Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/342

 3]4 PBNANOE.,,GONTItlTION. [BOOr IJ. the great ones. But this is thought too severe by Sots and Medina, who teach that a sinner i8 bound to repent but once a year, that is, against Easter. These doctors, indeed, do differ concerning the church sense, which, according to the best of them, is bad enough, full as bad as it is stated in the charge; but they agree in the worst part of it, namely, that though the church calls upon sinners to repent on holy days, or at Easter, yet that by the law of God they are not tied to do so much, but only to repent in the danger or article of death. This is the express doctrine tanght in the Church of lome by their famous Navar ;8 and for this he quotes Pope Adrian and Cardinal Ca- jetan, and finally affirms it to be  snsz of /l men. The same also is taught by Reginaldus,t saying, ' It is true, and the opinion of all men, that the time in which a sinner is bound, by the commandment of God, to be contrite for hi8 sins, is the imminent article of natural or violent death.' We shall not need to aggravate this sad story by the addition ofother words to the same purpose in a worse degree, such as those words are of the same Reginaldus: ' There is no precept that 8inner.should not persevere in enmity against God. There is no ne- gative precept forbidding such perseverance.' These are the words 0f this man, but the proper and necessary consequent of that wttich they all teach, and to which they must consent. For since it is cer- tain that he who hath sinned against Cod and his conscience is in state of enmity, we say he, therefore, ought to nt presently, be- cause, until he hath repented, he is an enemy to odl. �This they con- fees, but they suppose it concludes nothing; for though they consider and confess this, yet they still say a man is not bound by God's law to repent till the article of death, d.o consequenfiy say the same thing that Reginaldus does, and that a man is not bound to come out of th state of enmity till he be in those circumstances that it is very probable, if he does not then come out, he must stay in it for ever. It is some.. thing worse than this yet that Sotus says: ' Even to resolve to defer our repentance, and to refuse to repent for a certaia time, is but a ve- nial sin/ But Medina says It is none at If it be replied, "that though God hath left it to sinners themselve to repent when they please, yet the church requires every man to re- pent once a y. ear at leat* so t] by her laws no sinner can remain uninterrupted m a course of sin more than one year :" but there is secret in this, which they themselves have been pleased to discover for the relief of tender consciences, namely, that the church but the means, the exterior' solemnity of it, and is satisfied ff sinners obey her laws by a ritual repentance; but the holiness and the inward repentance, which in charity we would have supposed to have been designed by the law of festivals, "Non eat id qued per preecepmm de obsertione festerurn injungitur :" "is not that which is enjoined by the church in her law of holy days."U So the' still sinners are left to the liberty which they say GOd gave them that they might continue in
 * Euchirkl, c. 1, n. 31. $ Praxis fori Pcent., h. v, c. 2, sec. 4, n. 23.
 * t  & 8oto in quart. sent. diet. 17, qu. 2, art. 6, concl. secunda.

�on sat dubiura quin id liciturn sit."---Cd& d Pam/t., tract. l, q. 6, p. 18, edit. fhlmanitie., A.D. 1MJ. D/wftu/re, ch. ii, sec. 1, p. 786: London, 18J5. ciL ii, m. 1, p. 787. 1

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