Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/146

4 prevail. A despotic power was forbid by himself: "It shall not be so among you." He that is humble and charitable will take the mildest and surest way, and will not be troubled, provided the end be obtained.

Sin is the disease of the soul. Diseases are not to be cured in a moment: it will take time to root out their causes, and to prevent their effects; so will it require time to prove the sincerity of our resolutions. We solemnly profess that we repent, and we are not sure but that we lie to.

As discipline slackened, men's manners grew more and more corrupt, even in the primitive times. There were never more infidels converted (saith Fleury) than when catechumens were most strictly examined, and baptized Christians put to open penance for their sins. They that are for making still more concessions to human frailty, will at last set aside the Christian religion, which is established upon maxims of eternal truth, and not on human policy; and instead of gaining or securing the bad, they will lose the better sort. A flattering physician is for giving palliating medicines, to ease the pain, without taking away the cause, which will occasion relapses, until at last they destroy the patient. But a good man will prescribe what he believes necessary to remove the cause, though uneasy to his patient, and will have nothing to do with such as will not submit to the necessary methods of cure.

Penances, in the primitive Church, were never granted but unto such as desired them, and such as desired to be converted. None were forced, but such as would not submit were excommunicated.

This cannot be, when it was practised for so many years in the primitive Church. And what if it be one of those things which has commanded His followers to observe so strictly, Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.; and which He had learned of the, John xv. 15. and xvi. 13. The commands of Christ cannot be