief; be bold to impart unto him the things that are most secret, he will have care both of thy safety and of thy credit.”

“Confession,” saith Leo¹⁴¹, “is first to be offered to God, and then to the priest, as to one which maketh supplication for the sins of penitent offenders.” Suppose we, that men would ever have been easily drawn, much less of their own accord have come unto public confession, whereby they knew they should sound the trumpet of their own disgrace; would they willingly have done this, which naturally all men are loth to do, but for the singular trust and confidence which they had in the public prayers of God’s Church? “Let thy mother the Church weep for thee,” saith St. Ambrose¹⁴², “let her wash and bathe thy faults with her tears: our Lord doth love that many should become suppliants¹⁴³ for one.” In like sort, long before him, Tertullian¹⁴⁴, “Some few assembled make a Church, and the Church is as Christ himself; when thou dost therefore put forth thy hands to the knees of thy brethren, thou touchest Christ; it is Christ unto whom thou art a suppliant¹⁴⁵; so when they pour out their¹⁴⁶ tears over them, it is even Christ that taketh compassion; Christ which prayeth when they pray: neither can that be easily denied, for which the Son is himself contented to become a suitor.”

¹⁴⁷ Whereas in these considerations therefore, voluntary penitents had been long accustomed, for great and grievous crimes, though secret, yet openly both to repent and confess, as the canons of ancient discipline required; the Greek church first, and in process of time the Latin altered this order, judging it sufficient and more convenient that such offenders should do penance and make confession in private only. The cause why the Latins did, Leo declareth, saying, “¹⁴⁸Although that ripeness of faith be commendable, which for the fear of God doth not fear to incur shame before all men; yet because every one’s crimes are not such, that it can be free and safe for them to make publication of all things wherein repentance is necessary; let a custom so unfit to be kept be abrogated, lest many forbear to use the remedies of penitency, whilst they either blush or are afraid to acquaint their enemies with those acts for which the laws may take hold upon them. Besides, it shall win the more to repentance, if the consciences of sinners be not emptied into the people’s ears.” And to this only cause doth Sozomen¹⁴⁹ impute the change which the Grecians made, by ordaining throughout all churches certain penitentiaries to take the confessions, and appoint the penances of secret offenders. Socrates¹⁵⁰ (for this also may be true, that moe¹⁵¹ inducements than one did set forward an alteration so generally made) affirmeth the Grecians (and not unlikely) to have especially¹⁵² respected therein the occasion, which the Novatianists took at the multitude of public penitents, to insult over the discipline of the Church, against which they still cried out wheresoever they had time and place, “¹⁵³He that sheweth sinners favour, doth but teach the innocent to sin.” And therefore they themselves admitted no man to their communion upon any repentance, which once was known to have offended after baptism, making sinners thereby not the fewer, but the closer and the more obdurate, how fair soever their pretence might seem.

¹⁵⁴ The Grecians’ canon for some one presbyter in every Church to undertake the charge of penitency, and to receive their voluntary confessions which had sinned after baptism, continued in force for the space of about some hundred years¹⁵⁵, till Nectarius, and the bishops of churches under him, began a second alteration, abolishing even that confession which their penitentiaries took in private. There came to the penitentiary of the Church of Constantinople a certain gentlewoman¹⁵⁶, and to him she made particular confession of her faults committed after baptism, whom thereupon he advised to continue in fasting and prayer, that as with tongue she had acknowledged her sins, so there might appear in her likewise some work worthy of repentance. But the gentlewoman goeth forward, and detecteth herself of a crime, whereby they were forced to disrobe an ecclesiastical person, that is, to degrade a deacon of the same Church. When the matter by this mean came to public notice, the people were in a kind of tumult offended¹⁵⁷, not only at that which was done, but much more, because the Church should thereby endure open infamy and scorn. The clergy perplexed and altogether doubtful what way to take, till one Eudæmon, born in Alexandria, but at that time a priest in the church of Constantinople, considering that the cause of voluntary confession, whether public or private, was especially to seek the Church’s aid, as hath been before declared, lest men should either not communicate with others, or wittingly hazard their souls, if so be they did communicate, and that the inconvenience which grew to the whole Church was otherwise exceeding great, but especially grievous by means of so manifold offensive detections, which must needs be continually more, as the world did itself wax continually worse (for antiquity together with the gravity and severity thereof (saith Sozomen¹⁵⁸) had already begun by little and little to degenerate into loose and careless living, whereas before offences were less, partly through bashfulness in them which opened¹⁵⁹ their own faults, and partly by means of their great austerity which sate¹⁶⁰ as judges in this business): these things Eudæmon having weighed with himself, resolved easily the mind of Nectarius, that the penitentiaries’ office must be taken away, and for participation in God’s holy mysteries every man be left to his own conscience; which was, as he thought, the only mean to free the Church from danger of obloquy and disgrace. “Thus much,” saith Socrates¹⁶¹, “I am the bolder to relate, because I received it from Eudæmon’s own mouth, to whom my¹⁶² answer was at that time; Whether your counsel, sir, have been for the Church’s good, or otherwise, God knoweth: but I see you have given occasion, whereby we shall not now any more reprehend one another’s faults, nor observe that apostolic precept, which saith, Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather be ye also reprovers of them.” With Socrates, Sozomen¹⁶³ both agreeth in the occasion of abolishing penitentiaries; and moreover testifieth also, that in his time, living with the younger Theodosius, the same abolition did still continue, and that the bishops had in a manner every where followed the example given them by Nectarius.

¹⁶⁴ Wherefore to implead the truth of this history, Cardinal Baronius allegeth that Socrates, Sozomen and Eudæmon were all Novatianists; and that they falsify in saying (for so they report), that as many as held the consubstantial being of Christ, gave their assent to the abrogation of the forerehearsed canon. The sum is, he would have it taken for a fable, and the world to be persuaded that Nectarius did never any such thing¹⁶⁵. Why then should Socrates first and afterwards Sozomen publish it? To please their pew-fellows, the disciples of Novatian. A poor gratification, and they very silly friends, that would take lies for good turns. For the more acceptable the matter was, being deemed true, the less they must needs (when they found the contrary) either credit or affect him, which had deceived them. Notwithstanding we know that joy and gladness rising from false information, do not only make men forward¹⁶⁶ to believe that which they first hear, but also apt to scholie upon it, and to report as true whatsoever they wish were true. But so far is Socrates from any such purpose, that the fact of Nectarius, which others did both like and follow, he doth both¹⁶⁷ disallow and reprove. His speech to Eudæmon, before set down, is proof sufficient that he writeth nothing but what was famously known to all, and what himself did wish had been otherwise. As for Sozomen’s correspondence¹⁶⁸ with heretics, having shewed to what end the Church did first ordain penitentiaries, he addeth immediately, that Novatianists, which had no care of repentance, could have no need of this office¹⁶⁹. Are these the words of a friend or an enemy? Besides, in the entrance of that whole narration¹⁷⁰, “Not to sin,” saith he, “at all, would require a nature more divine than ours is: but God hath commanded to pardon sinners: yea, although they transgress and offend often.” Could there be any thing spoken more directly opposite to the doctrine of Novatian?

Eudæmon was presbyter under Nectarius. To Novatianists the Emperor gave liberty of using their religion quietly by themselves, under a bishop of their own, even within the city, for that they stood with the Church in defence of the Catholic faith against all other heretics besides¹⁷¹. Had therefore Eudæmon favoured their heresy, their camps were not pitched so far off, but he might at all times have found easy access unto them. Is there any man that lived with him, and hath touched him that way? if not, why suspect we him more than Nectarius?

Their report touching Grecian catholic bishops, who gave approbation to that which was done, and did also the like themselves in their own churches, we have no reason to discredit, without some manifest and clear evidence brought against it. For of Catholic bishops, no likelihood but that their greatest respect to Nectarius, a man honoured in those parts no less than the Bishop of Rome himself in the western churches, brought them both easily and speedily unto conformity with him; Arians, Eunomians, Apollinarians, and the rest that stood divided from the Church, held their penitentiaries as before. Novatianists from the beginning had never any, because their opinion touching penitency was against the practice of the Church therein, and a cause why they severed themselves from the Church: so that the very state of things as they then stood, giveth great show of probability to his speech, who hath affirmed¹⁷², “That they only which held the Son consubstantial with the Father, and Novatianists which joined with them in the same opinion, had no penitentiaries in their churches, the rest retained them.”

By this it appeareth therefore how Baronius, finding the relation plain, that Nectarius did abolish even those private secret confessions, which the people had before been accustomed to make to him that was penitentiary, laboureth what he may to discredit the authors of the report, and to leave it imprinted in men’s minds, that whereas Nectarius did but abrogate public confession, Novatianists have maliciously forged the abolition of private. As if the odds between these two were so great in the balance of their judgment, which equally hated and contemned both; or, as if it were not more clear than light, that the first alteration which established penitentiaries took away the burthen of public confession in that kind of penitents, and therefore the second must either abrogate private, or nothing.

¹⁷³ Cardinal Bellarmine therefore finding that against the writers of the history it is but in vain to stand upon so doubtful terms and exceptions, endeavoureth mightily to prove, even by their report, no other confession taken away than public, which penitentiaries used in private to impose upon public offenders¹⁷⁴. “For why? It is,” saith he, “very certain, that the name of penitents in the Fathers’ writings signifieth only public penitents; certain, that to hear the confessions of the rest was more than one could possibly have done; certain, that Sozomen, to shew how the Latin Church retained in his time what the Greek had clean cast off, declareth the whole order of public penitency used in the Church of Rome, but of private he maketh no mention.” And, in these considerations, Bellarmine will have it the meaning both of Socrates and of¹⁷⁵ Sozomen, that the former episcopal constitution, which first did erect penitentiaries, could not concern any other offenders, than such as publicly had sinned after baptism; that only they were prohibited to come to the holy communion, except they did first in secret confess all their sins to the penitentiary, by his appointment openly acknowledge their open crimes, and do public penance for them; that whereas, before Novatian’s uprising, no man was constrainable to confess publicly any sin, this canon enforced public offenders thereunto, till such time as Nectarius thought good to extinguish the practice thereof.

Let us examine therefore these subtile and fine conjectures, whether they be able to hold the touch. “It seemed good,” saith Socrates, “to put down the office of these priests which had charge of penitency¹⁷⁶;” what charge that was, the kinds of penitency then usual must make manifest. There is often speech in the Fathers’ writings, in their books frequent mention of penitency, exercised within the chambers of our own heart, and seen of God, and not communicated to any other, the whole charge of which penitency is imposed of God, and doth rest upon the sinner himself. But if penitents in secret being guilty of crimes whereby they knew they had made themselves unfit guests for the table of our Lord, did seek direction for their better performance of that which should set them clear; it was in this case the Penitentiary’s office to take their confessions, to advise them the best way he could for their soul’s good, to admonish them, to counsel them, but not to lay upon them more than private penance. As for notorious wicked persons, whose crimes were known, to convent¹⁷⁷, judge, and punish them, was the office of the ecclesiastical consistory; Penitentiaries had their institution to another end. Now¹⁷⁸ unless we imagine that the ancient time knew no other repentance than public, or that they had little occasion to speak of any other repentance, or else that in speaking thereof they used continually some other name, and not the name of repentance, whereby to express private penitency; how standeth it with reason, that wheresoever¹⁷⁹ they write of penitents, it should be thought they meant only public penitents? The truth is, they handle all three kinds, but private and voluntary repentance much oftener, as being of far more general use; whereas public was but incident unto few, and not oftener than once incident unto any. Howbeit, because they do not distinguish one kind of penitency from another by difference of names, our safest way for construction is to follow circumstance of matter, which in this narration will not yield itself appliable only unto public penance, do what they can that would so expound it.

They boldly and confidently affirm, that no man being compellable to confess publicly any sin before Novatian’s time, the end of instituting penitentiaries afterward in the Church was, that by them men might be constrained unto public confession. Is there any record in the world which doth testify this to be true? There is that testifieth the plain contrary. For Sozomen declaring purposely the cause of their institution, saith¹⁸⁰, “That whereas men openly craving pardon at God’s hands (for public confession, the last act of penitency, was always made in the form of a contrite prayer unto God), it could not be avoided but they must withal confess what their offences were; this in the opinion of their prelates¹⁸¹ seemed from the first beginning (as we may probably think) to be somewhat burthensome;” not burthensome, I think¹⁸², to notorious offenders; for what more just than in such sort to discipline them? but burthensome, that men whose crimes were unknown should blaze their own faults as it were on a stage, acquainting all the people with whatsoever they had done amiss. And therefore to remedy this inconvenience, they laid the charge upon one only priest, chosen out of such as were of best conversation, a silent and a discreet man, to whom they which had offended might resort and lay open their lives. He according to the quality of every one’s transgressions appointed what they should do or suffer, and left them to execute it upon themselves. Can we wish a more direct and evident testimony, that the office here spoken of was to ease voluntary penitents from the burthen of public confessions, and not to constrain notorious offenders thereunto? That such offenders were not compellable to open confession¹⁸³ till Novatian’s time, that is to say, till after the days of persecution under Decius the emperor, they of all men should not so peremptorily avouch; with whom if Fabian bishop of Rome, who suffered martyrdom ¹⁸⁴the first year of Decius, be of any authority and credit, it must enforce them to reverse their sentence, his words are so plain and clear against them¹⁸⁵. “For such as commit those crimes, whereof the Apostle hath said, They that do them shall never inherit the kingdom of heaven, must,” saith he, “be forced unto amendment, because they slip down to hell, if ecclesiastical authority stay them not.” Their conceit of impossibility, that one man should suffice to take the general charge of penitency in such a church as Constantinople, hath arisen from a mere erroneous supposal, that the ancient manner of private confession was like the shrift at this day usual in the Church of Rome, which tieth all men at one certain time to make confession; whereas confession was then neither looked for till men did offer it, nor offered for the most part by any other than such as were guilty of heinous transgressions, nor to them any time appointed for that purpose. Finally, the drift which Sozomen had in relating the discipline of Rome, and the form of public penitency there retained even till his time, is not to signify that only public confession was abrogated by Nectarius, but that the West or Latin Church held still one and the same order from the very beginning, and had not, as the Greek, first cut off public voluntary confession by ordaining, and then private by removing Penitentiaries.

Wherefore to conclude, it standeth, I hope, very plain and clear, first against the one Cardinal, that Nectarius did truly abrogate confession in such sort as the ecclesiastical history hath reported; and secondly, as clear against them both, that it was not public confession only which Nectarius did abolish.

¹⁸⁶ The paradox in maintenance whereof¹⁸⁷ Hassels¹⁸⁸ wrote purposely a book touching this argument, to shew that Nectarius did but put the penitentiary from his office, and not take away the office itself, is repugnant to the whole advice which Eudæmon gave, of leaving the people from that time forward to their own consciences; repugnant to the conference between Socrates and Eudæmon, wherein complaint is made of some inconvenience which the want of the office would breed; finally, repugnant to that which the history declareth concerning other churches, which did as Nectarius had done before them, not in deposing the same man (for that was impossible) but in removing the same office out of their churches, which Nectarius had banished from his. For which cause Bellarmine¹⁸⁹ doth well reject the opinion of Hessels, howsoever it please Pamelius¹⁹⁰ to admire it as a wonderful happy invention. But in sum, they are all gravelled, no one of them able to go smoothly away, and to satisfy either others or himself with his own conceit concerning Nectarius.

¹⁹¹ Only in this they are stiff, that auricular confession Nectarius did not abrogate, lest if so much should be acknowledged, it might enforce them to grant that the Greek church at that time held not confession, as the Latin now doth, to be the part of a sacrament instituted by our Saviour Jesus Christ, which therefore the Church till the world’s end hath no power to alter. Yet seeing that as long as public voluntary confession of private crimes did continue in either church (as in the one it remained not much above two hundred years, in the other about four hundred) the only acts of such repentance were; first, the offender’s intimation of those crimes to some one presbyter, for which imposition of penance was sought; secondly, the undertaking of penance imposed by the Bishop; thirdly, after the same performed and ended, open confession to God in the hearing of the whole church; whereupon ¹⁹²ensued the prayers of the Church; ¹⁹³then the Bishop’s imposition of hands; and so ¹⁹⁴the party’s reconciliation or restitution to his former right in the holy sacrament: I would gladly know of them which make only private confession a part of their sacrament of penance, how it could be so in those times. For where the sacrament of penance is ministered, they hold that confession to be sacramental which he receiveth who must absolve; whereas during the fore-rehearsed manner of penance, it can no where be shewed, that the priest to whom secret information was given did reconcile or absolve any; for how could he, when public confession was to go before reconciliation, and reconciliation likewise in public thereupon to ensue? So that if they did account any confession¹⁹⁵ sacramental, it was surely public, which is now abolisht in the Church of Rome; and as for that which the Church of Rome doth so esteem, the ancient neither had it in such estimation, nor thought it to be of so absolute necessity for the taking away of sin.

But (for any thing that I could ever observe out of them) although not only in crimes open and notorious, which made men unworthy and uncapable of holy mysteries, their discipline required first public penance, and then granted that which St. Hierom mentioneth, saying, “The priest layeth his hand upon the penitent, and by invocation entreateth that the Holy Ghost may return to him again, and so after having enjoined solemnly all the people to pray for him, reconcileth to the altar him who was delivered to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit might be safe in the day of the Lord¹⁹⁶:”—Although I say not only in such offences being famously known to the world, but also if the same were committed secretly, it was the custom of those times, both that private intimation should be given, and public confession made thereof; in which respect, whereas all men did willingly the one, but would as willingly have withdrawn themselves from the other, had they known how; “Is it tolerable,” saith St. Ambrose¹⁹⁷, “that to sue to God thou shouldst be ashamed, which blushest not to seek and sue unto man? Should it grieve thee to be a suppliant to him from whom thou canst not possibly hide thyself; when to open thy sins to him, from whom, if thou wouldst, thou mightest conceal them, it doth not any thing at all trouble thee? This thou art loth to do in the Church, where, all being sinners, nothing is more opprobrious indeed than concealment of sin, the most humble the best thought of, and the lowliest accounted the justest:”—All this notwithstanding, we should do them very great wrong, to father any such opinion upon them, as if they did teach it a thing impossible for any sinner to reconcile himself unto God, without confession unto the priest. ¹⁹⁸Would Chrysostom thus persuaded have said, “Let the inquiry and presentment¹⁹⁹ of thy offences be made in thine own thoughts; let the tribunal whereat thou arraignest thyself be without witness: let God and only God see thee and thy confession?” Would Cassianus²⁰⁰, so believing, have given counsel, “That if any were withheld by bashfulness from discovering their faults to men, they should be so much the more instant and constant in opening them by supplication to God himself, whose wont is to help without publication of men’s shame, and not to upbraid them when he pardoneth?” Finally, would Prosper²⁰¹, settled in this opinion, have made it, as touching reconciliation to God, a matter indifferent, “Whether men of ecclesiastical order did detect their crimes by confession, or leaving the world ignorant thereof, would separate voluntarily themselves for a time from the altar, though not in affection, yet in execution of their ministry, and so bewail their corrupt life?” Would he have willed them as he doth “to make bold of it, that the favour of God being either way recovered by fruits of forcible repentance, they should not only receive whatsoever they had lost by sin, but also after this their new enfranchisement, aspire to the endless joys of that supernal city?”

To conclude, we every where find the use of confession, especially public, allowed of and commended by the Fathers; but that extreme and rigorous necessity of auricular and private confession, which is at this day so mightily upheld by the church of Rome, we find not²⁰². It was not then the faith and doctrine of God’s Church, as of the papacy at this present, 1. ²⁰³That the only remedy for sin after baptism is sacramental penitency. 2. That confession in secret is an essential part thereof. 3. That God himself cannot now forgive sins²⁰⁴ without the priest. 4. That because forgiveness at the hands of the priest must arise from confession in the offender²⁰⁵, therefore to confess unto him is a matter of such necessity, as being not either in deed, or at the least in desire performed, excludeth utterly from all pardon, and must consequently in Scripture be commanded, wheresoever any promise of forgiveness is made. No, no; these opinions have youth in their countenance; antiquity know them not, it never thought nor dreamed of them.

²⁰⁶ But to let pass the papacy. Forasmuch as repentance doth import alteration within the mind of a sinful man, whereby through the power of God’s most gracious and blessed Spirit, he seeth and with unfeigned sorrow acknowledgeth former offences committed against God, hath them in utter detestation, seeketh pardon for them in such sort as a Christian should do, and with a resolute purpose settleth himself to avoid them, leading as near as God shall assist him, for ever after, an unspotted life; and in the order (which Christian religion hath taught for procurement of God’s mercy towards sinners) confession is acknowledged a principal duty; yea, in some cases, confession to man, not to God only; it is not in the reformed churches denied by the learneder sort of divines²⁰⁷, but that even this confession, cleared from all errors, is both lawful and behoveful for God’s people.

Confession by man to man ²⁰⁸being either private or public, private confession to the minister alone touching secret crimes, or absolution thereupon ensuing, as the one, so the other is neither practised by the French discipline, nor used in any of those churches which have been cast by the French mould. Open confession to be made in the face of the whole congregation by notorious malefactors they hold necessary; howbeit not necessary towards the remission of sins²⁰⁹, “but only in some sort to content the Church, and that one man’s repentance may seem to strengthen many, which before have been weakened by one man’s fall.”

Saxonians and Bohemians in their discipline constrain no man to open confession²¹⁰. Their doctrine is, that whose faults have been public, and thereby scandalous unto the world, such, when God giveth them the spirit of repentance, ought as solemnly to return, as they have openly gone astray: first, for the better testimony of their own unfeigned conversion unto God; secondly, the more to notify their reconcilement unto the church; and lastly, that others may make benefit of their ensample²¹¹.

But concerning confession in private, the churches of Germany²¹², as well the rest as Lutherans, agree all²¹³, that all men should at certain times confess their offences to God in the hearing of God’s ministers, thereby to shew how their sins displease them; to receive instruction for the warier carriage of themselves hereafter; to be soundly resolved, if any scruple or snare of conscience do entangle their minds; and, which is most material, to the end that men may at God’s hands seek every one his own particular pardon, through the power of those keys, which the minister of God using according to our blessed Saviour’s institution in that case, it is their part to accept the benefit thereof as God’s most merciful ordinance for their good, and, without any distrust or doubt, to embrace joyfully his grace so given them, according to the word of our Lord, which hath said²¹⁴, “Whose sins ye remit they²¹⁵ are remitted.” So that grounding upon this assured belief, they are to rest with minds encouraged and persuaded concerning the forgiveness of all their sins, as out of Christ’s own word and power, by the ministry of the keys.

²¹⁶ It standeth with us in the Church of England, as touching public confession, thus:

First, seeing day by day we in our Church begin our public prayers to Almighty God with public acknowledgment of our sins, in which confession every man prostrate as it were before his glorious Majesty crieth guilty²¹⁷ against himself; and the minister with one sentence pronounceth universally all clear, whose acknowledgment so made hath proceeded from a true penitent mind; what reason is there every man should not under the general terms of confession represent to himself his own particulars whatsoever, and adjoining thereunto that affection which a contrite spirit worketh, embrace to as full effect the words of divine Grace, as if the same were severally and particularly uttered with addition of prayers, imposition of hands, or all the ceremonies and solemnities that might be used for the strengthening of men’s affiance in God’s peculiar mercy towards them? Such complements are helps to support our weakness, and not causes that serve to procure or produce his gifts. If with us there be “truth in the inward parts,” as David speaketh, the difference of general and particular forms in confession and absolution is not so material, that any man’s safety or ghostly good should depend upon it.

And for private confession and absolution it standeth thus with us:

The minister’s power to absolve is publicly taught and professed, the Church not denied to have authority either of abridging or enlarging the use and exercise of that power, upon the people no such necessity imposed of opening their transgressions unto men, as if remission of sins otherwise were impossible²¹⁸; neither any such opinion had of the thing itself, as though it were either unlawful or unprofitable, saving²¹⁹ only for these inconveniences, which the world hath by experience observed in it heretofore. And in regard thereof, the Church of England hitherto hath thought it the safer way to refer men’s hidden crimes unto God and themselves only; howbeit, not without special caution for the admonition of such as come to the holy Sacrament, and for the comfort of such as are ready to depart the world.

First, because there are but few that consider how much that part of divine service which consisteth in partaking the holy Eucharist doth import their souls; what they lose by neglect thereof, and what by devout practice they might attain unto: therefore, lest carelessness of general confession should, as commonly it doth, extinguish all remorse of men’s particular enormous crimes; our custom (whensoever men present themselves at the Lord’s Table) is, solemnly to give them very fearful admonition²²⁰ what woes are perpendicularly hanging over the heads of such as dare adventure to put forth their unworthy hands to those admirable mysteries of life, which have by rare examples been proved conduits of irremediable death to impenitent receivers; whom therefore as we repel being known, so being not known we can but terrify. Yet with us, the ministers of God’s most holy word and sacraments, being all put in trust with the custody and dispensation of those mysteries, wherein our communion is and hath been ever accounted the highest grace that men on earth are admitted unto, have therefore all equally the same power to withhold that sacred mystical food from notorious evil livers, from such as have any way wronged their neighbours, and from parties between whom there doth open hatred and malice appear, till the first sort have reformed their wicked life, the second recompensed them unto whom they were injurious, and the last condescended unto some course of Christian reconciliation, whereupon their mutual accord may ensue. In which cases, for the first branch of wicked life, and the²²¹ last which is open enmity, there can arise no great difficulty about the exercise of his power: in the second, concerning wrongs, there may, if men shall presume to define or measure injuries according to their own conceits, depraved oftentimes as well by error as partiality, and that no less in the minister himself, than in any other of the people under him. The knowledge therefore which he taketh of wrongs must rise as it doth in the other two, not from his own opinion or conscience, but from the evidence of the fact which is committed; yea, from such evidence as neither doth admit denial nor defence. For if the offender having either colour of law to uphold, or any other pretence to excuse his own uncharitable and wrongful dealings, shall wilfully stand in defence thereof, it serveth as a bar to the power of the minister in this kind. ²²²Because (as it is observed by men of very good judgment in these affairs) “although in this sort our separating of them be not to strike them with the mortal wound of excommunication, but to stay them rather from running desperately headlong into their own harm; yet in us it is not²²³ to sever from the holy communion but such as are either found culpable by their own confession, or have been convicted in some public secular, or²²⁴ ecclesiastical court. For who is he that dare take upon him to be any man’s both accuser and judge? ²²⁵Evil persons are not rashly, and as we list, to be thrust from communion with the Church; insomuch that, if we cannot proceed against them by any orderly course of judgment, they are rather to be suffered for the time than molested. Many there are reclaimed, as Peter; many, as Judas, known well enough, and yet tolerated; many, which must remain undescried till the day of His appearance, by whom the secret corners of darkness shall be brought into open light.”

Leaving therefore unto his judgment them whom we cannot stay from casting their own souls into so great hazard, we have in the other part of penitential jurisdiction, in our power and authority to release sin, joy on all sides, without trouble or molestation unto any. And if to give be a thing more blessed than to receive, are we not infinitely happier in being authorized to bestow the treasure of God, than when necessity doth constrain to withdraw the same?

They which, during life and health, are never destitute of ways to delude²²⁶ repentance, do notwithstanding oftentimes, when their last hour draweth on, both feel that sting which before lay dead in them, and also thirst after such helps as have been always till then unsavoury. St. Ambrose’s words touching late repentance are somewhat hard²²⁷, “If a man be penitent and receive absolution (which cannot in that case be denied him) even at the very point of death, and so depart, I dare not affirm he goeth out of the world well; I will counsel no man to trust to this, because I am loth to deceive any man, seeing I know not what to think of it. Shall I judge such a one a castaway? Neither will I avouch him safe. All I am able to say, is, Let his estate be left to the will and pleasure of Almighty God. Wilt thou be therefore clearly²²⁸ delivered of all doubt? Repent while yet thou art healthy and strong. If thou defer it till time give no longer possibility of sinning, thou canst not be thought to have left sin, but rather sin to have forsaken thee.” Such admonitions may in their time and place be necessary, but in no wise prejudicial to the generality of God’s own high and heavenly promise, “Whensoever a sinner doth repent from the bottom of his heart, I will put out all his iniquity.” And of this, although it hath pleased God not to leave to the world any multitude of examples, lest the careless should too far presume; yet one he hath given, and that most memorable, to withhold from despair in the mercies of God, at what instant soever man’s unfeigned conversion be wrought. Yea, because to countervail the fault of delay, there are in the latest repentance oftentimes the surest tokens of sincere dealing; therefore upon special confession made to the minister of God, he presently absolveth in this case the sick party from all his sins by that authority which Jesus Christ hath committed unto him, knowing that God respecteth not so much what time is spent, as what truth is shewed in repentance.

²²⁹ In sum, when the offence doth stand only between God and man’s conscience, the counsel is good which St. Chrysostom giveth²³⁰: “I wish thee not to bewray thyself publicly, nor to accuse thyself before others. I wish thee to obey the Prophet, who saith, Disclose thy way unto the Lord, confess thy sin before him, tell thy sins to him that he may blot them out. If thou be abasht to tell unto any other wherein thou hast offended, rehearse them every day between thee and thy soul. I wish thee not to confess them to thy fellow-servant, who may upbraid thee with them; tell them to God, who will cure them; there is no need for thee in the presence of witnesses to acknowledge them; let God alone see thee at thy confession. I pray and beseech you, that you would more often than you do confess to God eternal, and reckoning²³¹ your trespasses desire his pardon²³². I carry you not into a theatre or open court of many your fellow-servants, I seek not to detect your crimes before men; disclose your conscience before God, unfold yourselves to him, lay forth your wounds before him, the best physician that is, and desire of him salve for them.” If hereupon it follow, as it did with David, “I thought, I will confess against myself my wickedness unto thee, O Lord, and thou forgavest me the plague of my sin,” we have then²³³ our desire, and there remaineth only thankfulness, accompanied with perpetuity of care to avoid that, which being not avoided we know we cannot remedy without new perplexity and grief. Contrariwise, if peace with God do not follow the pains we have taken in seeking after it, if we continue disquieted, and not delivered from anguish, mistrusting whether that we do be sufficient; it argueth that our sore doth exceed the power of our own skill, and that the wisdom of the pastor must bind up those parts, which being bruised are not able to be recured of themselves.

V.²³⁴ There resteth now Satisfaction only to be considered; a point which the Fathers do often touch, albeit they never aspire to such mysteries, as the papacy hath found enwrapped within the folds and plaits thereof. And it is happy for the Church of God, that we have the writings of the Fathers, to shew what their meaning was. The name of Satisfaction, as the ancient Fathers meant it, containeth whatsoever a penitent should do in the humbling himself unto God, and testifying by deeds of contribution the same which confession in words pretendeth. “He which by repentance for sins” (saith Tertullian²³⁵, speaking of fickle-minded men) “had a purpose to satisfy the Lord, will now by repenting his repentance make Satan satisfaction; and be so much more hateful to God, as he is unto God’s enemy more acceptable.” Is it not plain, that satisfaction doth here include the whole work of penitency, and that God is satisfied when men are restored through²³⁶ sin into favour by repentance? “How canst thou,” saith Chrysostom²³⁷, “move God to pity thee, when thou wilt not seem as much as to know that thou hast offended?” By appeasing, pacifying, and moving God to pity, St. Chrysostom meaneth the very same with the Latin Fathers, when they speak of satisfying God: “We feel,” saith St.²³⁸ Cyprian²³⁹, “the bitter smart of his²⁴⁰ rod and scourge, because there is in us neither care to please him with our good deeds, nor to satisfy him for our evil.” Again²⁴¹, “Let the eyes which have looked on idols, sponge out their unlawful acts with those sorrowful tears, which have power to satisfy God.” The Master of Sentences allegeth out of St. Augustine that which is plain enough to this purpose²⁴²: “Three things there are in perfect penitency, compunction, confession, and satisfaction; that as we three ways offend God, namely in heart, word, and deed, so by three duties we may satisfy God.”

Satisfaction, as a part, comprehendeth only that which the Baptist meant by works²⁴³ worthy of repentance; and if we speak of the whole work of repentance itself, we may in the phrase of antiquity term it very well satisfaction.

²⁴⁴ Satisfaction is a work which justice requireth to be done for contentment of persons injured: neither is it in the eye of justice a sufficient satisfaction, unless it fully equal the injury for which we satisfy. Seeing then that sin against God eternal and infinite must needs be an infinite wrong; justice in regard thereof doth necessarily exact an infinite recompense, or else inflict upon the offender infinite punishment. Now because God was thus to be satisfied, and man not able to make satisfaction in such sort, his unspeakable love and inclination to save mankind from eternal death ordained in our behalf a Mediator, to do that which had been for any other impossible. Wherefore all sin is remitted in the only faith of Christ’s passion, and no man without belief thereof justified²⁴⁵. Faith alone maketh Christ’s satisfaction ours; howbeit that faith alone which after sin maketh us by conversion his. ²⁴⁶For inasmuch as God will have the benefit of Christ’s satisfaction both thankfully acknowledged and duly esteemed of all such as enjoy the same, he therefore imparteth so high a treasure unto no man, whose faith hath not made him willing by repentance to do even that, which of itself how unavailable soever, yet being required and accepted with God, we are in Christ made thereby²⁴⁷ capable and fit vessels to receive the fruit²⁴⁸ of his satisfaction: yea, we so far please and content God, that because when we have offended he looketh but for repentance at our hands, our repentance and the works thereof are therefore termed satisfactory, not for that so much is thereby done as the justice of God can exact, but because such actions of grief and humility in man after sin are illices divinæ misericordiæ (as Tertullian²⁴⁹ speaketh of them), they draw that pity of God towards us, wherein he is for Christ’s sake contented upon our submission to pardon our rebellion against him; and when that little which his law appointeth is faithfully executed, it pleaseth him in tender compassion and mercy to require no more.

²⁵⁰ Repentance is a name which noteth the habit and operation of a certain grace or virtue in us: Satisfaction, the effect which it hath, either with God or man. And it is not in this respect said amiss, that satisfaction importeth acceptation, reconciliation, and amity; because that through satisfaction, on the one part made, and allowed on the other, they which before did reject are now content to receive, they to be won again which were lost, and they to love unto whom just cause of hatred was given. We satisfy therefore in doing that which is sufficient to this effect; and they towards whom we do it are satisfied, if they accept it as sufficient, and require no more: otherwise we satisfy not, although we do satisfy: for so between man and man it oftentimes falleth out, but between man and God, never. It is therefore true, that our Lord Jesus Christ by one most precious and propitiatory sacrifice, which was his body, a gift of infinite worth, offered for the sins of the whole world, hath thereby once reconciled us to God, purchased his general free pardon, and turned away divine indignation from mankind. But we are not for that cause to think any office of penitence either needless or fruitless on our own behalf: for then would not God require any such duties at our hands. Christ doth remain everlastingly a gracious intercessor, even for every particular penitent. Let this assure us, that God, how highly soever displeased and incensed with our sins, is notwithstanding for his sake by our tears pacified, taking that for satisfaction which is due [done?] by us, because Christ hath by his satisfaction made it acceptable. For, as he is the High-priest of our salvation, so he hath made us priests likewise under him²⁵¹, to the end we might offer unto God praise and thankfulness, while we continue in the way of life, and when we sin, the satisfactory or propitiatory sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart²⁵². There is not any thing that we do that could pacify God, and clear us in his sight from sin, if the goodness and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ were not; whereas now beholding the poor offer of our religious endeavour meekly to submit ourselves as often as we have offended, he regardeth with infinite mercy those services which are as nothing, and with words of comfort reviveth our afflicted minds, saying, “It is I, even I, that take away thine iniquities for mine own sake.” Thus doth repentance satisfy God, changing his wrath and indignation unto mercy.

²⁵³ Anger and mercy are in us passions; but in him not so. “God,” saith St. Basil²⁵⁴, “is no ways passionate, but because the punishments which his judgments do inflict are, like effects of indignation, severe and grievous to such as suffer them, therefore we term the revenge which he taketh upon sinners, anger; and the withdrawing of his plagues, mercy.” “His wrath,” saith St. Augustine²⁵⁵, is not as ours, the trouble of a mind disturbed and disquieted with things amiss, but a calm, unpassionate, and just assignation of dreadful punishment to be their portion which have disobeyed; his mercy a free determination of all felicity and happiness unto men, except their sins remain as a bar between it and them.” So that when God doth cease to be angry with sinful men, when he receiveth them into favour, when he pardoneth their offences, and remembereth their iniquities no more (for all these signify but one thing), it must needs follow, that all punishments before due in revenge of sin, whether they be temporal or eternal, are remitted. For how should God’s indignation import only man’s punishment, and yet some punishment remain unto them, towards whom there is now in God no indignation remaining? “God,” saith Tertullian²⁵⁶, “taketh²⁵⁷ penitency at men’s hands, and men at his in lieu thereof receive impunity;” which notwithstanding doth not prejudice the chastisements that²⁵⁸ God after pardon hath laid upon some offenders²⁵⁹, as on the people of Israel, on Moses, on Miriam, on David, either for their own²⁶⁰ more sound amendment, or for example²⁶¹ unto others in this present world (for in the world to come punishments have unto these intents no use, the dead being not in case to be bettered by correction, nor to take warning by executions of God’s justice there seen); but assuredly to whomsoever he remitteth sin, their very pardon is in itself a full absolute and perfect discharge for revengeful punishments²⁶²; which God doth nowhere²⁶³ threaten, but with purpose of revocation if men repent, nowhere inflict but on them whom impenitency maketh obdurate.

Of the one therefore it is said²⁶⁴, “Though I tell the wicked, Thou shalt die the death, yet if he turn²⁶⁵ from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live and not die.” Of the other²⁶⁶, “Thou according to thine hardness, and heart that will not repent, treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and evident appearance of the just judgment of God.” If God be satisfied and do pardon sin, our justification restored is as perfect as it was at the first bestowed. For so the Prophet Isaiah witnesseth²⁶⁷, “Though your sins were as crimson, they shall be made as white as snow; though they were all²⁶⁸ scarlet, they shall be as white as wool.” And can we doubt concerning the punishment of revenge, which was due to sin, but that if God be satisfied and have forgotten his wrath, it must be even as St. Augustin reasoneth, “²⁶⁹What God hath covered he will not observe, and what he observeth not he will not punish.” The truth of which doctrine is not to be shifted off by restraining it unto eternal punishment alone. For then would not David have said²⁷⁰, “They are blessed to whom God imputeth no²⁷¹ sin;” blessedness having no part or fellowship at all with malediction: whereas to be subject to revenge for sin, although the punishment be but temporal, is to be under the curse of the law: wherefore, as one and the same fire consumeth stubble and refineth gold, so if it please God to lay punishment on them whose sins he hath forgiven, yet is not this done for any destructive end of wasting and eating them out, as in plagues inflicted upon the impenitent, neither is the punishment of the one as of the other proportioned by the greatness of sin past, but according to that future purpose whereunto the goodness of God referreth it, and wherein there is nothing meant to the sufferer but furtherance of all happiness, now in grace, and hereafter in glory. St. Augustine, to stop the mouths of Pelagians arguing, “That if God had imposed death upon Adam and Adam’s posterity, as a punishment of sin, death should have ceased when Christ²⁷² had procured sinners their pardon;” answereth first, “It is no marvel, either that bodily death should not have happened to the first man, unless he had first sinned (death as a punishment following his sin), or that after sin is forgiven, death notwithstanding befalleth the faithful; to the end that the strength of righteousness might be exercised by overcoming the fear thereof²⁷³. So that justly God did inflict bodily death on man for committing sin, and yet after sin forgiven took it not away, that his righteousness might still have whereby to be exercised.” He fortifieth this with David’s example, whose sin he forgave, and yet afflicted him for exercise and trial of his humility. Briefly, a general axiom he hath for all such chastisements, “Before forgiveness, they are the punishment of sinners; and after forgiveness, they are exercises and trials of righteous men²⁷⁴.” Which kind of proceeding is so agreeable with God’s nature and man’s comfort, that it sheweth²⁷⁵ even injurious to both, if we should admit those surmised reservations of temporal wrath in God appeased towards reconciled sinners. “As a Father he delights in his children’s conversion, neither doth he threaten the penitent with wrath, or them with punishment which already mourn; but by promise assureth such of indulgence and mercy²⁷⁶;” yea, even of plenary pardon, which taketh away all both faults and penalties: there being no reason why we should think him the less just because he sheweth him²⁷⁷ thus merciful; when they which before were obstinate labour to appease his wrath with the pensive meditations²⁷⁸ of contrition, the meek humility which confession expresseth, and the deeds wherewith repentance declareth itself to be an amendment as well of the rotten fruits²⁷⁹, as the dried leaves and withered root of the tree. For with these duties by us performed, and presented unto God in heaven by Jesus Christ, whose blood is a continual sacrifice of propitiation for us, we content, please, and satisfy God.

Repentance therefore, even the sole virtue of repentance, without either purpose of shrift, or desire of absolution from the priest; repentance, the secret conversion of the heart, in that it consisteth of these three, and doth by these three pacify God, may be without hyperbolical terms most truly magnified, as a recovery of the soul of man from deadly sickness, a restitution of glorious light to his darkened mind, a comfortable reconciliation with God, a spiritual nativity, a rising from the dead, a day-spring from out the depth of obscurity, a redemption from more than the Egyptian thraldom, a grinding of the old Adam even into dust and powder, a deliverance out of the prisons of hell, a full restoration of the seat of grace and throne of glory, a triumph over sin, and a saving victory.

²⁸⁰ Amongst the works of satisfaction, the most respected have been always these three, Prayers, Fasts, and Almsdeeds: by prayer²⁸¹, we lift up our souls to him from whom sin and iniquity hath²⁸² withdrawn them; by fasting, we reduce the body from thraldom under vain delights, and make it serviceable for parts of virtuous conversation; by alms, we dedicate to charity these²⁸³ worldly goods and possessions, which unrighteousness doth neither get nor bestow well: the first, a token of piety intended towards God; the second, a pledge of moderation and sobriety in the carriage of our own persons; the last, a testimony of our meaning to do good to all men. In which three, the Apostle by way of abridgment comprehendeth whatsoever may appertain to sanctimony, holiness, and good life: as contrariwise the very mass of general corruption throughout the world, what is it but only forgetfulness of God, carnal pleasure, immoderate desire after worldly things; profaneness, licentiousness, covetousness?

All offices of repentance have these two properties; there is in performance of them painfulness, and in their nature a contrariety unto sin. The one consideration causeth them both in holy Scripture²⁸⁴ and elsewhere to be termed judgments or revenges taken voluntarily on ourselves, and to be furthermore also preservatives from future evils, inasmuch as we commonly use to keep with the greater care that which with pain we have recovered²⁸⁵. And they are in the other respect contrary to sin committed; contrition, contrary to the pleasure; confession, to the error, which is mother of sin; and to the deeds of sin, the works of satisfaction contrary; therefore they all ²⁸⁶the more effectual to cure the evil habit thereof. Hereunto it was that St. Cyprian referred his earnest and vehement exhortations²⁸⁷, “That they which had fallen should be instant in prayer, reject bodily ornaments when once they have stripped themselves out of Christ’s attire, abhor all food after Satan’s morsels tasted, follow works of righteousness which wash away sin, and be plentiful in alms-deeds wherewith souls are delivered from death.” Not, as if God did, according to the manner of corrupt judges, take so much²⁸⁸ money to abate so much in the punishment of malefactors. “These duties must be offered,” saith Salvianus²⁸⁹, “not in confidence to redeem or buy out sin, but as tokens of meek submission; neither are they with God accepted, because of their value, but for the ²⁹⁰affection’s sake, which doth thereby shew itself.”

Wherefore concerning Satisfaction made to God by Christ only, and of the manner how repentance generally, particularly also, how certain special works of penitency, both are by the Fathers in their ordinary phrase of speech called satisfactory, and may be by us very well so acknowledged; enough hath been spoken.

²⁹¹ Our offences sometimes²⁹² are of such nature, as requireth that particular men be satisfied, or else repentance to be utterly void, and of none effect. For, if either through open rapine or cloaked fraud, if through injurious or unconscionable dealings²⁹³, a man have wittingly wronged others to enrich himself; the first thing evermore in this case required (ability²⁹⁴ serving) is restitution. For let no man deceive himself: from such offences we are not discharged, neither can be, till recompense and restitution to man accompany the penitent confession we have made to Almighty God. In which case the law of Moses was direct and plain²⁹⁵. “If any sin and commit a trespass against the Lord, and deny unto his neighbour²⁹⁶ that which was given²⁹⁷ him to keep, or that which was put unto him of trust; or doth by robbery or by violence oppress his neighbour; or hath found that which was lost, and denieth it, and sweareth²⁹⁸ falsely: for any of these things that a man doth wherein he sinneth, he that doth thus offend and trespass, shall restore the robbery that he hath taken, or the thing he hath gotten by violence, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found; and for whatsoever he hath sworn falsely, adding perjury to injury, he shall both restore the whole sum, and shall add thereunto a fifth part more, and deliver it unto him, to whom it belongeth, the same day wherein he offereth for his trespass.” Now because men are commonly overslack to perform this duty, and do therefore defer it sometimes²⁹⁹, till God hath³⁰⁰ taken the party wronged out of the world; the law providing that trespassers might not under any³⁰¹ such pretence gain the restitution which they ought to make, appointeth the kindred surviving to receive what the dead should, if they had continued. “But,” saith Moses³⁰², “if the party wronged have no kinsman to whom this damage may be restored, it shall then be rendered to the Lord himself for the priests’ use.” The whole order of proceeding herein is in sundry traditional writings set down by their great interpreters and scribes, which taught them that³⁰³ a trespass between a man and his neighbour can never be forgiven, till the offender have by restitution made recompense for wrongs done; yea, they hold it necessary that he appease the party grieved by submitting himself unto him, or, if that will not serve, by using the help and mediation of others: “In this case (say they) for any man to shew himself unappeasable and cruel, were a sin most grievous, considering that the people of God should be easy to relent, as Joseph was towards his brethren.” Finally, if so it fall out, that the death of him which³⁰⁴ was injured prevent his submission which did offend, let him then (for so they determine that he ought) go accompanied with ten others unto the sepulchre of the dead, and there make confession of the fault, saying, “I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and against this man, to whom I have done such or such injury; and if money be due, let it be restored to his heirs, or in case he have none known, leave it with the house of judgment:” that is to say, with the senators, ancients, and guiders³⁰⁵ of Israel. We hold not Christian people tied unto Jewish orders for the manner of restitution; but surely restitution we must hold necessary, as well in our own repentance as theirs, for sins of wilful oppression³⁰⁶ and wrong³⁰⁷.

³⁰⁸ Now although it suffice³⁰⁹, that the offices wherewith we pacify God or private men be secretly done; yet in cases where the Church must be also satisfied, it was not to this end and purpose unnecessary, that the ancient discipline did further require outward signs of contrition to be shewed, confession of sins to be made openly, and those works to be apparent, which served as testimonies of³¹⁰ conversion before men. Wherein³¹¹, if either hypocrisy did at any time delude their judgment, they knew that God is he whom masks and mockeries cannot blind, that he which seeth men’s hearts would judge them according unto his own evidence, and, as Lord, correct the sentence of his servants concerning matters beyond their reach: or if such as ought to have kept the rules of canonical satisfaction would by sinister means and practices undermine the same, obtruding presumptuously themselves to the participation of Christ’s most sacred mysteries before they were orderly readmitted thereunto, the Church for contempt of holy things held them uncapable of that grace, which God in the Sacrament doth impart to devout communicants; and no doubt but he himself did retain bound, whom the Church in those cases refused to loose.