Chapter II — The true image of a converted sinner, from the holy Scriptures and the Fathers

I. Never too much, which is never enough, runs the common axiom. I have depicted above the image of Christian justification. This would be enough that a confessor might be able to detect when a penitent is in fact converted. But because the business is of the highest moment, since upon this — if not solely, at least in the highest degree — depends the right administration of penance, I have reckoned it worth the labour to touch briefly upon the specimen and idea of a true conversion. For hence a confessor will gather when he ought to impart and when to suspend absolution.

II. To those God promises pardon who with their whole heart are converted to him. Deuteronomy 6: When thou shalt seek the Lord … thou shalt find him: yet so, if thou seek him with all thy heart, and all the affliction of thy soul. The Prophet Ezechiel, chapter 18: Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. This spiritual life of a new heart and a new spirit is infused by God and is divine. Therefore it is robust, firm, strong, and stable.

III. Paul the Apostle, Romans 6, writes these things: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. … Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. … Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him. … So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. … Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of iniquity unto sin; but present yourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of justice unto God. … For as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification.

IV. Behold the image of the Prophets and the Apostles expressed to the life. You have here a full and entire change of heart. The interior you do not see. But this true and entire change of soul bursts forth outwardly. Just as the perfect health of the body, set in pure blood, in the best disposition of the vitals, nerves, and stomach, betrays itself visible and manifest to all outwardly in the colour of the countenance, in the eyes, and in all the members; so the spiritual life of the soul, divinely infused by a sincere conversion, lays itself open visibly outwardly, brings forth new fruits, and severely animadverts upon the very members of the body as the offspring and accomplices of crimes. Lascivious and wanton eyes it afflicts with tears; it turns away from vanity, with David, the countenance once smeared with pigment for the capturing of souls; it presses it down with modesty, sadness, and pallor; and the other members, which indulged luxury, drunkenness, banquets, and revelling, it presses down, crucifies, and tortures with fasts, disciplines, and lyings on the ground, more or less according as they more or less kick back. Pomps, luxury, and display it transmutes into a humble adornment, into wailing and howling. These are the signs of a sinner to be absolved and absolved. Here there is no place for tergiversation, no lurking-hole open for escape. Since all the testimonies of the holy Scriptures demand these signs, and with these colours delineate the true image of a converted sinner.

V. All penitents testify to the confessor that with a whole and full heart they detest their sins, and that they are converted to God; and after a few days they will relapse into the same outrages. This their feigned and lying will St. Augustine thus censures, Book 8 of the Confessions, chapter 9: Whence this monstrous thing, and why is it? The mind commands the body, and it obeys forthwith: the mind commands itself, and it is resisted. The mind commands that the hand be moved, and so great is the facility that the command is scarcely discerned from the service. And the mind is mind; but the hand is body. The mind commands that the mind will, nor is it another; and yet it does not do it. Whence this monstrous thing, and why is it? It commands, I say, that it will, which would not command unless it willed; and yet what it commands is not done. But it does not will with the whole heart; therefore it does not command with the whole. For in so far does it command as it wills; and in so far is not that done which it commands as it does not will. Since the will commands that there be a will, nor another, but itself. Assuredly it does not command in fullness, and therefore that is not which it commands. For if it were full, it would not command that it be, because it would already be. It is not therefore a monstrous thing partly to will and partly not to will, but a sickness of the mind: because it does not wholly rise, being lifted up by truth, weighed down by custom. And therefore there are two wills, because one of them is not whole; and this is present to the one which is lacking to the other.

VI. The keen argumentation of St. Augustine the common sense of men confirms in the individual duties of human life. Who would say that he wills fully and with his whole heart who does not execute that which he testifies he wills, if it be in his own power that it be done? For two things are required for the execution of a promise: power and will. Which of these is lacking in a sinner? Is it power? God forbid to assert this, cry out all Catholic theologians. Power therefore is present. And is that not done which penitents say they will to do? Therefore will is lacking. Therefore the will which they falsely allege is feigned and masked. Wherefore skilfully does St. Thomas teach, I-II, q. 10, art. 4: A will is not perfect unless it be such that, opportunity being given, it operates. Does a soldier panting with his whole heart for glory not furnish all things consonant with the attaining of this end? Does a miser neglect any of those things which he judges necessary for the acquiring of riches? Does not a sick man swallow even more bitter medicines, when with a full will he desires health? If therefore sinners willed with their whole heart and with a full will to reform their morals, they would omit none of those things which conduce to the attaining of this end. And this the more, because they ought to will their own amendment through the observance of the mandates with a greater ardour, a more powerful endeavour, and a more diligent study than a soldier glory, than a miser gold, than a sick man health.

VII. Beware therefore, O confessor, of giving credence to a penitent who, when he can amend himself, refuses to abstain from those things which fight with amendment. Long experience has taught that games, comedies, friendships, and the enticements of little women are the cause of their relapses. He neglects to break off these covenants of iniquity. Therefore he does not will amendment with his whole heart. Penitents have, you say, a full will of amending themselves while they confess; but afterwards the inconstancy of human sickness changes it.

VIII. This is a most vain hallucination, and the more pernicious as it is the more frequent. That a full and constant human deliberation can be changed no one denies. But this rarely happens, as all the just testify. Tell me: why does it come about that the avaricious, gamesters, and the lustful are rarely changed? Because, answers the Prophet, Psalm 72, they have passed into the affection: because the will of fornicating, of acquiring riches and spending them on games, is full, and dominates in them. But why do the just, the chaste, the sincere and ingenuous rarely fall, rarely or never lie, rarely or never fornicate? Because their will is full, entire, constant. Therefore the will of penitents, which they display as full while they confess, and which they frequently and most frequently change, is not a full and firm will, but weak, infirm, a mere velleity, extorted by mere servile fear, and utterly void of the love of virtue, of justice, and of God. Why were the Jews inconstant in the obedience of God? Because they failed (says David, Psalm 105) they forgot his works, they did not sustain his counsel. Because from mere fear, by no means from love, they served God. Human nature is weak, frail, changeable. But by the grace of God and due vigilance it becomes robust and dominant. Why do you obtrude frailty? cries St. Augustine, homily 28 among the 50, now sermon 17. Glass, although it be frail, yet lasts long. You will find cups from grandfathers and great-grandfathers, out of which you drink. I urge again. Is a man inconstant and changeable in the business of eternal salvation alone? Why in any other business whatsoever does he rarely recede from that which he sincerely and with his whole heart conceived and deliberately promised, unless the reasons or the circumstances of the promise be changed? Because, although he be changeable and weak, yet when with his whole will and full mind he wills, he in fact furnishes that which he promised with his whole heart. In the one and only most grave business of eternal salvation he promises with a full heart, not to man but to God, an amendment of morals; and after a few days he becomes lying, perfidious, and rebellious. What is the cause of so sudden and frequent a change? A defect of power? God forbid. A change of circumstances, or of the end? By no means. The same God who forbids, the same hell, the same paradise, the same malice of crimes, the same sanctity of amendment. What of this, that in this one business above the rest divine helps are ready, and the sacrament itself of Penance confers a healing and strengthening grace? Therefore it is evident that penitents frequently relapsing into the same crimes are therefore not amended because they do not will amendment with their whole heart and with a full will. Therefore imprudently do confessors give credence to the sayings of penitents, when their frequent relapses prove the fallacy of promises of this kind. Nature is prone to pleasures, to enticements, to delights; but it is repugnant to virtue and to heavenly things. Be it so. And yet from all these things the men of the world abstain, that they may serve one lying idol alone. What does a soldier not endure that he may attain glory? What does a merchant not bear that he may grow rich? What does the luxurious man not suffer that he may become brutish, or the gamester that he may become a conqueror? And do you contend to gain the kingdom of heaven, which suffers violence, without labour and grief? O most foolish of all fools, if you believe it.

IX. Innumerable testimonies of the holy Fathers, which I have given in Vol. IX, Book 1, dissertation 5, chapter 4, I could transcribe hither; but it pleases me to subjoin a few from Cardinal Bellarmine, sermon 8 on the fourth Sunday of Advent: Many today are found to be unskilled stewards, who understand neither their office, nor their place, nor their grade. Those lastly do not acknowledge themselves ministers and dispensers, who, as though they were not about to render an account to the Lord, with the highest facility lay hands upon all; and both the contrite and the not contrite, both those confessing with a full perfidy and those prepared to satisfy for their sins and those not prepared, as it were by their own power and authority, ABSOLVE. THESE BY THEIR UNSKILFULNESS AND PRIDE CORRUPT PEOPLES AND CLOSE TO THEM THE WAY OF TRUE PENANCE. For there would not be today so great a facility of sinning, if there were not so great a facility of absolving. Men laden with sins come, and who have fallen a thousand times into the same, often without any sign of grief, either on the day before or on the very day of a great solemnity; and they wish at once to be absolved and to approach the communion of the holy mysteries. And we, inconsiderate judges and unfaithful dispensers, lay hands upon all, and say: I absolve thee: go in peace. But woe to us when the Lord shall set his reckoning with his servants.

I. A Christian by mortal sin turns his back upon God, breaks the covenant entered upon with Christ in Baptism, crucifies Christ himself again on his own part, repudiates the eternal inheritance, and becomes a bondman of the devil, that he may indulge the filthy pleasures of the world, and roll himself again like a swine in the mire of lust or of avarice. All the Fathers, all the Evangelists testify that within a short interval of time the covenant between such sinners and God is commonly not reintegrated. But let us hear Trent itself, session 14, chapter 2, where it has these things: Obtaining a full and entire remission of all sins (by Baptism), to which newness and integrity nevertheless we can by no means arrive through the sacrament of Penance without great weepings and labours on our part, the divine justice exacting it; so that Penance has deservedly been called by the holy Fathers a certain laborious Baptism.

II. Those who have been touched with a sincere penitence and true grief so pursue their outrages with hatred that they execrate also all things which impel to sin. And because concupiscence, the flesh, and the senses continually urge to sins, therefore they severely animadvert upon their own body with weepings and great labours, as Trent says. What does it profit (says St. Gregory the Great, or another author, Book 6 on 1 Kings, chapter 2) to confess outrages, if the affliction of penance do not follow the voice of confession? For then do we discern a sinner well converted, when he strives to blot out by a worthy austerity of affliction that which by speaking he confesses. Whence also the Lord cursed the tree adorned with leaves but barren of fruit, because he does not receive the ornament of confession without the fruit of affliction.

III. Similar things have Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, Augustine, and all the rest of the Fathers. Tell me: when you seriously meditate these testimonies of the Scriptures and of the Fathers, do you not feel yourself moved? They mutter: the Doctors of the times have set forth for us the resolving of the cases of the times. The image of conversion and justification depicted in the holy Scriptures and in the Fathers is diverse by the whole heaven from that which you behold delineated in the books of certain men. To whom is credence to be given? Be thou the judge.

IV. All the preachers of our age with one mouth cry out from the pulpit that the conversion of a sinner of habit, habituated and relapsing, as it is vulgarly said, is most difficult. They urge that this cannot be done without fasts, tears, labours, vigils, and laborious works sent before. Fr. Claude de la Colombière of the Society of Jesus, a fervent preacher, in sermon 72, against those who violate only the Lenten fasts and confess at Easter, writes these things, rendered into Latin from the French: Do you, hearers, contend to persuade me that your penance is true? So false do I reckon it, that I should fear to profane with you the blood of the Redeemer, if I absolved you before I disposed you to penance by the fasts of forty days after the feasts have elapsed (N.B.), that by this experiment I might gather whether it truly repents you of the violated Lent.

V. Fr. de la Colombière is plainly neither a Rigorist nor a Jansenist. While the hearers hear these things, they grow pale, they weep, they approach terrified the confessors forestalled by the books and opinions of certain casuists, and, their faults being manifested — which thereabouts for several years are the same — they are absolved; and, their tears dried and their fear driven out, they joyfully reckon themselves just. But because the justification is feigned, after a few days they will relapse into the same outrages. There is added that some confessors, that they may make their penitents joyful and triumphant, are wont to say: Preachers declaim oratorically, figuratively, emphatically; they exaggerate and amplify.

VI. These things are known to the whole world: namely that preachers by the clearest testimonies of holy Scripture prove that the conversion of the relapsing, the habituated, and those of habit is rare and most difficult; and that on the other hand those of habit, entangled in habits, are absolved three and four times in a year. These things, I say, are explored by the whole world. To whom is credence to be given? Whence, I ask, so great a diversity between preachers and confessors? Whence? From the variety of the books which they read. Preachers form their sermons from the holy Scriptures and from the testimonies of the Fathers; therefore they represent the true idea of the conversion of penitents. Confessors on the contrary, the holy Scriptures and the Fathers being almost dismissed, turn over Summists full of contrary opinions. But those opinions are therefore opposed, because they proceed not from the limpid and single fount of the Scriptures, but from the diversity of human talents.

VII. What if those very apostolic ministers who from the pulpit hand down the best idea of the conversion of sinners, passing from it to the confessional, should enter upon an altogether different reckoning, and should at once, no distinction being made, absolve inveterate sinners terrified by the sermon, God inspiring, but not yet converted as they ought? Whereby it comes about that sinners of this kind, putting off the horror of their faults on account of the too easy pardon, as soon as the struck fear has vanished (compelled by which alone, and not by divine charity, they execrated their faults), return with all speed to their pristine vomit, and their last state becomes worse than the first. Consider, ministers of Penance, that truth is one, in whatsoever place it must be spoken, and that practice ought to consent with right theory: and that this is that which Christ, the Apostles, the Fathers, and the perennial tradition of the Church have confirmed. Being therefore nothing solicitous of the world's favour, nothing of the concourse of many to your churches, intend only the salvation of souls redeemed by the blood of the immaculate Lamb.

VIII. Let the most learned Guy de Seve, Bishop of Arras, impose an end upon this chapter, who in his most ample pastoral instruction, part 3, writes these things among very many others: “How many merchants who gain by any art whatsoever? How many works of iniquity among those who ought to administer, or to take care that justice be administered? How many priests in a life altogether idle? Religious, who after they have separated themselves from the world return to the spacious way of the world? Do all these walk by the narrow way? Do they not rather walk by the spacious way, and consequently by the way of perdition? All these … satisfy the precepts of the Church concerning annual confession and communion. Meanwhile no change. Whence this? Is it that we are not practically convinced that the narrow way must be held, that one may come to heaven? Is it that this truth remains barren of salvation in the mind, nor passes even to the heart? Is it that it does not perchance reach even to the mind itself? Is it that cupidity itself blinds? Is it that they are engaged in ignorance? Is it that perchance the Directors and Confessors themselves are ignorant of that truth, and are blind guides who give guidance to others? Is it that they neglect to instruct their penitents concerning this, or that penitents contemn their admonitions? Which briefly is the ORIGIN of that blindness, which has all but overthrown the FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY, AND ESTABLISHED A CERTAIN APPEARANCE OF HERESY IN MORAL MATTERS MORE DANGEROUS (if it be permitted to say it) to Christians than that which regards the mind. Since it is as frequent in the Church that practical truths of this kind be impugned, as it is rare (among Catholics) that those be there impugned which stick in speculation alone. Moreover our age supplies examples over which we cannot but groan. And all the errors with which the moral field is sprinkled, of which some strike against the very principles of the law of nature — from what other fount could they have gushed forth, save that there was ignored both that great principle concerning the necessity of entering the narrow way, and that indispensable precept by which a Christian is bound to fight against the senses and desires of his own nature? Further, since that ignorance is born from no other source than that the authors of such evil dogmas, who have provoked upon their own head the threats and anathemas of the Apostolic See and of very many bishops, ARE NOT WONT TO CONSULT FOR THEIR OWN DECISIONS THE SACRED SCRIPTURES, OR THE HOLY FATHERS, OR THE COUNCILS, which you will find so rarely cited among them as you will there frequently see huge crowds of certain theologians OF THE LAST CENTURY,” and so forth.

IX. Very many like things the most learned bishop has in the same instruction, which from a study of brevity I pass over. Unless the truths of faith be considered immovable by the sacred Scripture and by the definitions of the Apostolic See and of the Councils, it would be all over with Religion. Altogether the same will happen with the truths of morals, unless we have before our eyes the holy Scripture, the pontifical decrees, the tradition of the Fathers, and the canons of the Councils. And it is heresy to deny the truths of morals as well as the truths of faith. Moreover self-love, concupiscence, and cupidity lie in ambush more impotently against the truths of morals than against those of faith. Since the precepts of morals crucify the flesh, restrain the senses, afflict the appetitions, and condemn and execrate the idol of ambition, and all the enticements, pleasures, and prestiges of a raving world. Wherefore it is more easily erred in the rules of morals than in those of faith. Turn yourselves therefore from the word of men to the word of God, to the Fathers, to the sacred Councils: let these be turned before your eyes, that you may learn what is the narrow way, and how it is to be trodden. Imbued with these divine Scriptures, and strengthened by the canons of the Supreme Pontiffs, of the holy Fathers, and of the Councils, you will be able with unstumbling foot to read the moral authors, and to distinguish the true from the false; and to hold those things which are true, and to reject utterly those which are false under whatsoever roof and mask.