through ignorance before baptism should be received into a state of grace in a different manner from those who, having been once freed from the slavery of sin and the devil, and having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, dread not knowingly to violate the temple of God, and grieve the Holy Ghost. And it is agreeable to the divine goodness that our sins should not be forgiven without satisfaction; lest, taking occasion therefrom, we should think lightly of them, treat the Holy Spirit in an injurious and contumelious manner, fall into more grievous offences, and treasure up for ourselves wrath against the day of wrath. For, doubtless, these satisfactory penances tend powerfully to preserve and restrain penitents from sin, and render them more cautious and watchful in future; they cure also the remains of sin, and remove vicious habits, contracted by evil living, substituting for them the opposite practices of virtue. Nor has the church of God ever devised a more efficacious method of averting the punishment impending over us from the Divine Being than a frequent performance of these works of penance, with genuine sorrow of heart. In addition to this, when in making satisfaction we suffer for our sins, we are conformed to Christ Jesus, who has satisfied for our offences, and from whom is all our sufficiency; receiving thence also the sure pledge that if we suffer with him, we shall be glorified together. Nevertheless, this our satisfaction which we make for our offences is not otherwise to be regarded than as being through Christ Jesus; for we, who of ourselves, as of ourselves, can do nothing, can do all things through his co-operation who strengtheneth us; so that man has nothing to glory in, but all our glorying is in Christ, in whom we live, in whom we merit, in whom we make satisfaction, bringing forth fruits worthy of penance, which from him derive their value, by him are offered to the Father, and through him are accepted by the Father.* Therefore the effects and consequences of sin are, to a certain extent, endured, even to the end of life, as all suffering is the effect of sin. The believer regards affliction as the "chastening" of the Lord, intended to mortify sin and promote holiness. But how different is this from compensation and satisfaction! * Still, according to the Roman-catholic system, something is done, and done meritoriously, by the sinner. If he believes that Christ's merits have rescued him from eternal punishment, he equally believes that by his own priests of the Lord, following the suggestions of wisdom and prudence, are bound to enjoin salutary and suitable satisfaction, according to the nature of the offence and the capability of the offender; lest, if they connive at sin and deal too indulgently with penitents, by adjudging small penalties to heinous crimes, they become partakers of other men's transgressions. But let them take special care that the satisfaction which they impose shall not only tend to the preservation of a new life and the cure of human infirmity, but shall also act as a punishment and affliction for past sins; for, as the ancient fathers believed and taught, the power of the keys was not given to loose only, but also to bind. Yet they did not imagine that for this reason the sacrament of penance is a tribunal of anger and punishment, nor has any Catholic ever supposed that the efficacy of the merit and satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ is obscured or in the least diminished by these our works of merits the stain of sin is effaced, and satisfaction made for temporal punishment. To say that the efficacy of human works is derived from Christ is nothing to the purpose; it is maintained that they are meritorious, and thus, according to this scheme, salvation cannot be wholly of grace, in flat contradiction to holy Scripture. "Every species of satisfaction is included under these three heads, prayer, fasting, and alms-deeds, which correspond with these three sorts of goods, those of the soul, of the body, and what are called external goods, all of which are the gifts of God. Than these three sorts of satisfaction, nothing can be more effectual in eradicating sin from the soul. Whatever is in the world is 'the lust of the flesh,' the 'lust of the eyes,' or the 'pride of life;' and fasting, alms-deeds, and prayer, are, it is obvious, most judiciously employed as antidotes, to neutralize the operation of these three causes of spiritual disease; to the first is opposed, fasting; to the second, alms-deeds; to the third, prayer. If, moreover, we consider those whom our sins injure, we shall easily perceive why all satisfaction is referred principally to God, to our neighbour, and to ourselves; God we appease by prayer, our neighbour we satisfy by alms, and ourselves we chastise by fasting."—Catechism, p. 292. + "In satisfaction two things are particularly required: the one, that he who satisfies be in a state of grace, the friend of God; works done without faith and charity cannot be acceptable to God; the other, that the works performed be such as are of their own nature painful or laborious. They are a compensation for past sins, and to use the words of S. Cyprian, the redeemers, as it were, of sins,' and must, therefore, be such as we have described. It does not, however, always follow that they are painful or laborious to those who undergo them; the influence of habit, or the intensity of divine love, frequently renders the soul insensible to things the most diffi satisfaction;* although this has been maintained by recent innovators, who teach that a new life is the best penance, and thus take away all the efficacy and use of satisfaction.† "CHAP. IX. Of works of satisfaction. "The council further teaches, that such is the abundance of the divine bounty that we are able to make satisfaction to God the Father through Christ Jesus, not only by punishments voluntarily endured by us as chastisements for sin, or imposed at the pleasure of the priest according to the degree of the offence, but also (and this is an amazing proof of love) cult to be endured. Such works, however, do not, therefore, cease to be satisfactory; it is the privilege of the children of God to be so inflamed with his love that, whilst undergoing the most cruel tortures for his sake, they are either entirely insensible to them or at least bear them, not only with fortitude, but with the greatest joy."-Catechism, p. 291. * "His passion imparts to our good actions the twofold quality of meriting the rewards of eternal life, so that a cup of cold water given in his name shall not be without its reward, and also of satisfying for our sins. Nor does this derogate from the most perfect and superabundant satisfaction of Christ, but, on the contrary, renders it still more conspicuous and illustrious; the grace of Jesus Christ appears to abound more, inasmuch as it communicates to us, not only what he alone merited, but also what, as head, he merited and paid in his members,—that is, in holy and just men. This it is that imparts such weight and dignity to the good actions of the pious Christian, for our Lord Jesus Christ continually infuses his grace into the devout soul united to him by charity, as the head to the members, or as the vine through the branches, and this grace always precedes, accompanies, and follows our good works; without it we can have no merit, nor can we at all satisfy God."-Ibid. p. 290. † Great, indeed, is that efficacy, if it be believed that "the punishment which the sinner endures disarms the vengeance of God, and prevents the punishments decreed against us;" that "he has granted to our frailty the privilege, that one may satisfy for another;" that "those who are gifted with divine grace may pay through others what is due to the divine justice, and thus we may be said in some measure to bear each other's burdens ;" and that "works of satisfaction are common to all the members of the church." -Ibid. pp. 290, 292. Of these punishments there is an almost inconceivable variety, from the repetition of Ave Marias and Pater Nosters, to the endurance of the most excruciating tortures and painful privations. "Open the Breviary at any of the pages containing the lives of saints, males or females, and you will find uninterrupted abstinence from food, (whether real or not, certainly held out to admiration, and sanctioned by the assertion of miracles in its favour,) from by temporal pains inflicted by God himself, and by us patiently borne."* The council also delivers the following canons to be inviolably observed, and condemns and anathematizes for ever those who assert the contrary : "Canon 1. Whoever shall affirm, that penance, as used in the Catholic church, is not truly and properly a sacrament, instituted by Christ our Lord, for the benefit of the faithful, to reconcile them to God, as often as they shall fall into sin after baptism let him be accursed. : "2. Whoever, confounding the sacraments, shall affirm, that baptism itself is penance, as if these two sacraments were not distinct, and penance were not rightly called a 'second plank after shipwreck :'+ let him be accursed. "3. Whoever shall affirm, that the words of the Lord our Saviour, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained,' are not to be understood of the power of forgiving and retaining sins in the sacrament of penance, as Ash-Wednesday till Whitsunday; living one-half of the year on bread and water; confinement for four years to a niche excavated in a rock; and everywhere the constant use of flagellation, lacerating bandages, and iron chains bound constantly about the body; immersions in freezing water, and every method of gradually and painfully destroying life." St. Theresa's "ardour in punishing the body was so vehement as to make her use hair-shirts, chains, nettles, scourges, and even to roll herself among thorns, regardless of a diseased constitution." St. Rose "bore day and night three folds of an iron chain round her waist, a belt set with small needles, and an iron crown armed inside with points; she made to herself a bed of the unpolished trunks of trees, and filled up the interstices with pieces of broken pottery."-Practical and Internal Evidence, &c. pp. 208-212. The folly of these self-inflictions might provoke a smile; but when such persons are lauded as models of sanctity, and such deeds are represented as methods of satisfaction for sin, it is enough to make an angel weep. *"The faithful are to be particularly reminded that afflictions coming from the hand of God, if borne with patience, are an abundant source of satisfaction and merit.”—Catechism, p. 292. + The words of Jerome, speaking of repentance, and that public confession of sin, followed by church discipline, which prevailed in his days. "As he who suffers shipwreck has no hope of safety, unless, perchance, he seize on some plank from the wreck ; so he that suffers the shipwreck of baptismal innocence, unless he cling to the saving plank of penance, may abandon all hope of salvation."-Ibid. p. 252. the Catholic church has always from the very first understood them; but shall restrict them to the authority of preaching the gospel, in opposition to the institution of this sacrament: let him be accursed. "4. Whoever shall deny, that in order to the full and perfect forgiveness of sins three acts are required of the penitent, constituting, as it were, the matter of the sacrament of penance, -namely, contrition, confession, and satisfaction, which are called the three parts of penance; or shall affirm, that there are only two parts of penance,-namely, terrors wherewith the conscience is smitten by the sense of sin, and faith, produced by the gospel, or by absolution, whereby the person believes that his sins are forgiven him through Christ: let him be accursed. "5. Whoever shall affirm, that that contrition which is produced by examination, enumeration, and hatred of sins, and in the exercise of which the penitent recounts his years in the bitterness of his soul, pondering the weight, multitude, and baseness, of his offences, the loss of eternal happiness, and the desert of eternal condemnation, with a resolution to lead a better life-that such contrition is not sincere and useful sorrow, and does not prepare for grace, but makes a man a hypocrite and a greater sinner, and that it is in fact a forced sorrow, and not free and voluntary: let him be accursed. ❝6. Whoever shall deny, that sacramental confession was instituted by divine command, or that it is necessary to salvation; or shall affirm, that the practice of secretly confessing to the priest alone, as it has been ever observed from the beginning by the Catholic church, and is still observed, is foreign to the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention let him be accursed. : ❝7. Whoever shall affirm, that in order to obtain forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of penance, it is not by divine command necessary to confess all and every mortal sin which occurs to the memory after due and diligent premeditation— including secret offences, and those which have been committed against the two last precepts of the decalogue, and those circumstances which change the species of sin; but that such confession is only useful for the instruction and consolation of the penitent, and was formerly observed merely as a |