had fought prosperously against Eugenius the usurper of the empire, when his cause was just and approved by God, not only giving testi mony by the prediction and warranty of a religious hermit, but also by prodigious events, by winds and tempests fighting for him, and by which he restored peace to the church, and tranquillity to the empire; yet he by the advice of S. Ambrose abstained awhile from the holy sacrament, and would not carry blood upon his hands, though justly shed, unto the altars; not only following the precedent of David, who because he was a man of blood might not build a temple, but for fear lest some unfit appendage should stick to the management of a just employment.

3) Of the same consideration it is, if a person whose life should be very exemplar, is guilty of such a single folly which it may be would not dishonour a meaner man, but is a great vanity and re proach to him; a little abstention and a penitential separation (when it is quit from scandal) was sometimes practised in the ancient church, and is advisable also now in fitting circumstances. Thus when Gerontius the deacon had vainly talked that the devil appeared to him one night, and that he had bound him with a chain, S. Ambrose commanded him to abide in his house and not to come to the church, till by penances and sorrow he had expiated such an indiscretion; which to a man had in reputation for wisdom, is as a fly in a box of ointment, not only useless but mischievous. And S. Bernard commends S. Malachie because he reproved a deacone for attending at the altar the day after he had suffered an illusion in the night; it had been better he had abstained from the altar one day, and by that intermediate expiation and humility have the next day returned to a more worthy ministry.

4) One degree of curious caution I find beyond all this in an instance of S. Gregory the great, in whose life we find that he abstained some days from the holy communion because there was found in a village near to Rome a poor man dead, no man could tell how; but because the good bishop feared he might have been starved, and that he died for want of provision, he supposing it might reflect upon him as a defect in his government or of his personal charity, thought it fit to deplore the accident and to abstain from the communion, till he might hope for pardon in case he had done amiss.

If these things proceed from the sincerity of a well-disposed spirit that can suffer any trouble rather than that of sin, the product is

well enough; and in all likelihood would always be well, if the case were conducted by a prudent spiritual guide, for then it would not change into scruples and superstition. But these are but the fears and cautions and securities of a tender spirit; but are not an answer to the question, whether it be lawful for such persons to communicate? For certainly they may, if all things else be right; and they may be right in the midst of such little accidents. But these belong to the questions of perfection and excellencies of grace, these are the extraordinaries of them who never think they do well enough; and therefore they extended no further than to a single abstention, or some little proportionable retirement; and may be useful when they are in the hands of prudent and excellent persons.

SECTION V.

WHAT SIGNIFICATIONS OF REPENTANCE ARE TO BE ACCEPTED BY THE CHURCH IN ADMISSION OF PENITENTS TO THE COMMUNION.

THIS enquiry will quickly be answered, when we consider that the end why the church enjoins public or private amends respectively to any convict or confessed criminal, she only does it as a mother and a physician to souls, and a minister of the divine pardon, and the conductress of penitential processes: she does it, that the man may be recovered from the snare of the enemy, that she may destroy the work of the devil, that the sinner may become a good Christian: and therefore the church when she conducts any man's repentance, is bound to enjoin so many external ministries, that if they be really joined with the internal contrition and reformation, will do the work of reconcilement in the court of heaven. The church can exact none but what she can see or some way take external notice of; but by these externals intends to minister to the internal repentance; which when it is sufficiently signified by any ways that she may prudently rely upon as testimonies and ministries of a sufficient internal contrition and real amends, she can require no more; and she ought not to be content with less.

It is therefore infinitely unsafe and imprudent to receive the confessions of criminals, and after the injunction of certain cursory penances to admit them to the blessed sacrament, without any

Si cito rediret homo ad pristinam beatitudinem, ludus illi esset peccando cadere in mortem.-S. Aug. serm. xxxiv. de diversis. [al. serm. cclxxviii. cap. 3.tom. v. col. 1124 F.]

In ipsa ecclesia ubi maxime misereri decet, teneri quam maxime debet forma justitiæ; ne quis a communionis con

sortio abstentus, brevi lachrymula atque ad tempus parata, vel etiam uberioribus fletibus communionem quam plurimis debet postulare temporibus, facilitate sacerdotis extorqueat.-S. Ambros. in psal. cxviii. in hæc verba, Miserere mei secundum eloquium tuum.' [serm. viii. § 26. tom. i. col. 1065 C.]

further emendation, without any trial of the sincerity of their conversion, before it is probable that God hath pardoned them, before their affections to sin are dead, before the spirit of mortification is entered, before any vice is exterminated or any virtue acquired. Such a looseness of discipline is but the image of repentance, whether we look upon it as it is described in scripture, or as it was practised by the primitive church; which at least is a whole change of life, a conversion of the whole man to God. And it is as bad when a notorious criminal is put to shame one day, for such a sin which could not have obtained the peace of the church under the severity and strictness of fifteen years, amongst the holy primitives. Such public ecclesiastical penances may suffice to remove the scandal from the church, when the church will be content upon so easy terms; for she only can tell what will please herself. But then such discipline must not be esteemed a sufficient ministry of repentance, nor a just disposition to pardon. For the church ought not to give pardon or to promise the peace of God upon terms easier than God himself requires: and therefore when repentance comes to be conducted by her, she must require so much as will extinguish the sin, and reform the man, and make him and represent him good.

All the liberty that the church hath in this, is what is given her by the latitude of the judgment of charity; and yet oftentimes a too easy judgment is the greatest uncharitableness in the world, and makes men confident and careless and deceived: and therefore although gentle sentences are useful when there is danger of despair, or contumacy; yet that is rather a palliation of a disease than a cure, and therefore the method must be changed as soon as it can; and the severe and true sermons of the gospel must be either proclaimed aloud, or insinuated prudently and secretly, and men be taught to rely upon them and their consequents, and upon nothing else; for they will not deceive us. But the corrupt manners of men and the corrupt doctrines of some schools have made it almost impossible to govern souls as they need to be governed.

The church may indeed choose whether she will impose on criminals any exterior significations of repentance; but accept them to the communion upon their own accounts of a sincere conversion and inward contrition: but then she ought to do this upon such accounts as are indeed real and sufficient, and effective and allowed: that is, when she can understand that such an emendation is made, and the man is really reformed, she can pronounce him pardoned, or which is all one, she may communicate him. And further yet; she can by sermons declare all the necessary parts of repentance, and the conditions of pardon, and can pronounce limited and hypothetical or conditional pardons; concerning which the penitent must take care that they do belong to him. But if she does undertake to conduct any repentances exteriously, it is to very little purpose to do it any way that is not commensurate to that true internal repentance which is effective of

pardon. Indeed every single act of penance does something towards it, but why something should be enjoined that is not sufficient, and that falls infinitely short of the end of its designation, though the church may use her liberty, yet it is not easy to understand the reason. But I leave this to the consideration of those who are concerned in governments public, or in the private conduct of souls; to whom I earnestly and humbly recommend it and I add this only; that when the ancient churches did absolve and communicate dying penitents, though but newly returned from sin; they did it de bene esse, or with a hope it might do some good, and because they thought it a case of necessity, and because there was no time left to do better: but when they did as well as they could, they could not tell what God would do: and though the church did well, it may be it was very ill with the souls departed. But because that is left to God, it is certain some things were done upon pious confidence and venture, for which there was no promise in the gospel.

That which the church is to take care of is, that all her children be sufficiently taught what are the just measures of preparation and worthy disposition to these divine mysteries; and that she admits none of whom she can tell that they are not worthy; such as are notorious adulterers, homicides, incestuous, perjurers, habitually peevish to evil effects, and permanently angry (for this I find reckoned amongst the primitive catalogues of persons to be excluded from the communion), rapines, theft, sacrilege, false-witness, pride, covetousness and envy. It would be hard to reduce this rule to practice in all these instances, unless it be by consent and voluntary submission of penitent persons. But that which I remark is this: that proud persons and the covetous, the envious and the angry were esteemed fit to be excommunicate; that is, infinitely unfit to be admitted to the blessed sacrament; and that by the rules of their discipline they were to do many actions of public and severe penance and mortifications before they would admit them.

Now then the case is this. They did esteem more things to be required to the integrity of repentance, and God not to be so soon reconciled, and the devil not so soon dispossessed, and men's resolutions not so fit to be trusted, and more to be required to pardon than confession and the pronouncing absolution; all this otherwise than we do; and therefore so long as they did conduct repentances, they required it as it should be; being sure that no repentance that was joined with hope and charity could be too much, but it might quickly be too little; and therefore although the church may take as little

Si permansissemus in illa munditia quæ nobis per baptismum data est, vere felices essemus; sed non permansimus; cecidimus enim per nostram culpam, non solum in peccata, sed etiam in crimina, propter quæ peccatores ab ecclesia sepa

rantur; qualia sunt, homicidia, adulteria, fornicationes, sacrilegia, rapinæ, furta, falsa testimonia, superbia, invidia, avaritia, diutina iracundia, ebrietas assidua. -Fulbert. Carnot., serm. ii. ad populum. [Magn. bibl. vett. patr., tom. xi. p. 34 E.]

as she please for a testimonial of repentance, and suppose the rest is right though it be not signified; yet when she either in public or in private is to manage repentances, she must use no measure but that which will procure pardon, and extinguish both the guilt and dominion of sin. The first may be of some use in government; but of little avail to souls, and to their eternal interest: therefore in the first she may use her liberty and give herself measures in the latter she hath no other but what are given her by the nature of repentance, and its efficacy and order to pardon, and the designs of God, for the reformation of our souls and the extermination of sin.

SECTION VI.

WHETHER MAY EVERY MINISTER OF THE CHURCH AND CURATE OF SOULS REJECT IMPENITENT PERSONS, OR ANY CRIMINALS, FROM THE HOLY SACRAMENT, UNTIL THEMSELVES BE SATISFIED OF THEIR REPENTANCE AND AMENDS?

SEPARATION of sinners from the blessed sacrament was either done upon confession and voluntary submission of the penitent, or by public conviction and notoriety. Every minister of religion can do the first, for he that submits to my judgment, does choose my sentence; and if he makes me judge, he is become my subject in a voluntary government: and therefore I am to judge for him when it is fit that he should communicate: only, if when he hath made me judge, he refuses to obey my counsel, he hath dissolved my government, and therefore will receive no further benefit by me. But concerning the latter of these, a separation upon public conviction or notoriety; that requires an authority that is not precarious and changeable. Now this is done two ways; either by authority forbidding, or by authority restraining and compelling; that is, by the word of our proper ministry dissuading him that is unworthy from coming, and threatening him with divine judgments if he does come; or else rejecting of him, in case that he fears not those threatenings but persists in his desires of having it.

Now of the first of these, every minister of the word and sacraments is a competent minister; for all that minister to souls are to tell them of their dangers, and by all the effects of their office to present them pure and spotless unto God; the seers must take care that the people may see, lest by their blindness they fall into the bottomless pit. And when the curates of souls have declared the will of God in this instance and denounced His judgments to unworthy communicants, and told to all that present themselves who are worthy

b [See vol. iv. p. 589, note.]