Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/120

88 the power of preaching the word of God, and of announcing the Gospel of Christ.

CHAPTER II.

But this sacrament is clearly perceived to be different from baptism, for many reasons. For, besides that it is very far different indeed in matter and form, by which the essence of a sacrament is made up, it is certainly known that the minister of baptism need not be a judge, since the Church exercises judgment on no one who has not first entered therein through the gate of baptism. For, What have I, saith the Apostle, to do to judge them that are without? It is otherwise with those who are of the household of faith, whom Christ our Lord has once, by the laver of baptism, made the members of His own body. For these, it they should afterwards have defiled themselves by any crime. He would no longer will that they be cleansed by a repetition of baptism, that being nowise lawful in the Catholic Church, but be placed as criminal before this tribunal; so that, by the sentence of the priests, they might be freed, not once only, but as often as, being penitent, they should, from their sins committed, flee thereunto. Furthermore, one is the fruit of baptism, and another that of penan6e. For, by baptism putting on Christ, we are therein made entirely a new creature, obtaining a full and entire remission of all sins; unto which newness and entireness, however, we are in no wise able to arrive by the sacrament of penance, without many tears and labours on our part, the divine justice demanding this; so that penance has with reason been styled by holy fathers a laborious kind of baptism. And this sacrament of penance is necessary unto salvation for those who have fallen after baptism; even as baptism itself is for those who have not as yet been regenerated.

CHAPTER III. On the Parte and Fruits of this Sacrament. The holy synod furthermore teacheth, that the form of the sacrament of penance, in which its force chiefly consists,