Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/122

90 has considered those cries of the saints: Against thee only have I sinned, and have done evil in thy sight, I am weary with my groaning, every every night I will wash my bed, I will recount to thee all my years, in the bitterness of my soul; and others of this kind, will easily understand that they flowed from a certain vehement hatred of their past life, and from a great detestation of sins. [The synod] teaches furthermore, that, although it may sometimes happen that this contrition is perfect through charity, and reconciles man with God before this sacrament be actually received, the said reconciliation, nevertheless, is not to be ascribed to that contrition, without the desire of the sacrament which is included therein. And to that imperfect contrition, which is called attrition, because it is commonly conceived either from the consideration of the turpitude of sin, or from the fear of hell and of punishments, it declares that if, with the hope of pardon, it exclude the will to sin, it not only does not make a man a hypocrite, and a greater sinner, but that it is even a gift of God, and an impulse of the Holy Ghost, who does not indeed as yet dwell in the penitent, but only moves him, whereby the penitent being assisted, prepares a way for himself unto justice. And although this [attrition] cannot of itself, without the sacrament of penance, bring the sinner unto justification, yet does it dispose him to obtain the grace of God in the sacrament of penance. For, profitably stricken with this fear, the Ninevites, at the preaching of Jonah, did penance full of terror, and obtained mercy from the Lord. Wherefore falsely do some calumniate Catholic writers, as though they had stated that the sacrament of penance confers grace without good motion on the part of those who receive it: a thing which the Church of God never taught or thought. Aad falsely also do they teach that contrition is extorted and compelled, not free and voluntary.

CHAPTER V. On Confesion. From the institution of the sacrament of penance already explained, the universal Church has always understood, that