BOOK VI. Wherefore the well-fpring of Repentance is Faith; firft breeding fear, and then love; which love causes hope, hope refolution of attempt; I will go to my Father, and fay, I have finned against Heaven, and against thee; that is to fay, I will do what the duty of a Convert requireth.

Now in a Penitent's or Convert's duty there are included; first, the averfion of the will from fin; fecondly, the fubmiffion of ourfelves to God by fupplication and prayer; thirdly, the purpose of a new life, teftified with prefent works of amendment: which three things do very well feem to be comprised in one definition by them which handle Repentance, as a virtue that hateth, bewaileth and fheweth a purpose to amend fin: we offend God in thought, word, and deed; to the firft of which three, they make Contrition; to the second, Confeffion; and to the laft, our works of Satisfaction, answerable.

Contrition doth not here import thofe fudden pangs and convulfions of the Mind which caufe fometimes the most forfaken of God to retract their own doings; it is no natural paffion, or anguish, which rifeth in us against our wills; but a deliberate averfion of the will of Man from fin; which being always accompanied with grief, and grief oftentimes partly with tears, partly with other external figns, it hath been thought, that in these things Contrition doth chiefly confift: whereas the chiefeft thing in Contrition is, that alteration whereby the will which was before delighted with fin, doth now abhor and fhun nothing more. But forafmuch as we cannot hate fin in ourselves without heaviness and grief, that there should be in us a thing of fuch hateful quality, the will averted from fin muft needs make the affection fuitable; yea, there is great reason why it fhould fo do: for fince the will by conceiving fin hath deprived the Soul of life; and of life there is not recovery without Repentance, the death of fin; Repentance not able to kill fin, but by withdrawing

the

the will from it; the will unpoffible to be withdrawn, BOOK VI. 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 fin, so Repentance must begin with a juft forrow, a forrow of heart, and fuch a forrow as renteth the heart; neither a feigned nor flight forrow; not feigned, left it increase fin; nor flight, left the pleasures of fin 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 fuffice.

And because God will have offences by Repentance, not only abhorred within ourselves, but also with humble fupplication displayed before him; and a teftimony of amendment to be given, even by present works worthy Repentance, in that they are contrary to thofe we renounce and difclaim; although the virtue of Repentance do require that her other two parts, Confeffion and Satisfaction, fhould here follow; yet feeing they belong as well to the difcipline 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 diftinguish them in joint-handling, than handle them apart, because in quality and manner of practice they are diftinct.

Of

BOOK VI. Of the Difcipline of Repentance inftituted by Christ, practifed by the Fathers, converted by the Schoolmen into a Sacrament; and of Confeffion, that which belongeth to the Virtue of Repentance, that which was ufed among the Jews, that which Papacy imagineth a Sacrament, and that which ancient Discipline practifed.

19.

O

UR Lord and Saviour in the fixteenth of St. Matthew's Gospel giveth his Apostles RegiMatt, xvi. ment in general over God's Church. For they that have the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, are thereby fignified to be Stewards of the Houfe of God, under whom they guide, command, judge, and correct his Family. The Souls of Men are God's treasure committed to the truft and fidelity of fuch as muft render a ftrict account for the very leaft which is under their cuftody. God hath not invested them with power to make a revenue thereof, but to use it for the good of them whom Jefus Chrift hath most dearly bought.

And because their office therein confifteth of fundry functions, fome belonging to Doctrine, fome to Difcipline, all contained in the name of the Keys, they have for matters of Difcipline, as well litigious as criminal, their Courts and Confiftories erected by the heavenly authority of his moft facred voice, who Matt. xviii, hath faid Dic Ecclefie, Tell the Church; against rebellious and contumacious Perfons which refufe to obey their fentence, armed they are with power to eject fuch out of the Church, to deprive them of the honours, rights, and privileges of Chriftian Men, to make them as Heathens and Publicans, with whom Society was hateful.

17.

Matt. xviii.

18.

John xx.

Furthermore, left their acts fhould be flenderly accounted of, or had in contempt, whether they admit to the Fellowship of Saints, or feclude from 2 Cor. ii, 6.it, whether they bind Offenders, or fet them again

23.

1 Cor. v. 3.

at

at liberty, whether they remit, or retain fins, what- BOOK VI, foever is done by way of orderly and lawful proceed-Tim, i. ing, the Lord himself hath promifed to ratify. 20. This is that grand original Warrant, by force whereof the Guides and Prelates in God's Church, first his Apostles, and afterwards others following them fucceffively, did both use and uphold that Difcipline, the end whereof is to heal Men's confciences, to cure their fins, to reclaim Offenders from iniquity, and to make them by Repentance juft.

Neither hath it of ancient time, for any other refpect, been accustomed to bind by ecclefiaftical cenfures, to retain fo bound till tokens of manifest Repentance appeared, and upon apparent Repentance to releale, faving only because this was received as a moft expedient method for the cure of fin.

The course of Difcipline in former ages reformed. open Tranfgreffors by putting them into offices of open Penitence, especially Confeffion, whereby they declared their own crimes in the hearing of the whole Church, and were not from the time of their firft convention capable of the holy Mysteries of Chrift, till they had folemnly discharged this duty.

Offenders in fecret knowing themselves altogether as unworthy to be admitted to the Lord's Table, as the other which were withheld, being alfo perfuaded, that if the Church did direct them in the offices of their Penitency, and affift them with publick prayers, they fhould more easily obtain that they fought, than by trufting wholly to their own endeavours; finally, having no impediment to stay them from it but bafhfulness, which countervailed not the former inducements; and, befides, was greatly eafed by the good conftruction, which the charity of those times gave to fuch actions, wherein Men's piety and voluntary care to be reconciled to God did purchase them much more love than their faults (the teftimonies of common frailty) were able to

procure

BOOK VI. procure difgrace, they made it not nice to use fome one of the Minifters of God, by whom the rest might take notice of their faults, prescribe them convenient remedies, and in the end, after publick Confeffion, all join in prayer unto God for them.

The first beginner of this cuftom had the more followers by means of that special favour which always was with good confideration fhewed towards voluntary Penitents above the rest.

But as profeffors of Chriftian belief grew more in number, fo they waxed worse; when Kings and Princes had fubmitted their dominions unto the fceptre of Jefus Chrift, by means whereof perfecution ceafing, the Church immediately became fubject to those evils which peace and fecurity bringeth forth, there was not now that love which before kept all things in tune, but every where Schifms, Difcords, Diffenfions amongst Men, Conventicles of Hereticks, bent more vehemently against the founder and better fort than very Infidels and Heathens themfelves; faults not corrected in charity, but noted with delight, and kept for malice to ufe when the deadliest opportunities fhould be offered.

Whereupon, forafmuch as publick Confeffions became dangerous and prejudicial to the fafety of well-minded Men, and in divers refpects advantageous to the Enemies of God's Church, it seemed firit unto fome, and afterwards generally requifite that voluntary Penitents fhould furceafe from open Confeffion.

Inftead whereof, when once private and fecret Confeffion had taken place with the Latins, it continued as a profitable ordinance till the Lateran Council had decreed that all Men once in a year at the leaft fhould confefs themselves to the Priest.

So that being a thing thus made both general and alfo neceffary, the next degree of eftimation whereunto it grew, was to be honoured and lifted up to the nature of a Sacrament; that as Chrift did in

ftitute