Chapter 4. That All That the Sophists Babble in Their Schools of Penance Is Far from the Purity of the Gospel. Where Is Treated of Confession and Satisfaction

Now I come to discuss those things, which the school sophisters have taught of repentance. Which I will run over in as few words as may be, because I do not intend to go through all, lest this book, which I labor to draw into a short abridgment, should grow to a huge greatness. And the sophisters have entangled it in so many volumes, being a matter otherwise not very hard, that a man shall hardly find how to get out, if he once falls into their dregs. First, in defining it, they show that they never understood what repentance was. For they take hold of certain sayings of the old writers, which do nothing at all express the nature of repentance, as that to repent is to weep for sins past, and not to commit sins to be wept for: again, that it is to lament evils past, and not to commit again other evils to be lamented. Again: that it is a certain sorrowful revenge, punishing in himself that which he is sorry to have committed. Again: that it is a sorrow of heart, and bitterness of soul, for the evils that a man has committed or to which he has consented. But, to grant these things well said of the fathers (which a contentious man might easily enough deny), yet they were not spoken to this intent to describe repentance, but only to exhort them to whom they wrote, that they should not fall again into the same offenses, out of which they had been drawn. But if we wish to turn all such titles of commendation into definitions, then others may also be adjoined as rightfully as they. As this of Chrysostome: Repentance is a medicine that destroys sin, a gift given from heaven, a marvelous virtue, a grace surpassing the force of the law. Yes, and the doctrine which they afterward teach is somewhat worse than these definitions. For they stick so earnestly in outward exercises, that a man can gather nothing else out of infinite volumes, but that repentance is a discipline and rigorousness that serves partly to tame the flesh, and partly to chastise and punish vices: but they keep marvelous silence of the inward renewing of the mind that draws with it correction of life. There is indeed much talk among them of Contrition and Attrition; they torment souls with many doubts, and do thrust into them much trouble and carefulness: but when they seem to have thoroughly wounded the hearts, they heal the bitterness with a light sprinkling of ceremonies. And when they have thus curiously defined repentance, they divide it into contrition of heart, confession of mouth, and satisfaction of work — no more logically than they defined it, although they would seem to have wasted all their age in framing of syllogisms. But if a man will go about to prove by the definition (which kind of argument is of force among logicians) that a man may weep for his sins past, and commit no more to be wept for, that he may bewail his evils past, and commit no more to be bewailed, and that he may punish himself for that which he was sorry to have committed, etc., although he does not confess with his mouth: how will they maintain their division? For if that true penitent man does not confess, then repentance may be without confession. But if they answer, that this division is referred to repentance, in respect that it is a sacrament, or is meant of the whole perfection of repentance, which they comprehend not in their definitions, then there is no cause to blame me, but let them lay the fault in themselves that make not a purer and plainer definition. I truly (according to my grossness) when any thing is disputed of, do refer all things to the very definition, which is the stay and ground of the whole disputation. But admit that to be their masterly license. Now let us particularly consider all the parts in order. Whereas I do negligently leap over as trifles those things that they with great gravity of countenance do publish for mysteries, I do it not unwittingly (neither were it very painful for me to confute all that they think themselves to have deeply and subtly disputed) but I would think it against conscience to weary the readers with such trifles without any profit. Truly it is easy to know by the questions which they move and toss, and with which they miserably encumber themselves, that they prate of things that they know not. As for example: whether the repentance of our sin pleases God, when obstinacy endures in others. Again: whether the punishments laid upon man by God avail to satisfaction. Again: whether repentance may be oftentimes reiterated for deadly sins: where they foully and wickedly define, that penance is daily done but for venial sins. Likewise they very much torment themselves with a gross error, upon the saying of Jerome, that repentance is a second board after shipwreck. In which they show that they never woke from their brutish dullness, to feel so much as far off the thousandth part of their faults.

But I would the readers should note, that here is not a quarrel about the shadow of an ass, but the most earnest matter of all others is treated of, that is to say, forgiveness of sins. For whereas they require three things to repentance, contrition of heart, confession of mouth, and satisfaction of work: they do therewith teach that those three things are necessary to the obtaining of forgiveness of sins. But if it behooves us to know anything at all in all our religion, this truly behooves us most of all, I mean to understand and know well by what means, with what law, upon what condition, with what easiness or hardness the forgiveness of sins is obtained. If this knowledge does not stand plain and certain, the conscience can have no rest at all, no peace with God, no confidence or assuredness, but continually trembles, wavers, is troubled, is tormented, is vexed, horribly dreads, hates and flees the sight of God. But if the forgiveness of sins hangs upon those conditions to which they do bind it, then nothing is more miserable, nothing in more lamentable case than we. They make contrition the first part of obtaining pardon, and they require that to be a due contrition, that is to say perfect and full: but in the meantime they do not determine when a man may be assured, that he has to the full measure perfectly performed this contrition. Truly I grant that every man ought diligently and earnestly to enforce himself, with bitterly weeping for his sins, to whet himself more and more to a loathing and hatred of them. For this is a sorrow not to be repented, that breeds repentance to salvation. But when there is such a bitterness of sorrow required as may proportionally answer the greatness of the fault, and such as may in balance counterpoise with the trust of pardon, here the pure consciences are marvelously tormented and troubled, when they see themselves charged with a due contrition of sins, and do not so attain the measure of that due, that they can determine with themselves, that they have duly performed so much as they duly ought. If they say that we must do as much as lies in us, then come we still to the same point that we were at before: for how dare any man assure himself that he has employed all his force to bewail his sins? So when the consciences having long wrestled with themselves, and long been exercised with battles, do at length find no haven to rest in, yet somewhat to ease themselves, they enforce themselves to a sorrow, and wring out tears to make perfect their contrition.

But if they say that I slander them: let them come forth and show any one man, that by such doctrine of contrition has not either been driven to despair, or has not set for his defense a counterfeiting of sorrow in place of true sorrow, against the judgment of God. We have also ourselves said in one place, that forgiveness of sins never comes without repentance, because none but the afflicted and wounded with conscience of sins, can sincerely call upon the mercy of God: but we have therewith further said, that repentance is not the cause of the forgiveness of sins. As for those torments of souls, which they say must be performed of duty, we have taken them away: we have taught the sinner not to look upon his own contrition nor his own tears, but to fasten both his eyes upon the only mercy of God. We have only put him in mind that Christ called the laboring and laden, when he was sent to publish glad tidings to the poor, to heal the contrite in heart, to preach remission to captives, to deliver prisoners, and to comfort those that mourn. From which should be excluded both the Pharisees, that filled with their own righteousness, do not acknowledge their own poverty, and also the despisers who, careless of God's wrath, do seek no remedy for their evils. For such do not labor, nor are laden, nor contrite in heart, nor bound nor captive. But there is great difference between teaching a man to deserve forgiveness of sins with due and full contrition, which the sinner can never perform: and instructing him to hunger and thirst for the mercy of God, that by the acknowledging of his own misery, by his own unquietness, weariness and captivity, it may be shown him, where he ought to seek for relief, rest and liberty: and finally, he may be taught in the humbling of himself, to give glory to God.

Concerning confession, there has always been great strife between the Canonists and Scholastic divines: while the one sort affirm that confession is commanded by the special commandment of God, and the other sort deny it and say that it is commanded only by the Ecclesiastical constitutions. But in this contention has appeared the notable shamelessness of the divines, who have corrupted and violently wrested as many places of Scripture as they alleged for their purpose. And when they saw that they could not so obtain that which they required, they who would be thought more subtle than the rest escaped away with this shift, that confession came from the law of God, in respect of the substance of it, but afterward received form from the Positive law. Even as the foolishest sort among the lawyers do say that citations came from the law of God, because it is said: "Adam, where are you?" And likewise exceptions, because Adam answered as if were by way of exception, saying: "The wife that you gave me," etc. But that both citations and exceptions received form given them by the Civil law. But let us see by what arguments they prove this confession, either formed or unformed, to be the commandment of God. The Lord (say they) sent the leprous men to the priests. But what? Sent he them to confession? Who ever heard it spoken that the Levitical priests were appointed to hear confessions? Therefore they flee to allegories, and say: It was commanded by the law of Moses that the priests should discern between leprosy and leprosy: sin is a spiritual leprosy: therefore it is the priest's office to pronounce upon it. Before that I answer them, I ask this by the way: if this place makes them judges of the spiritual leprosy, why do they draw to them the knowledge of natural and fleshly leprosy? This indeed is not to mock with the Scriptures. The law gives to the Levitical priests the knowledge of leprosy, therefore let us take that upon us. Sin is a spiritual leprosy, therefore let us also be examiners of sin. Now I answer: since the priesthood is removed, it is necessary that the law be removed also. All priesthoods are transferred to Christ, and fulfilled and ended in him, therefore to him only all the right and honor of priesthood is also transferred. If they love so well to follow allegories, let them set Christ before them for the only priest, and heap upon his judgment seat the free jurisdiction of all things: this we can easily be content to suffer. Moreover their allegory is very unfit, that sets among the ceremonies that law which is merely politic. Why then did Christ send the leprous men to the priests? That the priests should not cavil that he did break the law that commanded the man healed of the leprosy to be shown before the priest and purged with offering of sacrifice: therefore he commanded the leprous men being cleansed to do that which belonged to the law. "Go," says he, "and show yourselves to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses has commanded in the law, that it should be for a witness to them." And truly this miracle should have been a witness to them, for they had pronounced them leprous, and now they pronounce them healed. Are they not, whether they will or no, compelled to become witnesses of Christ's miracles? Christ leaves to them his miracle to be examined; they cannot deny it. But because they still dally with it, therefore this work is for a witness to them. So in another place: "This Gospel shall be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations." Again: "You shall be led before kings and governors, for a witness to them." That is: that in the judgment of God they may be more strongly convinced. But if they had rather follow Chrysostom: he also teaches that Christ did this for the Jews' sake, that he should not be accounted a breaker of the law. Albeit in so clear a matter I am ashamed to allege the witness of any man: whereas Christ pronounces that he leaves the right of the law whole to the priests as to the professed enemies of the Gospel, who were always bent to carp against it, if their mouth had not been stopped. Therefore that the popish sacrificing priests may still keep this possession, let them openly take parts with them who must of necessity be restrained by force, that they speak not ill against Christ. For this nothing belongs to his true ministers.

They bring their second argument out of the same fountain, that is, from an allegory, as though allegories were of great force to confirm any doctrine. But let them be of force, if I do not prove that I can make a fairer show of them for my side, than they can for theirs. They say, the Lord commanded his disciples, that when Lazarus was raised up, they should unbind and loose him from his bonds. Here first the lie: for it is nowhere read that the Lord said this to the disciples: and it is much more likely that he said it to the Jews that stood by him, that the miracle might be made the more evident without suspicion of fraud, and his power appear the greater, that without any touching, with his only word he raised up dead men. For thus I expound it: that the Lord, to take away all wrongful opinion from the Jews, willed them to roll away the stone, to feel the stink, to behold assured tokens of death, to see him rising by the only power of his word, and them first to feel him living. And this is the judgment of Chrysostom. But let us grant that this was spoken to the disciples: what will they get thereby? That the Lord gave his Apostles power to loose. But how much more fitly and more handsomely might these things be applied by way of allegory, to say that by this sign the Lord meant to instruct his faithful, to loose them that he had raised up: that is, that they should not call into remembrance those sins that he had forgotten: that they should not condemn them for sinners whom he had acquitted: that they should not reproach men with those things that he had forgiven: that they should not be rigorous to punish, and lightly offended, where he is merciful and easily entreated to spare? Truly nothing ought to move us more to readiness to forgive, than the example of the judge that threatens that he will be unappeasable to them that be too rigorous and ungentle. Now let them go and boast of their allegories.

But now they join more near at hand with us, when they fight (as they think) with open sentences. They that came to John's baptism did confess their sins, and James wills that we confess our sins one to another. No marvel if they that would be baptized did confess their sins, for it was said before that John preached the baptism of repentance, and baptized in water to repentance. Whom should he then have baptized, but them that had confessed themselves sinners? Baptism is a token of the forgiveness of sins: and who should be admitted to this token but sinners, and they that acknowledge themselves to be such? Therefore they confessed their sins, that they might be baptized. And not without cause does James bid us confess one to another. But if they did mark what follows next after, they would understand, that this also makes little for them. Confess (says he) one to another your sins, and pray one for another. He joins together mutual confession and mutual prayer. If we must confess to priests only, then must we also pray for priests only. Indeed, what if it might follow from the words of James that only priests might confess? For when he wills that we should confess one to another, he speaks only to them that may hear the confessions of others: his word is in Greek Allelous, mutually, interchangeably, by turns, or (if they so like best to term it) by way of reciprocation one to another. But so interchangeably none can confess, but they that are meet to hear confessions. Which prerogative, since they vouchsafe to grant only to priests, we do also put over the office of confessing to them only. Therefore away with such triflings, and let us take the very meaning of the Apostle which is simple and plain: that is, that we should lay our weakness one in another's bosom to receive mutual counsel, mutual compassion and mutual comfort one of another: then that we be naturally privy to the weaknesses of our brethren, should pray for them to the Lord. Why do they then allege James against us, which do so earnestly require the confession of the mercy of God? But no man can confess God's mercy, unless he have first confessed his own misery. Indeed we rather pronounce him accursed that does not before God, before his angels, before the Church, indeed and before all men confess himself a sinner. For the Lord has concluded all under sins that all mouths might be stopped, and all flesh humbled before God, and he only justified and exalted.

But I marvel with what face they dare affirm, that the confession of which they speak, is of the law of God: the use of which we grant indeed to be very ancient, but such as we are able to prove in old time to have been at liberty. Truly even their own chronicles declare, that there was no certain law or constitution of it before the times of Innocent the Third. Surely if they had had a more ancient law, they would rather have taken hold of it, than have been contented with the decree of the council of Lateran, and so made themselves to be laughed at, even of children. In other things they stick not to come with forged decrees, which they father upon the most ancient councils, that they may with very reverence of antiquity dazzle the eyes of the simple. In this point, it came not in their mind to thrust in such a false pack. Therefore by their own witness, there are not yet passed three hundred years since Innocent the Third laid that snare upon men, and charged them with necessity of confession. But, to speak nothing of the time: the very barbarousness of the words diminishes the credit of that law. For where these good fathers command every one of both kinds, male and female, once every year to confess all his sins to his own priest, pleasant men do merrily take exception, that in this commandment are contained only Hermaphrodites, and state that it belongs not to such a one as is either male or female only. Since that time, a more gross beastliness has betrayed itself in their scholars, that cannot expound what is meant by his own priest. Whatever all the Popes' hired babblers do prattle, we hold both that Christ was never the author of this law that compels men to reckon up their sins, and also that there passed a thousand and two hundred years from the resurrection of Christ before that any such law was made. And so, that this tyranny was then first brought in, when all godliness and learning being destroyed, the overseers of pastors had without choice taken all licentiousness upon them. Moreover there are evident testimonies both in histories and other ancient writers, which teach that this confession was a political discipline ordained by the bishops, not a law made by Christ or his Apostles. I will allege but one out of many, which shall be a plain proof thereof. Sozomenus reports that this constitution of bishops was diligently kept in all the western churches, but especially at Rome. Whereby he shows that it was no universal ordinance of all churches. But he says that there was one of the priests peculiarly appointed to serve for this office. Whereby he does sufficiently confute that which these men do falsely say of the keys given for this use universally to the whole order of priesthood. For it was not the common office of all priests, but the special duty of some one that was chosen to that by the bishop. The same is he, whom at this day in all cathedral churches they call Penitentiary, the examiner of heinous offenses, and such of which the punishment pertains to good example. Then he says immediately after, that this was also the manner at Constantinople, till a certain woman feigning that she came to confession, was found so to have colored under that pretense the dishonest company that she used with a certain deacon. For this act, Nectarius a man notable in holiness and learning bishop of that church, took away the custom of confessing. Here, here let these asses lift up their ears. If auricular confession were the law of God, how dared Nectarius repeal and destroy it? Will they accuse for a heretic and schismatic Nectarius a holy man of God, allowed by the consenting voices of all the old fathers? But by the same sentence they must condemn the church of Constantinople, in which Sozomenus affirms that the manner of confessing was not only let slip for a time, but also discontinued even till within time of his remembrance. Indeed let them condemn of apostasy not only the church of Constantinople, but also all the eastern churches which have neglected that law, which (if they say true) is inviolable and commanded to all Christians.

This abrogation Chrysostome, which was also bishop of Constantinople, does in so many places evidently testify, that it is marvel that these dare mutter to the contrary. Tell (says he) your sins that you may do them away, if you be ashamed to tell to any man the sins that you have done, tell them daily in your soul. I do not say, Confess them to your fellow servant, that may reproach you: tell them to God that takes care of them. Confess your sins upon your bed, that there your conscience may daily recognize her evils. Again. But now it is not necessary to confess when witnesses be present: let the examination of your sins be done with your thought: let this judgment be without witness: let only God see you confessing. Again. I do not lead you into a stage of your fellow servants, I do not compel you to disclose your sins to men, rehearse and utter your conscience before God. Show your wounds to the Lord the best surgeon, and ask salve of him. Show to him that will reproach you with nothing, but will most gently heal you. Again. Tell not man, lest he reproach you, for neither is it to be confessed to your fellow servant, that may utter it abroad, but to the Lord. To the Lord show your wounds which has care of you, that is both gentle and a physician. Afterward he brings in God speaking thus. I compel you not to come into the midst of a stage, and call many witnesses, tell your sin to me alone privately, that I may heal your sore. Shall we say that Chrysostome did so rashly, when he wrote this and other like things, that he would deliver men's consciences from these bonds wherewith they be bound by the law of God? Not so. But he dare not require that as of necessity, which he does not understand to be commanded by the word of God.

But that the matter may be made the plainer and easier, first we will faithfully rehearse, what kind of confession is taught by the word of God: and then we will also declare their inventions, but not all (for who could draw dry such an infinite sea?) but only those, wherein they comprehend the sum of their secret confession. Here I am reluctant to rehearse how often the old translator has given in translation this word Confess in stead of Praise: which the most unlearned men commonly know: saving that it is good to have their presumptuousness revealed, that do give away that which was written of the praises of God, to their own tyrannical commandment. To prove that confession avails to cheer the minds they thrust in that place of the Psalm: In the voice of rejoicing and confession. But if such change may serve, then we shall have what we list, proved by what we list. But seeing they are so become past shame, let the godly readers remember that by the just vengeance of God they have been cast into a reprobate mind, that their presumption should be the more detestable. But if we will rest in the simple doctrine of the Scripture, we shall not be in danger of any such deceits to beguile us. For therein is appointed one order of confessing, that for as much as it is the Lord that forgives, forgets, and puts away sins, therefore we should confess our sins to him for to obtain pardon, he is the physician, therefore let us show our diseases to him. It is he that is grieved and offended, therefore let us seek peace at his hand. He is the knower of hearts, and privy to all thoughts, therefore let us make haste to pour out our hearts before him. Finally it is he that calls sinners, therefore let us not delay to come to him. I have (says David) made my sin known to you, and have not hidden my unrighteousness. I have said, I will confess against me my unrighteousness to the Lord, and you have forgiven the wickedness of my heart. Such is the other confession of David. Then, that even they that use it for their need, should not be compelled by any commandment, or trained by any deceit, to reckon up all their sins, but so far as they shall think it needful for them, that they may receive sound fruit of comfort. Faithful pastors ought not only to leave this liberty to the churches, but also to maintain it, and stoutly stand in defense of it, if they will have tyranny absent from their ministry, and superstition from the people.

Of the other sort of confession Christ speaks in Matthew. If you offer your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has any thing against you, leave your gift there, and go, and first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. For so charity that has been impaired by our fault, is to be repaired by acknowledging and craving pardon of the offence that we have committed. Under this kind is contained their confession that have sinned even to the offending of the whole church. For if Christ makes so great a matter of the private offence of one man, to forbid from holy mysteries all them that have sinned against their brother, till they be with just amends reconciled: how much greater reason is it, that he that has offended the church with any evil example, should recover the favor of the church with acknowledging his fault? So was the Corinthian received again to the communion, when he had yielded himself obedient to correction. Also this form of confession was used in the old church, as Cyprian makes mention. They do penance (says he) in due time, and then they come to confession, and by laying on of the hands of the bishop and the clergy, they receive leave to come to the communion. Any other order or form of confessing, the scripture utterly knows not, and it is not our duty to bind consciences with new bonds, whom Christ most sharply forbids us to bring in bondage. In the mean time I do so much not speak against it that the sheep should present themselves to their shepherd, when they mean to be partakers of the holy supper, that I would most gladly have it every where observed. For both they that have an encumbered conscience, may from there receive singular profit, and they that are to be admonished do by that mean prepare place for admonishment, but so always that tyranny and superstition be away.

In these three kinds of confession, the power of the keys has place: that is, either when the whole church with solemn acknowledging of their faults craves pardon: or when a private man, that by any notable fault has bred common offense, does declare his repentance: or when he that for the unquietness of his conscience does need the help of the minister discloses his weakness to him. But there are diverse ways of taking away offense, because although thereby also the peace of conscience is provided for, yet the principal end is that hatred should be taken away, and men's minds knit together with a bond of peace. But this use that I have spoken of is not to be despised, that we may the more willingly confess our sins. For when the whole church stands as it were before the judgment seat of God, confesses itself guilty, and has one only refuge to the mercy of God: it is no slender or light comfort to have there present Christ's ambassador, having commandment of reconciliation, of whom it may hear absolution pronounced to it. Here the profitableness of the keys is worthily commended, when this ambassage is performed rightly, and with such order and religiousness as befits it. Likewise when he that had in a manner estranged himself from the Church, receives pardon and is restored into brotherly unity: how great a benefit is it that he understands himself to be forgiven by them, to whom Christ has said: To whoever you forgive sins on earth, they shall be forgiven in heaven. And of no less effectualness and profit is private absolution, when it is asked by them that have need of special remedy to relieve their weakness. For it happens oftentimes, that he which hears the general promises that are directed to the whole congregation of the faithful, remains nevertheless in some doubt, and has still an unquiet mind, as though he had not yet obtained pardon: and the same man, if he has disclosed to his parson the secret sore of his mind, and hears peculiarly directed to himself that saying of the Gospel, "Your sins are forgiven you, be of good hope," establishes his mind to assuredness and is delivered from that trembling with which he was before tormented. But when we speak of the keys, we must take heed that we dream not of a certain power severed from the preaching of the Gospel. In another place we shall have occasion more fully to declare this matter again, where we shall treat of the governance of the church: and there shall we see that all the power to bind and to loose, which Christ has given to his church, is bound to the word. But this is most true in the ministry of the keys, the whole force of which stands in this, that the grace of the Gospel be publicly and privately sealed up in the hearts of the faithful, by them whom the Lord has ordained: which can not be done but by only preaching.

But what say the Romish divines? They decree that every one of either kind, as soon as they come to the years of discretion, must yearly at least once confess all their sins to their own priest: and that their sin is not forgiven, unless they have firmly conceived an intent to confess it: which intent if they perform not when occasion is offered that they may do it, there is now no more entry open for them into Paradise. And that the priest has the power of the keys, with which he may loose and bind a sinner: because the word of Christ is not in vain, "Whatever you bind," etc. About this power they stoutly fight among themselves. Some say that there is but one key in substance, that is the power to bind and loose, and as for knowledge, that it is indeed requisite for a good use, but that it is only as an accessory and is not essentially joined with the other. Some other, because they saw this to be too much an unbridled license, have reckoned up two keys, discretion and power. Others again, when they saw the lewd boldness of priests to be restrained by this moderation, have forged other keys, that is to say, authority of discerning which they should use in giving determinate sentence: and power, which they should practice in executing of their sentence: and that knowledge stands by as a counselor. But they dare not simply expound this binding and loosing to be to forgive and put away sins, because they hear the Lord crying out in the Prophet: "It is I, and none other but I: it is I, it is I that put away your sins, O Israel." But they say it is the priest's office to pronounce who be bound or loosed, and to declare whose sins are forgiven or retained: and that he does declare it, either by confession when he absolves and retains sins, or by sentence when he excommunicates and receives again to partaking of the Sacraments. Finally, when they understand that they be not yet out of this doubt, but that it still may be objected against them, that oftentimes their priests do bind and loose men unworthy, which are not therefore bound or loosed in heaven: then (which is their last refuge) they answer that the giving of the keys must be construed with a limitation, that is to say, that Christ has promised, that before his judgment seat such sentence of the priest shall be allowed as has been justly pronounced, according as the deservings of him that is bound or loosed did require. Moreover they say, that these keys are given by Christ to all priests, and are delivered to them by their bishops, at the time of their promotion to priesthood: but the free use of them remains only with such as do exercise Ecclesiastical offices: and that the excommunicated and suspended priests have indeed the keys, but rusty and bound up. And they that say these things may well seem modest and sober in comparison of the rest, which [reconstructed: upon a new anvil] have forged new keys, with which they say the treasure of the church is locked up. These keys we shall hereafter try in a place fit for it.

Now I will in few words answer to every one of these particularly. But at this present I speak not by what right or what wrong they bind the souls of the faithful with their laws, for as much as we will consider that when place serves. But where they charge men with a law of reckoning up all their sins: where they say that sin is not forgiven but upon condition, if there be an intent conceived to confess it: where they babble that there remains no entry into Paradise, if occasion of confessing be neglected: this is in no wise to be suffered. Must all sins be reckoned up? But David (who as I think) had well studied upon the confession of his sins, yet cried out: who shall understand his errors? Lord cleanse me from my secret sins. And in another place: My iniquities have passed above my head, and like a weighty burden have grown heavy above my strength. Truly, he understood how great was the bottomless depth of our sins: how many were the sorts of our mischievous doings, how many heads this monster Hydra did bear, and how long a tail she drew after her. Therefore he went not about to reckon up a register of them, but out of the depth of evils, he cried to the Lord: I am overwhelmed, I am buried and choked, the gates of hell have surrounded me, let your hand draw me out, who am drowned in the great pit, and am fainting and ready to die. Who now may think upon the numbering of his sins, when he sees that David can make no number of his?

With this butchery, the souls that have been touched with any feeling of God, have been more cruelly vexed. First they called themselves to account: then they divided sins into arms, into boughs, into branches, and into twigs, according to these men's rules: then they weighed the qualities, quantities, and circumstances. And so the matter went a little forward. But when they had proceeded a little further, then was on each side sky, and on each side sea, no haven, no safe road: the more that they had passed over, the greater heap always did thrust itself into their sight, yea they rose up as high mountains, and there appeared no hope, not so much as after long wanderings, any way to escape. And so they did stick fast between the sacrifice and the stone, and at last was found no other issue but desperation. Then these cruel butchers, to ease the wounds that themselves had made, [reconstructed: laid] certain gentle plasters, that every man should do as much as he could. But new cares again rose up, yea new torments did slay the silly souls, as to think: I have not employed time enough, I have not endeavored myself with such diligence as I ought, I have passed over many things by negligence and the forgetfulness that comes by negligence is not excusable. Then were there ministered other plasters to assuage such pains, as: Repent of your negligence: if it be not altogether careless, it shall be pardoned. But all these things cannot close up the wound, and are not so much easement of the evil, as poisons covered with honey, that they should not with their bitterness offend the first taste, but enter into the bowels before that they be perceived. Therefore this terrible saying always calls upon them and sounds in their ears: Confess all your sins. And this horror cannot be appeased but by assured comfort. Here let the readers consider, how possible it is to bring into account all the doings of a whole year, and to gather together what sins they have done every day: for as much as experience proves to every man, that when at evening he shall reckon up the faults but of one day, his memory is confounded therewith, so great a multitude and diversity presents itself. For I speak now of gross and blockish hypocrites that think they have done sufficiently, if they have noted three or four of the greatest sins: but I speak of the true worshippers of God, which when they see themselves oppressed with the examination that they have made, do add also this saying of John: If our own heart does accuse us, God is greater than our heart: and so they quake for fear at the sight of that judge, whose knowledge far surmounts our understanding.

But whereas a great part of the world rested themselves upon such flatteries, wherewith so deadly a poison was tempered, this came not so to pass, because they believed that God was satisfied, or because they themselves were fully satisfied: but that the anchor cast as it were in the middle sea, should rest a little from sailing, or as a wayfaring man weary and fainting, should lie down in the way. I labor not much in proving this. For every man may be witness to himself. I will in a short sum show, what manner of law this was. First, simply it is impossible, and therefore it can do nothing but destroy, damn, confound, and cast into ruin and desperation. And then when it has led sinners from the true feeling of their sins, it makes them hypocrites and ignorant of God and themselves. For while they are wholly busied in reckoning up their sins, in the meantime they forget the secret sink of vices, their hidden iniquities, and inward filthiness, by knowledge of which they should chiefly have weighed their misery. But this was a most certain rule of confession, to acknowledge and confess the bottomless depth of our evil to be so great as passes our understanding. After this rule we see that the Publican's confession was made. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner: as if he should say: All that ever I am, I am altogether a sinner, and I cannot attain with wit or express with tongue the greatness of my sins: let the bottomless depth of your mercy swallow up the bottomless depth of my sin. But then you will say, what? Are not all our sins to be confessed? Is no confession acceptable to God, but that which is knit up in these two words, I am a sinner? No, but rather we must endeavor ourselves as much as in us lies, to pour out our heart before the Lord, and not only in one word confess ourselves sinners, but also truly and heartily acknowledge ourselves to be such: and with all our thought record, how great and diverse is our filth of sins, not only that we be unclean, but what, how great, and in how many parts is our uncleanness: not only that we be debtors, but with how great debts we be laden, and how many ways charged: not only that we be wounded, but also with how many and deadly strokes we be wounded. With this acknowledging, when the sinner has wholly poured out himself before God, let him earnestly and sincerely think, that yet there remain more sins, and that the secret corners of their evils are so deep, that they cannot be thoroughly disclosed. And he cries out with David: Who understands his errors? Lord, cleanse me from my hidden sins. Now where they affirm, that sins are not forgiven but with an intent of confessing firmly conceived, and that the gate of paradise is shut against him that neglects occasion offered when he may be confessed, God forbid that we should grant them that. For there is no other forgiveness of sins, than always has been. It is not read that all they have confessed their sins in the ear of some priest, that we read to have obtained forgiveness of sins at Christ's hand. And truly, they could not confess, where there were neither any priests as confessors, nor any confessing at all. And in many ages after, this confession was unheard of, at which time sins were forgiven without this condition. But that we may not need to dispute longer about this, as about a doubtful matter, the word of God is plain, which abides forever: Whenever the sinner repents, I will no more remember all his iniquities. He that dares add anything to this word, binds not sins, but the mercy of God. For whereas they say, that judgment cannot be given but when the cause is heard, we have a solution in readiness, that they do presumptuously take that upon themselves, who have made themselves judges. And it is a marvel, that they do so boldly frame to themselves such principles, as no man in his right wit will grant. They boast that the office of Binding and Loosing is committed to them, as though it were a certain jurisdiction joined with Inquisition. Moreover their whole doctrine cries out, that this authority was unknown to the Apostles. Neither does it belong to the priest, but to him which desires absolution, to know certainly whether the sinner be loosed or no: inasmuch as he that hears can never know whether the reckoning be just and perfect. So should there be no absolution but such as is restrained to his words that is to be judged. Moreover the whole order of loosing stands of faith and repentance, which two things are hidden from the knowledge of man, when sentence must be given upon another man. It follows therefore that the assurance of binding and loosing is not subject to the judgment of an earthly judge: because the minister of the word, when he does his office, can not give absolution but conditionally: but that this is spoken for the sins' sake, Whose sins you forgive, and so forth, that they should not doubt that the pardon which is promised by the commandment and word of God, shall be ratified in heaven.

Therefore it is no marvel, if we condemn and desire to have utterly taken away this auricular confession, a thing so pestilent and so many ways hurtful to the Church: but if it were a thing by itself indifferent, yet for as much as it is to no use nor profit, and has given cause to so many wickednesses, sacrileges and errors, who will not think that it ought to be presently abolished? They do indeed reckon up some good uses, which they boast upon as very profitable, but these are either false or of no value at all. They only commend with a singular prerogative, that shame is a great punishment of him that confesses, whereby the sinner both is for time to come made warier, and prevents the punishment of God in punishing himself. As though we did not humble a man with shame enough, when we call him to that high judgment seat of heaven, I mean to the hearing of God. It is truly very well profited, if for shame of one man's knowledge we cease to sin, and are not ashamed to have God witness of our evil conscience. Although the very same is also most false, for it is to be seen that by nothing grows greater confidence or licentiousness to sin, than when men having made confession to a priest, think that they may wipe their mouth and say, I did it not. And not only they are made all the year long the bolder to sin: but all the rest of the year bearing themselves bold upon confession, they never sigh to God, they never return to themselves, but heap sins upon sins, till they vomit up all at once as they think. And when they have once vomited them up, they think themselves discharged of their burden, and that they have taken away from God the judgment that they have given to the priest, and that they have brought God into forgetfulness, when they have made the priest privy. Moreover who does merrily see the day of confession at hand? Who goes to confession with a cheerful heart, and comes not to it rather against his will, and as it were drawing backward, like as if he were taken by the neck and drawn to prison? Unless perhaps it be the very priests, that use joyfully to delight themselves with mutual rehearsals of their doings, as it were with merry tales? I will not defile much paper with monstrous abominations whereof auricular confession swerves full. Only this I say, If that holy man did not unwisely, that for one rumor of fornication took away confession out of his Church, indeed, out of the remembrance of his flock: then we are thereby put in mind what is needful to be done at this day upon infinite whoredoms, adulteries, incests and bawdries.

Where the Confessors allege for this purpose the power of the keys, and do thereupon set the [reconstructed: pomp and power] of their kingdom, as the proverb is: it is to be seen how much they ought to avail. Then (say they) are the keys given without cause? Is it said without cause: Whatever you loose upon earth, shall be also loosed in heaven? Do we then make the word of Christ void? I answer there was a weighty cause why the keys should be given, as both I have even now already declared, and shall more plainly show again when I come to treat of Excommunication. But what if I do with one sword cut off the hold of all that they require, that is with saying, that sacrificing priests are not the vicars nor successors of the Apostles? But this shall also be to be treated of in another place: but now they raise up an engine whereby they would most of all defend themselves, and thereby may all their buildings be overthrown. For Christ did not give his Apostles the power to bind and loose, before that he gave them the Holy Ghost. Therefore I say, that none have the power of the keys that have not first received the Holy Ghost. I deny that any man can use the keys, but having the Holy Ghost going before and teaching him and informing him what is to be done. They frivolously say, that they have the Holy Ghost: but indeed they deny it, unless perhaps they feign (as they do feign indeed) the Holy Ghost to be a vain thing and a thing of nothing, but therein they shall not be believed. And by this engine they are utterly overthrown, that of whatever door they boast that they have the key, a man may always ask them whether they have the Holy Ghost which is the judge and governor of the keys. If they answer that they have, then they may be asked again, whether the Holy Ghost may err. This they will not be glad to speak expressly, although they crookedly utter the same by their doctrine. It is therefore to be gathered, that no priests have power of the keys who do commonly without consideration loose those things that the Lord would have to be bound, and bind those things that the Lord commanded to be loosed.

Whereas they see themselves convinced by most clear experiments, that they do without choice loose and bind the worthy and unworthy, they usurp a power without knowledge. And although they dare not deny that knowledge is requisite for a good use, yet they write that the very power is given to evil disposers of it. But this is the power: whatever you bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven. Either the promise of Christ must lie, or they that have this power do well bind and loose. Neither may they dally and say, that the saying of Christ is limited according to the deservings of him that is bound or loosed. And we also confess, that none can be bound or loosed, but they that are worthy to be bound or loosed. But the messengers of the Gospel and the Church have the word, by which they measure this worthiness; in this word the messengers of the Gospel may promise to all men forgiveness of sins in Christ by faith, they may proclaim damnation to all and upon all that embrace not Christ. In this word the Church pronounces that fornicators, adulterers, thieves, man-slayers, covetous men, unjust men, have no part in the kingdom of God, and binds such with most sure bonds. With the same word the Church loosens them whom it comforts being repentant. But what power shall this be, not to know what is to be bound or loosed, and not to be able to bind or loose without knowledge? Why then do they say that they loose by authority given to them, when the loosing is uncertain? What have we to do with this imaginary power, if there be no use of it? But I have already proved that either there is no use of it, or so uncertain a use as may be counted for none at all. For whereas they confess that there is a great part of priests that do not rightly use the keys, and that the power without lawful use is of no effect — who shall assure me that he of whom I am loosed is a good user of the keys? If he be an evil user of it, what has he but such a void disposing of them, as to say: what is to be found or loosed in you I know not, for as much as I lack the right use of the keys, but if you deserve it I loose you. But so much might do, I will not say a layman (for they could not bear that with patient ears) but a Turk, or a Devil. For it is as much as to say: I have not the word of God the sure rule of loosing, but there is power given me to loose you, if your deservings be so. We see therefore what they meant, when they defined the keys to be the authority of discerning, and power of executing: and that knowledge is adjoined for a counselor, and like a counselor serves for a good use — undoubtedly even they desired to reign at their own will, licentiously, without God and his word.

If any man take exception and say, that the lawful ministers of Christ shall be no less doubtful in their office, because the absolution that hangs upon faith shall always remain doubtful: and then that sinners shall have either none or a cold comfort, because the minister himself who is no competent judge of their faith, cannot be assured of their absolution — we have an answer to that in readiness. For they say that no sins are forgiven by the priest, but such whereof himself has been the hearer: so by their opinion, the forgiveness hangs upon the judgment of the priest, and if he does not wisely discern who be worthy of pardon, the whole doing is void and of no effect. Finally the power whereof they speak, is a jurisdiction adjoined to examination, to which pardon and absolution is restrained. In this point is found no sure ground, but rather it is a bottomless depth. For where the confession is not found, the hope of pardon is also lame, and then the priest himself must needs stick in suspense while he cannot tell, whether the sinner does faithfully reckon up all his evil deeds. Finally (such is the ignorance and rudeness of priests) the most part are no fitter to do this office, than a shoemaker is to plow the ground, and the rest in a manner all ought worthily to suspect themselves. From this therefore rises the perplexity and doubtfulness of the Pope's absolution, because they will have it grounded upon the person of the priest, and not only that, but also upon knowledge, that he may judge only of things informed, examined and proved. Now if a man should ask of these good doctors, whether a sinner be reconciled to God, when some sins are forgiven: I see not what they have to answer, but that they shall be compelled to confess that all is unprofitable, that the priest pronounces of the forgiveness of those sins that he has heard rehearsed, so long as the other sins are not delivered from condemnation. On the behalf of him that confesses how hurtful carefulness holds his conscience bound, it appears hereby, that when he rests upon the priest's discretion, as they call it, he can determine nothing certainly by the word of God. The doctrine that we teach is free and clear from all these absurdities. For the absolution is conditional, that the sinner should trust that God is merciful to him, so that he sincerely seeks the cleansing of his sins in the sacrifice of Christ, and obeys the grace offered him. So he cannot err, who according to the office of a preacher, proclaims that which is given him in instructions by the word of God. And the sinner may embrace a sure and clear absolution, when that simple condition is annexed of the embracing the grace of Christ, according to that general doctrine of the master himself (Matthew 9:29): Be it done to you according to your faith. Which has been wickedly despised in the Papacy.

How foolishly they confound those things that the Scripture teaches of the power of keys, I have promised that I will speak in another place, and there shall be a more convenient place for it, when I come to treat of the government of the church. But let the readers remember that those things are wrongfully wrested to auricular and secret confession, which are spoken by Christ partly of the preaching of the gospel, and partly of excommunication. Therefore when they object that the power of loosing is given to the Apostles, which priests may use in forgiving sins acknowledged to them, it is plain that they take a false and foolish principle: because the absolution that serves faith, is nothing else but a witness of pardon taken out of the free promise of the gospel. As for the other confession, that hangs upon the discipline of the Church, it pertains nothing to secret sins, but rather to example, that the common offense of the church may be taken away. But whereas they scrape together here and there testimonies, to prove that it suffices not to confess sins either to God only or to laymen, unless a priest be the hearer of them, their labor therein is but lewd, and such as they may be ashamed of. For when the ancient fathers counsel sinners to unburden themselves to their own pastor, it cannot be expounded of particular rehearsal which then was not in use. Then, Lombard and such like (such was their sinister dealing) seem of set purpose to have given themselves to feigned books, by pretense whereof they might deceive the simple. They do indeed truly confess, that because absolution always accompanies repentance, therefore there properly remains no bond when a man is touched with repentance, although he has not yet confessed, and therefore that then the priest does not so much forgive sins as pronounce and declare them forgiven. Albeit in the word of declaring they slyly bring in a gross error, thrusting a ceremony in place of doctrine. But whereas they patch to it, that he is absolved in the face of the church that had already obtained pardon before God: they do inconveniently draw to the peculiar use of every particular man, that which we have already said to be appointed for common discipline, where the offense of a heinous and notorious fault is to be taken away. But by and by after, they deprave and corrupt moderation, adding another manner of forgiving, with an enjoining of penalty and satisfaction, wherein they presumptuously claim to their own sacrifices a power to part that in halves, which God has in all places promised us whole together. For when he simply requires repentance and faith, this partition or exception is a very robbery of God. For it is in effect as much as if the priest taking upon the person of a Tribune, should become intercessor to God, and would not suffer God of his mere liberality to receive him into favor, that has lain prostrate before the Tribune's seats, and there has been punished.

The whole sum comes to this point, that if they will make God the author of this counterfeit confession, therein is their falsehood condemned, as I have proved them false forgers in the few places that they allege. But since it is evident that it is a law made by men, I say that it is both tyrannical and made injuriously against God, who binding men's consciences to his word, will have them free from the bondage of men. Now when for the obtaining of pardon, there is a necessity prescribed of that thing which the Lord would to be free, I say that this is a sacrilege not to be suffered, because there is nothing more properly belonging to God, than to forgive sins, wherein consists salvation for us. Moreover I have showed that this tyranny was first brought in, when the world was oppressed with filthy barbarousness. I have also taught that it is a pestilent law, that either throws down headlong into desperation the poor souls in whoever abides a fear of God: or where there reigns carelessness, delights them with vain flatteries, and so makes them duller. Last of all I have declared, that whatever mitigations they bring, tend to no other end, but to entangle, darken and deprave pure doctrine, and hide ungodlinesses with deceitful colors.

The third place in repentance they assign to satisfaction, of which all that they ever babble may be overthrown with one word. They say that it is not enough for him that repents, to abstain from his former evils, and change his behavior into better, unless he make satisfaction to God for those things that he has done: and that there be many helps by which we may redeem sins, as weepings, fastings, oblations, and the works of charity. With these we must win the Lord to be favorable, with these we must pay our debts to the righteousness of God, with these we must make amends for our defaults, with these we must deserve pardon. For although by the largesse of his mercy he has forgiven our fault, yet by the discipline of his justice he retains the penalty, and that this is the penalty that must be redeemed with satisfactions. But in effect all that they say comes to this point, that we do indeed obtain pardon of our sins at the mercifulness of God, but by means of the deserving of our works, by which the offense of our sins may be recompensed, that due satisfaction may be fully made to God's righteousness. Against such lies, I set the free forgiveness of sins, than which there is nothing more evidently spoken of in the Scripture. First, what is forgiveness, but a gift of mere liberality? For the creditor is not said to forgive, that acknowledges by acquittance that the money is paid, but he that without any payment willingly of his own liberality cancels the debtor's bond. Secondly, why is this word, Freely, added, but to take away all opinion of satisfaction? With what confidence therefore do they yet set up their satisfactions, that are struck down with so mighty a thunderbolt? But what? when the Lord cries out by Isaiah, It is I, it is I, that do put away iniquities for my own sake, and will not be mindful of your sins: does he not openly declare, that he fetches the cause and foundation of forgiveness only from his own goodness? Moreover whereas the whole Scripture bears this witness of Christ, that forgiveness of sins is to be received by his name, does it not thereby exclude all other names? Now then do they teach that it is received by the name of satisfactions? Neither can they deny that they give this to satisfactions, although they say that the same be used as helps by way of means. For whereas the Scripture says By the name of Christ, it means that we bring nothing, we allege nothing of our own, but rest upon the only commendation of Christ. As Paul, where he affirms that God is reconciling the world to himself in Christ, for his sake not imputing to men their sins, he immediately shows the means and manner how: because he that was without sin, was made sin for us.

But such is their perverseness: they say that both forgiveness of sins and reconciliation are performed both at one time, when we are in baptism received into the favor of God by Christ: that after baptism we must rise again by satisfactions: and that the blood of Christ profits nothing, but so far as it is distributed by the keys of the Church. Neither do I speak of a doubtful matter, for as much as they have in most evident writings betrayed their own filthiness, and not one or two of them, but all the Schoolmen universally. For their Master, after that he had confessed that Christ had paid the penalty of sins upon the tree, according to the doctrine of Peter, immediately corrects his saying with adding this exception, that in baptism all temporal penalties of sins are released, but after baptism they are diminished by the help of penance, that so the cross of Christ and our penance may work together. But John says far otherwise, if any sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ which is the propitiation for our sins. I write to you children, because your sins are forgiven you for his names sake. Truly he speaks to the faithful, to whom when he sets forth Christ to be the propitiation of sins, he shows that there is no other satisfaction by which God, being displeased, may be made favorable and appeased. He does not say: God was once reconciled to you by Christ, now seek you other means: but he makes him a perpetual advocate, always to restore us by his intercession into the favor of his father: a perpetual propitiation, by which our sins may be cleansed away. For this is ever true that the other John said: Behold, the Lamb of God, behold him that takes away the sins of the world. He takes them away (says he himself and none other, that is to say: for as much as he alone is the Lamb of God, he alone also is the oblation for sins, he alone the propitiation sacrifice, he alone the satisfaction. For whereas the right and power to forgive belongs properly to the father, in the respect that he is distinguished from the son, as we have already seen: Christ is here set in another degree, that taking upon himself the penalty due to us, he has taken away our guilt before the judgment of God. Whereupon follows, that we shall no otherwise be partakers of the satisfaction made by Christ, unless the same honor remain whole with him, which they do wrongfully take to themselves that go about to appease God with their own recompensings.

And here it is good to consider two things: that Christ may have his due honor kept to him whole and undiminished: and that the consciences being assured of the forgiveness of sin, may have peace with God. Isaiah says, that the Father has laid the iniquities of us all upon his Son, that we should be healed by his stripes. Which thing Peter rehearsing in other words says: that Christ did in his body bear our sins upon the tree. Paul writes that sin was condemned in his flesh, when he was made sin for us. That is to say, that the force and curse of sin was slain in his flesh, when he was given to be a sacrifice, upon which the whole heap of our sins, with all their malediction and curse, with the dreadful judgment of God, and condemnation of death should be cast. Here those [reconstructed: triflings] are in no case to be heard, that after the first purging, every one of us does none otherwise feel the effectiveness of the passion of Christ, than after the measure of satisfactory repentance: but so often as we fall, we be called back to the only satisfaction of Christ. Now set before you their pestilent follies, as for example: That the grace of God works alone in the first forgiveness of sins: that if we afterward fall, to the obtaining of a second forgiveness our works do work with it. If these things may have place, do these things that are here before assigned to Christ remain safe to him? It is a marvelous great difference, between this that our iniquities are laid upon Christ, that they should be cleansed in him, and this that they are cleansed by our own works: between this that Christ is the procuring of mercy, and this that God must be made merciful by works. But if we speak of pacifying the conscience: what pacification shall this be for a man's conscience, to hear that his sins are redeemed by satisfactions? When shall he certainly know the measure of his satisfaction? Therefore he shall always doubt whether he have God merciful or no, he shall always be [reconstructed: vexed], and always quake for fear. For they that rest upon light [reconstructed: petty] satisfactions, do too contemptuously esteem the judgment of God, [reconstructed: and] do little consider how great is the grievousness of sin, as we [reconstructed: shall] declare in another place. But although we grant them to redeem some sins with just satisfaction: yet what will they do when they are oppressed with so many sins, for satisfaction whereof a hundred lives although they were wholly applied thereto cannot suffice? Besides that, all the places wherein the forgiveness of sins is affirmed, do not belong to younglings, but to the already regenerate children of God, and them that have been long nourished in the bosom of the church. That message which Paul so honorably extols, I beseech you in the name of God, be reconciled to God, is not directed to strangers, but to them that had been already regenerate. But he, bidding satisfactions farewell, sends them to the cross of Christ. So when he writes to the Colossians, that Christ by the blood of the cross has pacified all things in heaven or in earth, he restrains not this to the only moment wherein we are received into the church, but extends it to our whole course. Which easily appears by the process of the text, where he says, that the faithful have a redemption by the blood of Christ, that is forgiveness of sins. Albeit it is [reconstructed: superfluous] to heap together more places, that readily offer themselves to be found.

Here they [reconstructed: fly] to the sanctuary of the foolish distinction, that some sins are venial, and some deadly: that for deadly sins is great satisfaction due, that venial sins are purged with more easy remedies, as with saying of the Lord's Prayer, with sprinkling of holy water, with absolution at the mass. So they mock and trifle with God. But whereas they always have in their mouth venial and deadly sin, yet they could never discern the one from the other, saving that they make ungodliness and uncleanness of heart, a venial sin. But we (as the Scripture the rule of right and wrong teaches us) do pronounce, that the reward of sin is death, and that the soul that sins is worthy of death. But that the sins of the faithful are venial, not for that they do not deserve death, but because by the mercy of God there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, because they are not imputed, because they are taken away by pardon. I know how unjustly they slander this our doctrine. For they say, that it is the Stoics' strange conclusion, concerning the equality of sins. But they shall easily be convinced by their own mouth. For I demand of them, whether among the very same sins that they confess to be deadly, they do not acknowledge one to be greater than another. It does not therefore immediately follow, that sins are equal, because they are all together deadly. When the Scripture definitively says, that the reward of sin is death, that the obedience of the law is the way of life, and that the [reconstructed: transgression] of the law is death, they cannot escape this sentence. What end [reconstructed: of] satisfying then will they find in so great a heap of sins? If the satisfaction of one day be the satisfaction of one sin, while they are about that one satisfaction, they wrap themselves in many sins, since the justest man passes no one day wherein he falls not many times. Now when they shall prepare themselves to make satisfaction for these sins, they shall heap up great numbers, yea rather innumerable. Then the hope of satisfying being cut off, what do they stay upon? How dare they still think of satisfying?

They go about to wind out themselves: but (as the proverb is) the water still cleaves upon them. They forge a distinction of fault and penalty. They confess that the fault is forgiven by the mercy of God, but that when the fault is forgiven, the penalty remains which the righteousness of God requires to be paid: and that satisfactions do properly belong to the release of the penalty. Good God, what a skipping lightness is this? Now they confess that the forgiveness of the fault lies freely open for men, which sometime they teach men to deserve with prayers and weepings, and all other kinds of preparations. But yet still all that is taught us in the scripture concerning the forgiveness of sins, does directly fight against this distinction. Which although I think that I have already more than sufficiently confirmed, yet I will add some other testimonies wherewith these winding snakes may be held so fast, that they shall not be able once to fold in the top of their tail. This is the new Testament which the Lord has covenanted with us in his Christ, that he will not remember our iniquities. What he meant by these words, we learn by another Prophet where the Lord says: If the righteous turn away from his righteousness, I will not remember all his righteousnesses. If the wicked depart from his wickedness, I will not remember all his iniquities. Whereas he says that he will not remember their righteousness, this is as much to say, that he will have no regard of them in respect to reward them. Therefore not to remember sins, is as much as not to call them to punishment. The same thing is called in another place, to cast it behind his back, to wipe it away like a cloud, to drown it in the bottom of the sea, not to impute it and to hide it. By such manners of speech the Holy Ghost does plainly express his meaning to us, if we would apply to him willing ears to learn. Truly if God does punish sins, he imputes them: if he takes vengeance, he remembers them: if he calls them to judgment, he does not hide them: if he examines them, he does not cast them behind his back: if he looks upon them, he has not wiped them away like a cloud: if he sifts them, he has not cast them into the bottom of the sea. And in this manner does Augustine expound it in plain words. If God has covered sins, then he would not look upon them: if he would not look upon them, then he would not mark them: if he would not mark them, then he would not punish them: he would not know them, he had rather pardon them. Why therefore did he say that sins were covered, that they should not be seen: what was meant by this that God did see sins, but that he did punish them? But let us hear also out of another place of the Prophet, upon what conditions the Lord forgives sins. If (says he) your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow: if they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. And in Jeremiah we read thus: In that day the iniquity of Jacob shall be sought for, and shall not be found: the sin of Judah, and it shall not be. Because I will be favorable to the remnants that I shall preserve. Will you briefly understand what is the meaning of those words? Weigh on the other side what is meant by these speeches: that the Lord does bind up iniquities in a sack, does gather them into a bundle and lay them up, and does engrave them with an iron point on an adamant stone. If they signify (as it is out of doubt) that vengeance shall be given for recompense, then is it also not to be doubted, but that by contrary sentences the Lord affirms, that he remits all recompensing of vengeance. Here I must beseech the readers not to hearken to my glosses, but only that they will suffer the word of God to take some place.

What, I pray you, had Christ done for us, if we would still be compelled to suffer pain for sins? For when we say that he did bear all our sins in his body upon the tree, we mean nothing else thereby but that he suffered all the pain and punishment that was due to our sins. And the same has Isaiah more vividly declared where he says: the chastisement (or correction) of our peace, was upon him. What is the correction of our peace but the pain due to sin? And which we should have suffered before that we could be reconciled to God, unless that he had entered into our stead? Lo, you see plainly, that Christ suffered the pains of sins, to deliver them that be his from them. And as often as Paul makes mention of the redemption performed by Christ, he uses to call it in Greek Apolutrosin, whereby he means not only redemption, as it is commonly taken, but the very price and satisfaction of redemption. After which manner he writes, that Christ gave himself [reconstructed: antilutron], a price of ransom for us. What propitiation is there with the Lord (says Augustine) but sacrifice? And what sacrifice is there, but that which is offered for us in the death of Christ? But that which is appointed in the law of Moses for cleansing the offenses of sins, ministers to us a strong battering ram. For the Lord does not there appoint this or that manner of satisfying, but requires the whole recompense in sacrifices. Whereas yet in other things, he does most diligently and in most exact order set out all the ceremonies of expiation. Now it comes to pass, that he commands to recompense faults committed, with no works at all, but requires only sacrifices for satisfaction: but because his will is so to declare, that there is only one kind of satisfaction, whereby his judgment is appeased? For the sacrifices that the Israelites did then offer, were not weighed by the work of men, but were esteemed by their truth, that is to say, by the only sacrifice of Christ. But what manner of recompense the Lord receives of us, [reconstructed: Hosea] has very well expressed in few words. You shall (says he) take away iniquity, O God. Lo, here is forgiveness of sins. And we shall pay you calves of our lips. Lo, here is satisfaction. I know that they yet do subtly slip away, when they make distinction between everlasting pain, and temporal pains. But when they teach that temporal pain is any kind of punishment that God takes as well of the body as of the soul, except only everlasting death, this restraining of it does little help them. For the places that we have above recited, do expressly mean this, that God receives us into favor with this condition, that in pardoning the fault, he pardons all the pain whatever we had thereby deserved. And as often as David or the other Prophets do crave pardon of sins, they do also therewith pray to be released of the pain. Indeed, the very feeling of God's judgment does drive them thereto. Again, when they promise mercy at the Lord's hand, they do in a manner always of purpose preach of the pains and the forgiveness thereof. Truly when the Lord in Ezekiel pronounces that he will make an end of the exile in Babylon, and that for his own sake, not for the Jews' sake, he does sufficiently show that both are of free gift. Finally, if we be delivered by Christ from guilt of fault, the pains that come thereof, must needs cease.

But forasmuch as they do also arm themselves with testimonies of Scripture, let us see what manner of arguments those be that they allege. David (say they) being rebuked by Nathan the Prophet of adultery and manslaughter, received pardon of his sin, and yet he was afterward punished by the death of his son that he had gotten by that adultery. We are taught to redeem with satisfactions such pains as were to be extended after forgiveness of the fault. For Daniel advised Nebuchadnezzar to redeem his sins with alms. And Solomon writes that for equity and godliness, iniquities are forgiven. And in another place, that with charity the multitude of sins is covered. Which sentence Peter also confirms. Again, in Luke the Lord says of the woman that was a sinner, that many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much. Now perversely and wrongfully they ever weigh the doings of God. But if they had marked (as they should not have passed over) that there are two kinds of God's judgment, they would have seen in this rebuking of David, a far other manner of punishment, than such as might be thought to tend to revenge. But because it not a little behooves us all to understand what the chastisements have respect, with which God corrects us for our sins, and how much they differ from those examples with which he pursues the wicked and reprobate with indignation: therefore I think it shall be not beside the purpose to comprehend it briefly in summary. For the order of plain teaching, let us call the one kind of judgment, the judgment of Revenge, the other of Chastisement. It is to be understood, that God so punishes his enemies with the judgment of revenge, that he uses his wrath against them, confounds them, destroys them, and brings them to nothing. Therefore let us take that to be properly the vengeance of God, when his punishing is joined with his indignation: with the judgment of Chastisement he deals not so cruelly: as to be angry nor punishes to destroy, nor sends down his lightning to kill. Therefore it is not properly punishment or vengeance, but correction and admonishment. The one is the doing of a judge, the other of a father. For the judge when he punishes an evil doer, he has regard to the offense, and punishes the very fault: when the father somewhat rigorously corrects his child, he does it not to be revenged on him, or to punish him, but rather to teach him and make him [reconstructed: wary] in time to come. Chrysostom in a certain place uses a comparison somewhat differing from this, but yet it comes to the same point. The son (says he) is beaten, and the servant also is beaten: but the one is punished as a bondservant, because he has offended, and the other is chastised as a free man and as a son, needing correction. To the one his correction serves for [reconstructed: profit] and amendment, to the other for a scourge and punishment.

But that we may have the whole matter shortly and in a ready sum, let this be the first of two distinctions. Wherever punishment is to revenge, there it shows itself the curse and wrath of God, which he always withholds from the faithful. Contrariwise, chastisement both is a blessing of God, and bears a testimony of his love, as the Scripture teaches. This difference is commonly everywhere sufficiently expressed in the word of God. For whatever afflictions the wicked suffer in this present life, therein is painted out to us as it were a certain entry of hell, from where they do already see afar their eternal damnation: and they are so far from being amended or taking any profit thereby, that rather by such beginnings they are prepared to the most cruel hell that at length abides for them. But the Lord chastising chastises his servants, but he does not put them to death. Therefore they confess that to be beaten with his rod was good for them into true instruction. But as we read everywhere that the holy ones suffer such punishments with quiet mind, so they have always prayed to escape the first kind of scourges. Chastise me, Lord (says Jeremiah) but in your judgment, not in your wrath, lest you destroy me (Jeremiah 10:24). Pour out your wrath upon the nations that have not known you, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your name. And David says: Lord, rebuke me not in your wrath, nor correct me in your anger (Psalm 6:2; Psalm 38:2). And it makes nothing to the contrary, that oftentimes it is said that the Lord is angry with them that are his, when he punishes their sins. As in Isaiah: I will confess to you, O Lord, because you have been angry with me: your wrath is turned, and you have comforted me (Isaiah 12:1). Again, Habakkuk: You that have been angry shall remember mercy (Habakkuk 3:2). And Micah: I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him (Micah 7:9). Where he puts us in mind that not only they that are justly punished nothing prevail with murmuring against him, but also that the faithful have assuagement of their sorrows, in considering the purpose of God. For after the same manner it is said that he defiles his own inheritance, which yet (as we know) he will never defile. But that is spoken not in respect of the purpose or meaning of God that punishes, but of the vehement feeling of sorrow, which they feel that suffer any of his severity whatever it be. But he not only pricks his faithful with no small rigor, but sometimes so wounds them, that they think themselves not far from the damnation of hell. So he testifies that they have deserved his wrath, and so it is fitting that they should loathe themselves in their evils, and be touched with the greater care to appease God, and carefully make haste to crave pardon. But even in the very same doing he shows a more evident testimony of his favorable kindness than of his wrath. For the covenant continues that was made with us in our true Solomon: the truth of which he, that cannot deceive, has affirmed, that it shall never be made void. If (says he) his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments: if they defile my statutes, and keep not my commandments, I will visit their sins with a rod and with stripes: but I will not take away my mercy from him (Psalm 89:31; 2 Samuel 7:14). Of which mercy to make us assured, he says, that the rod with which he will correct the posterity of Solomon, shall be of men, and stripes of the children of men: by which clauses when he means moderation and leniency, he withal secretly declares, that they cannot but be confounded with extreme and deadly horror, that feel the hand of God to be against them. Now how great regard he has of this leniency in chastising his Israel, he shows in the Prophet: I have purged you (says he) in fire: But not as silver, for then you would have been all consumed (Isaiah 48:10). Albeit he teaches that chastisements serve him to cleanse him, but he further says that he uses the same so temperately, that he be not too much consumed by them. And that is needful. For the more that every man reverently fears God, and gives himself to follow godliness, so much the tenderer he is to bear his wrath. For the reprobate, although they groan under his scourges, yet for that they do not weigh the cause, but rather turn their back both to their own sins and to the judgment of God, by that slothfulness they gather a hardness: or because they murmur and kick against him, and make an uproar against their judge, that furious sudden rage astonishes them with madness and fury. But the faithful being admonished by his correction, immediately descend to consider their sins, and being stricken with dread and horror, they flee in humble wise to pray to him for pardon, unless the Lord did assuage these sorrows with which the poor souls torment themselves, they would faint a hundred times even in small tokens of his wrath.

Then let this be the second distinction, that when the reprobate are stricken with the scourges of God, they do already after a certain manner begin to suffer pains by his judgment, and though they shall not escape unpunished, for that they have not taken heed to such tokens of the wrath of God, yet they are not punished to this end, to make them come to a better mind: but only that, to their great hurt, they should prove God to be a judge and avenger. But children are beaten with rods, not that they should thereby be punished of God for their sins, but that they should thereby profit to amendment. Therefore we take it that they rather have respect to the time to come, than to the time past. This I had rather express in Chrysostom's words than my own. For this, says he, God does lay pain upon us, not punishing our sins past, but correcting us against time to come. And so says Augustine: That which you suffer, that for which you lament, is a medicine to you and no pain, a chastisement and no damnation. Put not away the scourge, if you will not be put away from the inheritance, etc. Know, brothers, that all this misery of mankind when the world groans is a medicinal sorrow, and not a penal sentence, etc. These sentences I have therefore thought good to allege, that the manner of speech that I have above written, should not seem to any man new and unused. And to this end serve all the complaints full of indignation wherein the Lord oftentimes does expostulate of the unkindness of the people, for that they stiffly despised all punishments. In Isaiah he says: To what purpose should I strike you any more: from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, there is no whole place. But because the Prophets are full of such sayings, it shall be sufficient to have briefly shown that God does punish his church for no other intent, but that it should be tamed and amended. Therefore when he did cast Saul out of the kingdom, he punished him to vengeance: when he took from David his young son, he corrected him to amendment. According to this meaning is that to be taken which Paul says, when we are judged of the Lord, we are corrected, that we should not be condemned with this world. That is, when we that be the children of God are afflicted with the hand of our heavenly father, this is no pain with which we should be confounded, but only a chastisement with which we should be instructed. In which point Augustine is plainly on our side. For he teaches that the pains with which men are alike chastised by God, are diversely to be considered: because to the holy ones they are battles and exercises after the forgiveness of their sins, to the reprobate they are without forgiveness pains of wickedness. In which place he recounts how pains were laid upon David and other godly men, and says that the same tended to this end, that their godliness should by such humbling of them, be exercised and proved. And where Isaiah says, that the Jewish people had their iniquity forgiven them, because they had received full chastisement at the Lord's hand: this proves not that the pardon of sins hangs upon the full payment of the pain: but it is in effect as much as if he had said: Because you have already suffered pains enough, and by the grievousness and multitude thereof have been now pined away with long mourning and sorrow, therefore it is now time that receiving the tidings of full mercy, your hearts should rejoice and feel me to be your father. For there God did take upon him the person of a father, which repents even of his just severity, when he was compelled sharply to correct his son.

With these thoughts it is necessary that the faithful be furnished in bitterness of afflictions. It is time that the judgment began at the house of the Lord, in which his name is called upon. What should the children of God do, if they did believe the severity of God that they feel to be his vengeance? For he that being stricken with the hand of God, imagines God a punishing judge, can not conceive him but angry and an enemy to him, and detests the very scourge of God as a curse and damnation. Finally he can never be persuaded that God loves him, who thinks him so minded toward him, that he is still minded to punish him. But he only profits under the rod of God, that thinks him to be angry with his sins, but merciful and loving to himself. For otherwise that must necessarily happen, which the Prophet complains that he felt, where he says: Your wrath, O God, has passed over me: your terrors have oppressed me. Also that which Moses writes, because we have fainted in your wrath: and we have been troubled in your indignation, you have set our iniquities in your sight, and our secrets in the light of your countenance: because all our days are gone away in your wrath: our years are consumed as the word that is passed out of a mouth. On the other side David says thus of his fatherly chastisements, to teach that the faithful are rather helped than oppressed thereby: Blessed is the man whom you have corrected, O Lord, and have instructed in your law, to give him quiet from evil days, while a pit is dug for the sinner. Truly it is a hard temptation, when God sparing the unbelievers and winking at their faults, seems more rigorous against them that be his. Therefore he gave them a cause of comfort, the admonishment of the law, by which they should learn, that it is done to provide for their salvation when they are called again into the way, and the wicked are carried headlong into their errors, whose end is the pit. And it is no difference whether the pain be everlasting or during for a time. For as well war, famine, pestilence, and sickness as the judgment of eternal death are the curses of God, when they are laid upon men to this end, to be instruments of the Lord's wrath and vengeance against the reprobate.

Now (as I think) all men do perceive where that chastisement of the Lord upon David tended: even to be an instruction that God is grievously displeased with manslaughter and adultery, against which he had shown so great an indignation in his beloved and faithful servant: that David should be taught to be no more so bold to do the like deed: and not to be a penalty by which he should make a certain recompense to God. And so is to be judged of the other kind of correction, whereby the Lord punished his people with a sore pestilence, for David's disobedience into which he had fallen in numbering the people. For he did indeed freely forgive David the guilt of his sin: but because it pertained both to the public example of all ages, and also to the humbling of David, that such a heinous offense should not remain unpunished: therefore he most sharply chastised him with his rod. Which mark also we ought to have before our eyes in the universal curse of mankind. For whereas after pardon obtained, we do all yet suffer the miseries that were laid upon our first parent for penalty of sin: we perceive ourselves by such exercises to be admonished, how grievously God is displeased with the transgression of his law: that being thrown down and humbled with knowledge in conscience of our own miserable estate, we may the more fervently aspire to true blessedness. But he shall be most foolish that shall think, that the calamities of this present life are laid upon us for the guilt of sin. And that I think was the meaning of Chrysostom when he wrote thus: If God does therefore lay penalties upon us, that he should call us, persevering in evils to repentance, then when repentance is once shown, the penalty shall be superfluous. Therefore, as he knows it to be expedient for every man's nature, so he handles one man more roughly, and another with more loving tenderness. Therefore where he intends to teach that he is not immeasurable in taking punishments, he reproaches to the hard-hearted and obstinate people that being stricken yet they make not an end of sinning. In this meaning he complains, that Ephraim was as a cake scorched on the one side, and raw on the other, because the corrections did not pierce into their minds, that the people having their vices boiled out, might be made fit to receive pardon. Truly he that so speaks, shows, that as soon as a man has repented, he will by and by become appeasable: and that by our stiffness he is enforced to that rigor in chastising of faults, which should have been prevented with willing amendment. Yet since we all are of such hardness and rudeness as universally needs chastisement: it seemed good to him being a most wise father, to exercise all without exception with a common scourge all their life long. But it is marvelous why they so cast their eyes upon the only example of David, and are not moved with so many examples, in which they might have beheld free forgiveness of sins. It is read that the publican went out of the temple justified. There followed no penalty. Peter obtained pardon of his offense, his tears we read (says Ambrose) his satisfaction we read not. And the man sick of the palsy heard it spoken to him: Rise, your sins are forgiven you. There was no penalty laid upon him. All the absolutions that are rehearsed in the Scripture, are set out as given freely. Out of this great number of examples, a rule should rather have been gathered than of that only example that contains in it a certain special matter.

Daniel in his exhortation in which he counsels Nebuchadnezzar to redeem his sins with righteousness, and his iniquities with pitying of the poor: his meaning was not to say, that righteousness and mercy are satisfactory appeasements of God, and redemption of penalties (for God forbid that there were ever any redemption except only the blood of Christ) but to refer this word Redeeming rather to men than to God as if he had said: O king, you have used an unrighteous and violent government, you have oppressed the humble, you have spoiled the poor, you have hardly and unjustly handled your people: for your unjust exactions, for your violence and oppression, now render to them mercy and righteousness. Likewise Solomon says, that with charity the multitude of sins is covered: not before God, but among men themselves. For thus is the whole verse: Hatred raises up contentions: but charity covers all iniquities. In which verse, as his manner is, he does by way of comparison of contraries, compare the evils that grow of hatreds, with the fruits of charity: in this meaning, they that hate together do one bite, bark at, reproach and rail at another, and turn all things to the worst: but they that love together, do dissemble many things among themselves, do wink at many things, and pardon many things one to the other: not that the one allows the other's faults, but bears with them, and helps them with admonishing, rather than galls them with reproaching them. And it is not to be doubted that Peter cites this place in the same sense, unless we will accuse him of depraving and wrongfully wresting the Scripture. But whereas he teaches that sin is purged with mercifulness and liberality, he does not mean that recompense is therewith made for sin before the face of the Lord, so that God being appeased by such satisfaction does release the penalty that otherwise he would have laid upon them, but after the accustomed manner of the Scripture he declares that they shall find him merciful to them that leaving their former vices and iniquities, do turn to him by godliness and truth: as if he should say, that the wrath of God does cease and his judgment rest, when we cease from our evil doings. Neither does he there describe the cause of pardon, but rather the manner of true conversion. As many times the Prophets do declare that hypocrites do in vain pester God with forged ceremonious usages in stead of repentance, whereas it is uprightness of life with the duties of charity that delights him. As also the author of the epistle to the Hebrews commending liberality and gentleness, teaches that such sacrifices please God. And when Christ, taunting the Pharisees that giving heed only to cleansing of dishes, they neglected the cleanness of the heart, commanded them to give alms that all might be clean: he did not thereby exhort them to make satisfaction: but only teaches what manner of cleanness pleases God. Of which kind of speech we have treated in another place.

As touching the place of Luke, no man that has with sound judgment read the parable that the Lord did there recite, will make us any controversy thereupon. The Pharisee thought with himself, that the Lord did not know the woman, which he had so easily received into his presence. For he thought that Christ would not have received her, if he had known her such a sinner as she was. And thereby he gathered, that Christ was not a Prophet that might in such sort be deceived. The Lord, to show that she was no sinner to whom her sins were already forgiven, did put out this parable. There were two debtors to one creditor upon usury: the one owed fifty, the other owed five hundred, both had their debts forgiven them. Which owes more thanks? The Pharisee answered: he to whom most is forgiven. The Lord replied: learn hereby that this woman's sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much. In which words (as you see) he makes not her love the cause, but the proof of the forgiveness of her sins. For they are derived upon a similitude of that [reconstructed: debtor], to whom five hundred was forgiven, to whom he did not say that therefore it was forgiven, because he had loved much: but therefore loved much, because it was forgiven. And to this must that similitude be applied in this sort. You think this woman to be a sinner: but you ought to know that she is no such, for as much as her sins be forgiven her. And that her sins be forgiven her, her love ought to prove to you, whereby she renders thanks for his benefit. It is an argument gathered of the following effect, whereby anything is proved by signs ensuing. By what means she obtained forgiveness of sins, the Lord openly testifies: Your faith, he says, has saved you. Therefore we obtain forgiveness by faith: By charity we give thanks, and testify the bountifulness of the Lord.

As for those things that are commonly found in the books of old writers concerning satisfaction, they little move me. I see indeed that many of them — I will speak plainly — in a manner all whose books remain, have either erred in this point, or spoken too crabbedly and hardly: but I will not grant that they were so rude and unskillful as to have written those things in that sense that the new Satisfactionists do read them. Chrysostom in one place writes thus: where mercy is required, examination ceases: where mercy is asked, judgment is not rigorous: where mercy is craved, there is no place for pain: where is mercy, there is no inquisition. Where is mercy, the answer is pardoned. Which words, however they be wrested, yet they can never be made to agree with the Schoolmen's doctrines. In the book of Ecclesiastical doctrines, which is attributed to Augustine, it is read thus: Satisfaction of repentance is, to cut off the causes of sins, and not to grant an entry to their suggestions. Whereby it appears that the doctrine of satisfaction that was said to be given in recompense for sins committed, was even in those times laughed to scorn: for as much as they refer all satisfaction to a heedfulness in abstaining from sins in time to come. I will not allege that which the same Chrysostom says, that he requires of us no more, but that we should confess our sins to him with tears: since such sentences are many times found in his writings and others. Augustine indeed in some places calls the works of mercy, remedies to obtain forgiveness of sins: but because no man should stumble at that little word, he himself prevents it in another place. The flesh of Christ (says he) the true and only sacrifice for sins, not only these sins that are wholly put away in baptism, but also these that afterward creep in by weakness: for which the whole church cries out at this day, Forgive us our trespasses. And they are forgiven by that singular sacrifice.

They have for the most part called satisfaction, not a recompense to be rendered to God, but an open declaration whereby they that had been excommunicate, when they would be received again to the communion, did assure the church of their repentance. For there were enjoined to them when they did repent certain fastings and other things, whereby they might persuade men that they were truly and heartily weary of their former life, or rather blot out the remembrance of their former doings: and so they were said to make satisfaction not to God, but to the Church. Which is also expressed by Augustine in these words in his Enchiridion to Laurence: Out of that ancient custom the confessions and satisfactions that are at this day used, took their beginning. Truly very viperous births, by which is [reconstructed: brought to pass], that there remains not so much as a shadow of the better form. I know that the old writers do sometimes speak somewhat hardly, and as I said even now, I do not deny that perhaps they erred herein. But those things that were besprinkled with a few spots, when they are once handled with these men's unwashed hands, are altogether defiled. And if we must contend with authority of old writers: good God, what old writers do they thrust upon us? A good part of those with which Peter Lombard their champion has botched up his patched Sentences, is gathered out of the unsavory dotages of certain monks that are carried about under the name of Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom. As about this present question he takes in a manner all out of Augustine's book of Repentance, which is foolishly botched of good and bad by some scraper together. It bears indeed the name of Augustine, but such a book as no man being but meanly learned, would vouchsafe to acknowledge for his. But whereas I do not so narrowly examine their follies, let the readers pardon me whom I would ease of that tediousness. For to me it should not be very laborious, and yet very plausible to expose to their great shame those things that they have heretofore boasted upon as mysteries, but because my purpose is to teach fruitfully, therefore I pass them over.

Now I will discuss what the scholastic theologians taught about repentance. I will cover it briefly, since I do not intend to treat everything — otherwise this book, which I am trying to keep concise, would grow into an enormous work. The scholastics have tangled this subject — which is not actually very difficult — in so many volumes that anyone who falls into their thicket will hardly find a way out. First, their definitions show that they never understood what repentance really is. They seize on certain sayings from the early writers that do not express the nature of repentance at all — such as: repentance is to weep for past sins and not to commit sins that need weeping for; or, to grieve over past evils and not commit new ones that must be grieved over. Again: that it is a kind of sorrowful self-punishment for what one is sorry to have done. Again: that it is sorrow of heart and bitterness of soul for the evils a person has committed or consented to. But even granting that these sayings were well put by the early writers — which a sharp critic could easily dispute — they were not meant as definitions of repentance. They were written simply to urge readers not to fall back into sins they had already escaped. If we try to turn every such word of encouragement into a formal definition, then other statements could be added with equal justification. Take Chrysostom's saying: repentance is a medicine that destroys sin, a gift given from heaven, a remarkable virtue, a grace surpassing the power of the law. And the doctrine they teach afterward is even worse than their definitions. They are so fixated on outward exercises that from all their endless volumes you can gather nothing except that repentance is a discipline and strictness that partly tames the flesh and partly punishes and chastises vices. They are remarkably silent about the inward renewal of the mind that brings genuine correction of life. They do talk a great deal about contrition and attrition, tormenting souls with many doubts and filling them with anxiety. But when they seem to have thoroughly wounded the heart, they soothe the pain with a light sprinkling of ceremonies. And having defined repentance in this way, they divide it into three parts: contrition of heart, confession by mouth, and satisfaction by works. This division is no more logical than their definition — despite the fact that they seem to have spent their whole lives constructing syllogisms. Now, if someone tries to prove by that very definition — which is considered conclusive in logic — that a person can weep for past sins and commit no more, can grieve over past evils and do no new ones, and can punish himself for what he is sorry to have done, without ever making oral confession: how will they defend their division? For if a truly repentant person never confesses, then repentance can exist without confession. If they answer that this division applies to repentance insofar as it is a sacrament, or that it describes the full perfection of repentance which their definitions do not capture — then they should not blame me. They should blame themselves for not giving a clearer and more precise definition. For my part, when anything is being debated, I refer everything back to the definition itself, which is the foundation of the whole discussion. But let that pass as their customary liberty. Now let us examine each of the parts in order. When I pass over their solemn mysteries as worthless trifles, I do so deliberately — not because I could not refute their supposedly deep and subtle arguments, but because I would consider it a wrong against my readers to weary them with such pointless material. It is easy to see from the questions they raise and wrestle with — and in which they hopelessly entangle themselves — that they are talking about things they do not understand. For example: does repentance for one's own sin please God when stubbornness persists in others? Again: do punishments God lays on a person count toward satisfaction? Again: can repentance be repeated for deadly sins? Here they make the wicked and shameful claim that daily penance is performed only for minor sins. They also trouble themselves greatly over a misguided reading of Jerome's saying that repentance is a second plank after shipwreck. This shows that they have never awakened from their dullness enough to feel even a thousandth part of their own faults.

Readers should understand that this is no trivial dispute — it concerns the most important matter of all: the forgiveness of sins. When they require three things for repentance — contrition of heart, oral confession, and satisfaction by works — they are teaching that all three are necessary to obtain forgiveness of sins. But if there is anything we must understand clearly in our entire religion, it is this: by what means, under what conditions, and with what ease or difficulty is forgiveness of sins obtained? If this knowledge is not clear and certain, the conscience can find no rest, no peace with God, no confidence or assurance. It will continually tremble, waver, be troubled and tormented, filled with dread, hating and fleeing from the sight of God. But if the forgiveness of sins depends on the conditions they attach to it, then nothing is more miserable than our situation. They make contrition the first step in obtaining pardon and require that it be proper contrition — that is, complete and full. Yet they never tell a person how he can know he has fully and completely performed this contrition. I do grant that every person ought to stir himself up diligently and earnestly — grieving bitterly over his sins and sharpening his loathing and hatred of them. For this is the kind of sorrow that is not regretted, because it produces repentance leading to salvation. But when a degree of sorrow is required that proportionally matches the severity of the fault — sorrow that can be weighed against the hope of pardon — sincere consciences are terribly tormented. They see themselves required to produce proper contrition, yet cannot reach a measure that gives them any certainty they have performed what they truly owe. If the answer is that people must do as much as lies within them, we are back where we started — for how can anyone be sure he has used all his strength to grieve over his sins? So when consciences have long wrestled with themselves and fought through long battles and still find no resting place, they strain themselves to produce a sorrow and wring out tears to make their contrition complete.

But if they claim I am misrepresenting them, let them produce a single person who, under such teaching about contrition, was not driven to despair — or who, instead of genuine sorrow, did not adopt a pretended sorrow as his defense before God's judgment. We have also said ourselves that forgiveness of sins never comes without repentance, since only those afflicted and wounded in conscience over their sins can sincerely call upon God's mercy. But we have also said that repentance is not the cause of forgiveness. We have removed those torments of soul that they say must be performed as a duty. We have taught the sinner not to look at his own contrition or his own tears, but to fix both eyes on God's mercy alone. We have only reminded him that Christ called the weary and burdened — when He was sent to bring good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom to captives, to release prisoners, and to comfort those who mourn. Both the Pharisees — filled with their own righteousness and unable to acknowledge their poverty — and the scoffers who, careless of God's wrath, seek no remedy for their wrongs, are excluded from this. Such people are not weary or burdened, not brokenhearted, not captive or bound. There is a great difference between teaching a person to earn forgiveness of sins through complete and proper contrition — which the sinner can never achieve — and instructing him to hunger and thirst for God's mercy, so that through the recognition of his own misery, restlessness, weariness, and captivity, he is shown where to seek relief, rest, and freedom. The goal is to teach him, in humbling himself, to give glory to God.

On the subject of confession, there has always been fierce debate between the canon lawyers and the scholastic theologians. Some affirm that confession is commanded by a specific command of God; others deny it and say it is commanded only by church law. In this dispute the theologians displayed remarkable shamelessness, corrupting and violently twisting every scripture passage they cited for their purpose. When they saw they could not get what they wanted that way, the more clever among them retreated to this argument: that confession was required by God's law in substance, but received its specific form from positive human law. This is like the most foolish lawyers who claim that legal citations come from God's law because it says: 'Adam, where are you?' And that exceptions likewise come from God's law because Adam answered as if by way of exception: 'The woman you gave me,' and so forth — while the specific form of citations and exceptions was given by civil law. But let us see what arguments they actually use to prove that this confession — formed or unformed — is God's command. They say: the Lord sent the lepers to the priests. But wait. Did He send them to confession? Who has ever heard that the Levitical priests were appointed to hear confessions? So they flee to allegories and say: the law of Moses commanded the priests to distinguish between one kind of leprosy and another; sin is a spiritual leprosy; therefore it is the priest's office to pronounce judgment on it. Before I answer, I ask this in passing: if this passage makes them judges of spiritual leprosy, why do they also claim authority over natural, physical leprosy? This is surely not treating Scripture seriously: the law gives the Levitical priests authority over leprosy, so we take that upon ourselves; sin is a spiritual leprosy, so we are therefore examiners of sin. My answer is this: since the priesthood has been removed, the law tied to it has been removed as well. All priesthoods have been transferred to Christ and fulfilled and completed in Him — so all the right and honor of the priesthood belong to Him alone. If they are so fond of allegories, let them set Christ before them as the one priest and pile upon His judgment seat the full jurisdiction over all things. That we can readily accept. Furthermore, their allegory is very ill-suited — it treats as a ceremonial law something that is purely a civil regulation. Why then did Christ send the lepers to the priests? Because the priests would have criticized Him for breaking the law that required a person healed of leprosy to appear before the priest and be purified through sacrifice. So He commanded the cleansed lepers to fulfill what the law required. 'Go,' He said, 'and show yourselves to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded in the law, as a testimony to them.' Indeed, this miracle was meant to be a testimony to them — the priests had declared these men leprous, and now they would have to declare them healed. Were they not compelled, whether they wished it or not, to become witnesses to Christ's miracles? Christ left His miracle to them to examine; they could not deny it. But because they kept trifling with it, this work stands as a testimony against them. Similarly, in another place: 'This Gospel shall be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations.' And again: 'You will be brought before kings and governors as a testimony to them' — meaning that at God's judgment they may be more thoroughly convicted. If they prefer to follow Chrysostom: he also teaches that Christ did this for the Jews' sake, so that He would not be regarded as a lawbreaker. In such a clear matter I am embarrassed to need to cite any human authority — since Christ plainly shows that He was preserving the priests' legal rights intact, dealing with men who were sworn enemies of the Gospel and always ready to find fault, unless their mouths were stopped. So let the Roman Catholic priests keep that privilege — let them openly ally with those who could only be silenced by force from speaking against Christ. For this has nothing to do with Christ's true ministers.

They bring their second argument from the same source — that is, from allegory. But allegories carry little weight in establishing doctrine. Let them carry what weight they may; I will show that I can use them more effectively for my side than they can for theirs. They say the Lord commanded His disciples, when Lazarus was raised, to unbind him and let him loose. First, this is simply false — there is no record anywhere that He said this to His disciples. It is far more likely He said it to the Jews standing nearby, so that the miracle would be all the more evident without any suspicion of fraud, and His power would appear all the greater — that without any touch, by His word alone He had raised the dead. My interpretation is this: that the Lord, in order to remove all false impressions from the Jews, commanded them to roll away the stone, to smell the stench, to see clear signs of death, and to witness the man rise by the power of His word alone — and to feel him living with their own hands. This is also Chrysostom's interpretation. But let us grant that He was speaking to the disciples. What do they gain from that? Only that the Lord gave His apostles the power to loose. But how much more fittingly could these things be applied through allegory — to say that by this sign the Lord meant to teach His people to loose those He had raised up. That is: not to call back to memory the sins He had forgotten; not to condemn as sinners those He had acquitted; not to reproach people with things He had forgiven; not to be harsh in punishment and easily offended where He is merciful and readily moved to spare. Truly nothing ought to move us more readily to forgive than the example of the Judge who warns that He will be unrelenting toward those who are too harsh and ungentle. Let them go now and boast about their allegories.

Now they press closer when they fight — as they think — with explicit Scripture passages. Those who came to John's baptism confessed their sins, and James commands us to confess our sins to one another. No wonder those who were to be baptized confessed their sins, since John preached the baptism of repentance and baptized in water for repentance. Whom should he have baptized except those who confessed themselves sinners? Baptism is a sign of forgiveness of sins. Who should be admitted to that sign but sinners who acknowledge themselves as such? So they confessed their sins in order to be baptized. And there is good reason James commands us to confess to one another. But if they would notice what follows right after, they would understand that this passage also does little to support their case. 'Confess,' he says, 'your sins to one another, and pray for one another.' He joins mutual confession and mutual prayer together. If we must confess only to priests, then we must also pray only for priests. Indeed, what if it actually followed from James's words that only priests could confess? For when he says we should confess to one another, he is speaking only to those who are qualified to hear confessions. His word in Greek is allelous — mutually, interchangeably, by turns, or (if they prefer) reciprocally. But mutual confession requires people who are each qualified to hear the other's confession. Since they grant that privilege only to priests, then by the same logic only priests could do the confessing. Let us set aside such trifling and take the apostle's plain and simple meaning: that we should lay our weaknesses before one another to receive mutual counsel, compassion, and comfort — and that, being aware of our brothers' weaknesses, we should pray for them to the Lord. Why then do they cite James against us, who so earnestly call for confession of God's mercy? But no one can confess God's mercy without first confessing his own misery. Indeed, we pronounce cursed anyone who does not confess himself a sinner before God, before His angels, before the church, and before all people. For the Lord has shut all people under sin, that every mouth might be stopped and all flesh humbled before God — so that He alone might be justified and exalted.

I am amazed that they dare to claim this confession they require is commanded by God's law, when its use — which we acknowledge is very ancient — was clearly optional in earlier times. Their own historical records show that no definite law or regulation about it existed before the time of Innocent III. If they had a more ancient law to appeal to, they would certainly have used it rather than resting their case on a decree of the Lateran Council — which makes them a laughingstock even to children. In other matters they freely produce forged decrees attributed to the most ancient councils, hoping to dazzle simple people with the appearance of antiquity. In this case it never occurred to them to do the same. So by their own evidence, it has not yet been three hundred years since Innocent III laid that burden on people and made confession a requirement. And beyond the question of timing, the sheer clumsiness of the wording undermines the law's credibility. For where these good fathers command every person of both sexes — male and female — to confess all their sins to their own priest once a year, sharp-witted critics cheerfully point out that this command covers only hermaphrodites, since it cannot technically refer to someone who is either male or female alone. Since that time, an even grosser confusion has appeared among their scholars, who cannot agree on what 'his own priest' even means. Whatever all the Pope's hired talkers may prattle, we maintain two things: first, that Christ never authored this law compelling people to enumerate their sins; and second, that twelve hundred years passed from Christ's resurrection before any such law was made. This tyranny was first introduced at a time when all godliness and learning had been destroyed and the overseers of pastors had taken unlimited license upon themselves without accountability. There is clear testimony in the historical records and other ancient writers showing that this confession was a practical discipline established by bishops — not a law given by Christ or His apostles. I will cite just one example out of many, which will make this plain. Sozomenus reports that this bishops' regulation was carefully observed in all the western churches, especially at Rome — which shows it was not a universal ordinance binding on all churches. He also says that one priest was specially appointed to serve in this role — which thoroughly refutes the claim that the keys were given for this purpose to the entire priesthood equally. It was not the common duty of all priests, but the particular responsibility of one person chosen for it by the bishop. This is the person now called the Penitentiary in every cathedral church — the examiner of serious offenses and those whose punishment concerns public example. He then adds that the same practice was followed in Constantinople, until a certain woman, pretending to come for confession, was discovered to have used that cover for an immoral relationship with a deacon. Because of this, Nectarius — a man of notable holiness and learning who was bishop of that church — abolished the practice of confession. Here let these critics prick up their ears. If auricular confession were a law of God, how could Nectarius dare to abolish and eliminate it? Will they accuse Nectarius — a holy man of God affirmed by the unanimous voice of the early fathers — as a heretic and schismatic? By the same reasoning they must condemn the church of Constantinople, in which Sozomenus confirms that the practice of confession was not merely interrupted for a time but discontinued right through his own memory. Indeed, let them condemn not only the church of Constantinople as apostate, but all the eastern churches as well — for they have all neglected this law which, if these men are right, is inviolable and binding on all Christians.

Chrysostom — who was also bishop of Constantinople — testifies so clearly and in so many places to this abolition that it is remarkable that anyone would dare to contradict him. 'Tell your sins,' he says, 'so that you may put them away. If you are ashamed to tell a person the sins you have committed, tell them daily in your soul. I do not say: confess them to a fellow servant who might reproach you. Tell them to God, who cares for you. Confess your sins on your bed, so that your conscience may daily recognize its wrongs.' And again: 'It is not necessary now to confess in the presence of witnesses. Let the examination of your sins be done in thought. Let this judgment have no witness. Let only God see you confessing.' And again: 'I do not bring you onto a stage before your fellow servants. I do not compel you to disclose your sins to people. Lay out your conscience before God. Show your wounds to the Lord, the best physician, and ask healing from Him. Show them to One who will reproach you with nothing, but will heal you most gently.' And again: 'Do not tell a man, lest he reproach you — for it is not to a fellow servant that confession should be made, but to the Lord. Show your wounds to the Lord, who cares for you, who is both gentle and a physician.' He then brings in God speaking thus: 'I do not compel you to come into the middle of a stage and call many witnesses. Tell your sin to Me alone, privately, that I may heal your wound.' Are we to say that Chrysostom was being reckless when he wrote these things — that he would dare to free people's consciences from bonds laid on them by God's own law? Not at all. He simply did not require as a necessity what he did not understand to be commanded in God's Word.

To make the matter clearer and easier, I will faithfully set out what kind of confession God's Word actually teaches — and then describe their invented requirements, though not all of them (for who could drain such an infinite sea?), but at least those in which they summarize the essence of their private confession. I will not at length rehearse here how often the old Latin translator rendered the word 'confess' as 'praise' — something even uneducated people commonly know — except that it is useful to expose their arrogance in taking what was written about praising God and pressing it into service for their own tyrannical requirement. To prove that confession cheers the mind, they insert the psalm verse: 'In the voice of rejoicing and confession.' But if such sleight of hand is permitted, anything can be proved by anything. Since they have gone this far past all shame, let godly readers remember that by God's just judgment they have been given over to a depraved mind, which makes their presumption all the more detestable. But if we rest in Scripture's plain teaching, we will be safe from such deceptions. Scripture appoints one pattern for confession: since it is the Lord who forgives, forgets, and removes sins, we should confess our sins to Him to obtain pardon. He is the physician — so let us show our diseases to Him. He is the One who is grieved and offended — so let us seek peace from Him. He knows hearts and is aware of all thoughts — so let us pour out our hearts before Him. He is the One who calls sinners — so let us not delay in coming to Him. 'I acknowledged my sin to You,' says David, 'and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord — and You forgave the guilt of my sin.' Such is David's model of confession. Furthermore, even those who find confession helpful should not be compelled by any commandment or drawn by any deception to reckon up all their sins — only as much as they themselves feel is needed to receive real benefit and comfort. Faithful pastors must not only leave this freedom to their congregations but also maintain it and defend it firmly, if they want tyranny kept out of their ministry and superstition away from the people.

Christ speaks of another kind of confession in Matthew: 'If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there and go first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.' In this way, charity that has been damaged by our fault is to be repaired by acknowledging our offense and asking pardon. This category also includes the confession of those who have sinned in a way that offends the whole church. For if Christ makes such a serious matter of a private offense against one person — barring from the holy mysteries all who have sinned against a brother until they have made proper amends — how much more reason is there for someone who has offended the church by a bad example to regain the church's favor by confessing the fault? In this way the Corinthian was received back into fellowship once he submitted himself to correction. This form of confession was also practiced in the early church, as Cyprian mentions: 'They do penance for the proper time, and then come to confession, and by the laying on of hands by the bishop and the clergy they receive permission to take Communion.' Scripture knows of no other order or form of confessing, and it is not our place to bind consciences with new bonds — something Christ strictly forbids us to do. At the same time, I am so far from opposing the practice of the sheep presenting themselves to their shepherd when they intend to take the Lord's Supper that I would gladly see it observed everywhere. Those with a troubled conscience can receive singular benefit from it, and those who need to be admonished are thereby prepared to receive it — provided always that tyranny and superstition are absent.

In these three kinds of confession, the power of the keys has its proper place: when the whole church with solemn acknowledgment of its faults seeks pardon; when a private person who has caused widespread offense by some notable sin declares his repentance; or when someone who needs help with a troubled conscience discloses his weakness to the minister. The ways of removing offense differ, however, because though the peace of conscience is served by this practice, the primary goal is to remove hostility and bind people together in peace. But the use I have described should not be dismissed when it leads us more willingly to confess our sins. When the whole church stands as it were before God's judgment seat, confesses itself guilty, and has one refuge only — God's mercy — it is no small comfort to have Christ's ambassador present, charged with the ministry of reconciliation, from whom the congregation can hear absolution pronounced. Here the usefulness of the keys is rightly commended, when this ministry is carried out faithfully and with the order and reverence it deserves. Likewise, when someone who had in a sense estranged himself from the church receives pardon and is restored to brotherly fellowship, how great a benefit it is that he understands himself to be forgiven by those to whom Christ said: 'Whatever sins you forgive on earth shall be forgiven in heaven.' Private absolution is no less effective or beneficial when it is sought by those who need special help for their weakness. It often happens that a person who hears the general promises directed to the whole congregation still remains in some doubt and cannot find peace, as if he had not yet obtained pardon. But if that same person discloses the secret wound of his heart to his pastor and hears the Gospel's words directed personally to him — 'Your sins are forgiven; take heart' — his mind is settled in assurance, and he is freed from the trembling that had tormented him. But when we speak of the keys, we must not dream of some power separate from the preaching of the Gospel. We will have occasion to treat this more fully elsewhere when we discuss the governance of the church. There we will see that all the power to bind and loose that Christ has given His church is tied to the Word. But this is most true in the ministry of the keys, whose entire force lies in this: that the grace of the Gospel is publicly and privately sealed in the hearts of believers by those whom the Lord has appointed — which can only be done through preaching.

But what do the Roman theologians say? They decree that every person of either sex, once they reach the age of reason, must confess all their sins at least once a year to their own priest — and that a sin is not forgiven unless the person has firmly resolved to confess it. If they fail to act on that resolve when opportunity arises, the door to paradise is closed to them. They say the priest holds the power of the keys, with which he may bind and loose a sinner, because Christ's word is not empty: 'Whatever you bind,' and so forth. They fight vigorously among themselves about the nature of this power. Some say there is only one key in substance — the power to bind and loose — and that knowledge, while useful, is merely an accessory and not essentially connected to it. Others, seeing this as too unbridled a license, counted two keys: discernment and power. Still others, finding that even this moderation left too much room for priestly abuse, invented more keys: the authority to discern, which they use in passing judgment; power, which they exercise in carrying out the sentence; and knowledge, which stands by as a counselor. But they dare not simply explain this binding and loosing as forgiving and removing sins, because they hear the Lord declaring through the prophet: 'It is I, and I alone — it is I who put away your sins, O Israel.' So they say it is the priest's office to pronounce who is bound or loosed, and to declare whose sins are forgiven or retained — either through confession, when he absolves or retains sins, or through church discipline, when he excommunicates or readmits someone to the sacraments. Finally, when they realize they have not resolved the difficulty — since it can still be objected that their priests often bind or loose people undeservedly, and that such sentences are not therefore ratified in heaven — they retreat to their last refuge: Christ's promise must be understood with a qualification, namely that He will ratify at His judgment seat only those priestly sentences that have been justly pronounced according to what the person bound or loosed actually deserved. They also say that these keys were given by Christ to all priests and are conferred by their bishops at ordination — but the free use of them belongs only to those exercising church offices, while excommunicated and suspended priests still possess the keys, though rusty and bound up. Even these men might seem modest and restrained compared to others who have forged new keys on a new anvil — keys they claim lock up the treasury of the church. Those keys we will examine in a later section where it is appropriate.

Now I will briefly answer each of these points in turn. For now I am not addressing the question of by what right they bind the souls of the faithful with their laws — we will consider that when the time is right. But where they burden people with the law of cataloguing all their sins; where they say sin is not forgiven unless a person has formed a firm intention to confess it; and where they claim no one can enter paradise if an opportunity for confession is neglected — this cannot be tolerated. Must every sin be catalogued? David, who had surely thought deeply about confessing his sins, still cried out: 'Who can discern his errors? Cleanse me from my hidden faults, O Lord.' And in another place: 'My iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.' He understood well the bottomless depth of our sins — how many kinds of wickedness there are, how many heads this Hydra bears, and how long a tail it drags behind it. So he did not attempt to compile a list of them. Instead, from the depths of his distress he cried to the Lord: 'I am overwhelmed, I am buried, I am choking — the gates of death have surrounded me. Stretch out Your hand and pull me from the deep pit where I am sinking and dying.' Who now would think of numbering his sins when David himself could find no end to them?

This system brutally tormented souls that had any genuine sense of God. First, they called themselves to account. Then they divided their sins into main categories, sub-categories, branches, and twigs according to the theologians' rules. Then they weighed their qualities, quantities, and circumstances. For a time it seemed they were making some progress. But the further they went, the more sky appeared on every side, the more open sea — no harbor, no safe anchorage. The more ground they had covered, the greater the mass of sins pressing into view, rising like mountains, with no hope of escape even after long wandering. So they remained stuck between the offering and the stone, and in the end nothing was found but despair. Then these cruel tormentors, to soothe the wounds they themselves had inflicted, applied a gentle plaster: every person should do what they could. But new anxieties rose up, and new torments assaulted these miserable souls: 'I have not spent enough time. I have not tried hard enough. I have passed over many things through carelessness, and forgetfulness born of carelessness is not excusable.' Then another plaster was applied to ease such pain: 'Repent of your negligence; if it is not completely careless, it will be forgiven.' But none of these remedies can close the wound. They are not true relief from the trouble but poisons coated with honey — so that the bitterness does not offend on the first taste but enters the gut before it is detected. So that terrible demand always calls to them and rings in their ears: 'Confess all your sins.' And this dread cannot be quieted except by certain comfort. Let readers consider how possible it is to account for everything done in an entire year and gather together every sin committed each day. Experience shows every person that when at evening he tries to reckon only the faults of that single day, his memory is overwhelmed by the sheer number and variety of them. I am not speaking of gross, unfeeling hypocrites who think they have done enough if they have noted three or four major sins. I am speaking of genuine worshippers of God who, already overwhelmed by their own examination, also recall John's words: 'If our own heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart' — and so they tremble before that Judge whose knowledge far exceeds our own understanding.

A large part of the world found rest in such flatteries that diluted so deadly a poison — not because they believed God was truly satisfied, or because they themselves were truly satisfied, but the way a ship throws out an anchor in mid-sea to rest a moment from sailing, or the way a weary, fainting traveler lies down in the road. I will not labor long to prove this, since every person can be his own witness. I will state briefly what kind of law this was. First, it is simply impossible, and therefore it can do nothing but destroy, condemn, overwhelm, and plunge people into ruin and despair. Then, having led sinners away from a genuine sense of their sins, it makes them hypocrites — ignorant of God and themselves. For while they are wholly occupied with cataloguing their sins, they forget all along the hidden depths of vice, their concealed iniquities, and their inner filth — knowledge of which should have weighed most heavily on their minds. The true rule of confession was this: acknowledge that the bottomless depth of our evil is so great that it surpasses our understanding. We see the tax collector's confession follow this rule: 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner' — as if to say: 'I am, through and through, nothing but a sinner. I cannot grasp with my mind or express with my tongue the greatness of my sins. Let the bottomless depth of Your mercy swallow the bottomless depth of my sin.' But then you will ask: must not all our sins be confessed? Is no confession acceptable to God except one summed up in the two words 'I am a sinner'? Not at all. We must earnestly strive to pour out our heart before the Lord — not merely saying in a single word that we are sinners, but genuinely and honestly acknowledging ourselves to be such. We must consider with our whole heart how great and varied our filth of sin is: not merely that we are unclean, but what that uncleanness consists of, how great it is, and in how many ways we are unclean; not merely that we are debtors, but under what enormous debts and in how many ways we are burdened; not merely that we are wounded, but with how many and how deadly wounds. When the sinner has in this way poured himself out fully before God, he should earnestly and honestly recognize that there still remains more sin, and that the hidden depths of evil are so deep they cannot be fully uncovered. So he cries out with David: 'Who can discern his errors? Cleanse me, O Lord, from my hidden faults.' Now where they claim that sins are not forgiven without a firmly formed intention to confess, and that the gate of paradise is shut against anyone who neglects an available opportunity for confession — God forbid that we grant them that. There is no forgiveness of sins different from the forgiveness that has always existed. Those whom we read as receiving forgiveness from Christ's hand are not recorded as having confessed to any priest. Indeed they could not have, since at that time neither priests as confessors nor the practice of confession existed. And for many centuries afterward, this confession was unheard of — and sins were forgiven during all that time without any such condition. Rather than prolonging the argument over something uncertain, the plain Word of God — which stands forever — settles it: 'When the sinner repents, I will no more remember all his iniquities.' Whoever dares add anything to this word is not binding sins but binding the mercy of God. When they say that no verdict can be given without first hearing the case, we have a ready answer: they presumptuously assume the role of judges — which no one in his right mind would grant them. It is remarkable that they so boldly build on principles that no sane person would accept. They boast that the office of binding and loosing is entrusted to them, as if it were a judicial authority combined with an inquisition. Their whole doctrine cries out that this authority was unknown to the apostles. Moreover it is not the priest, but the person seeking absolution, who must know with certainty whether the sinner is loosed — since the one hearing confession can never know whether the account given is complete and accurate. Absolution would therefore be valid only on the terms of the one being judged. Furthermore, the entire act of loosing rests on faith and repentance — two things hidden from human knowledge when judgment must be passed on another person. It follows that the certainty of binding and loosing is not subject to an earthly judge's verdict. The minister of the Word, when doing his duty, can only absolve conditionally. The words 'Whose sins you forgive,' and so forth, were spoken so that no one would doubt that the pardon promised by God's command and Word will be ratified in heaven.

It is no wonder then that we condemn auricular confession and desire to see it completely abolished — it is a practice so harmful and so destructive to the church in so many ways. But even if it were a neutral thing in itself, it has been of no use or benefit and has given rise to so many wickednesses, sacrileges, and errors — who would not conclude it should be immediately abolished? They do list some supposed benefits, which they boast of as very useful, but these are either false or worthless. Their chief commendation is that the shame of confessing is itself a serious punishment, making the sinner more cautious in the future and causing him to punish himself and thereby forestall God's punishment. As if we do not humble a person sufficiently with shame when we call him before that highest judgment seat of heaven — that is, before God's own hearing. There may be some benefit in being restrained from sin by shame before one person — but it is a strange profit if we are not ashamed to have God as witness of our guilty conscience. And in fact even this claimed benefit is largely false. Nothing produces greater boldness or license for sin than when people, having made confession to a priest, think they can wipe their mouths and say, 'I did not do it.' Not only are they made bolder to sin throughout the year, but relying on the coming confession, they never sigh to God, they never return to themselves. They pile up sins all year until they disgorge everything at once. And when they have done so, they think themselves discharged of the burden — as if they have transferred judgment from God to the priest, and as if making the priest aware has caused God to forget. Furthermore, who greets the day of confession with joy? Who comes to it with a cheerful heart, rather than reluctantly and as if being dragged by the neck to prison? Unless perhaps it is the priests themselves, who cheerfully entertain one another with recitations of what they hear, as if swapping amusing stories. I will not waste much ink on the monstrous abuses that auricular confession is full of. I will say only this: if that holy man acted wisely in abolishing confession from his church — even from his congregation's memory — over a single rumor of immorality, then we are given clear guidance about what must be done today, given the endless adulteries, incests, fornications, and depravities that have grown out of it.

When the confessors appeal to the power of the keys for this purpose and build upon it the pomp and power of their kingdom, as the saying goes — it is worth examining how far that argument actually reaches. 'Then were the keys given for no reason?' they say. 'Is it meaningless that Christ said: Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven? Are we making Christ's word void?' I answer: there was good reason for the keys to be given, as I have already shown and will make even plainer when I treat of excommunication. But what if I cut through everything they claim with a single sword — by saying that their sacrificing priests are not the successors or representatives of the apostles? That too must be treated elsewhere. But now they raise up the very argument they think is their strongest defense — and by it their whole structure can be demolished. For Christ did not give His apostles the power to bind and loose before He gave them the Holy Spirit. Therefore I say that no one has the power of the keys who has not first received the Holy Spirit. I deny that anyone can exercise the keys without the Holy Spirit going before him, teaching and directing him in what must be done. They glibly claim they have the Holy Spirit — but in practice they deny it, unless they wish to pretend (as they do pretend) that the Holy Spirit is some empty and worthless thing. But that pretense will not be believed. By this argument they are thoroughly undone — for whatever door they claim to hold the key to, anyone may always ask them whether they have the Holy Spirit, who is the true Judge and Governor of the keys. If they say they do, then they may be asked: can the Holy Spirit err? They will not willingly say so outright, though their doctrine implies it in a roundabout way. It follows therefore that no priests have power of the keys who routinely and carelessly loose what the Lord would have bound, and bind what the Lord commanded to be loosed.

Seeing themselves exposed by the clearest evidence — that they indiscriminately bind and loose the worthy and unworthy alike — they are exercising a power without knowledge. And although they dare not deny that knowledge is necessary for its proper use, they still write that the power itself is given even to those who misuse it. But the power consists in this: 'Whatever you bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven.' Either Christ's promise must be a lie, or those who have this power truly bind and loose correctly. They cannot dodge the issue by saying Christ's words are limited according to the worthiness of the person being bound or loosed. We also acknowledge that no one can be bound or loosed except those who deserve to be. But the messengers of the Gospel and the church possess the Word by which they measure that worthiness. By this Word the Gospel's messengers may promise forgiveness of sins in Christ through faith to all people, and may pronounce condemnation on all who reject Christ. By this same Word the church declares that fornicators, adulterers, thieves, murderers, the greedy, and the unjust have no part in the kingdom of God, and binds them with the most certain bonds. By the same Word the church looses those it comforts when they repent. But what kind of power is it to not know what should be bound or loosed and to be unable to bind or loose without knowledge? Why then do they say they loose by delegated authority, when the loosing remains uncertain? What use is this imaginary power if it cannot be exercised? I have already shown that there is either no use for it at all, or such an uncertain use that it amounts to nothing. They admit that a great number of priests do not use the keys rightly, and that power without proper use has no effect. But then who can assure me that the one who has just absolved me is a proper user of the keys? If he is not, his absolution amounts to saying: 'I do not know what should be bound or loosed in you, since I lack the right use of the keys — but if you deserve it, I loose you.' A layman could say as much — not to mention (which they could not bear to hear) a Turk or a devil. For it amounts to this: 'I do not have God's Word as the sure rule of loosing; I only have power given me to loose you, if your merits warrant it.' We see, then, what they meant when they defined the keys as the authority to discern and the power to execute — with knowledge as a counselor available for good use. Clearly they wanted to reign by their own will, freely, without God and without His Word.

If someone objects that the lawful ministers of Christ will be just as uncertain in their office — since absolution that depends on faith will always remain uncertain — and that sinners will therefore have no comfort or only cold comfort, since the minister is no competent judge of their faith and cannot be certain of their absolution: we have a ready answer. They say that no sins are forgiven by the priest except those he has personally heard confessed. So in their view, forgiveness depends on the priest's judgment — and if he does not wisely discern who deserves pardon, the whole act is void and meaningless. In short, the power they speak of is a jurisdiction combined with examination, to which pardon and absolution are attached. On this basis there is no solid ground — only a bottomless depth. For wherever a confession is incomplete, the hope of pardon is crippled. And the priest himself remains in suspense, unable to know whether the sinner has faithfully recounted all his evil deeds. Furthermore, given the ignorance and incompetence of most priests, the majority are no more fitted for this task than a shoemaker is for plowing — and nearly all the rest should reasonably distrust themselves. This uncertainty and confusion in the Pope's system of absolution arises from their insisting that it be grounded in the person of the priest — and not only that, but also in his knowledge, so that he may judge only what has been presented, examined, and proved to him. If someone were to ask these learned doctors whether a sinner is reconciled to God when only some sins are forgiven, I do not see what they could answer. They would be compelled to admit that everything the priest pronounces about the forgiveness of the sins he has heard is worthless, as long as the other sins remain under condemnation. And as for the person confessing — how harmfully this anxious dependency ties down his conscience is clear enough: resting on the priest's discretion, as they call it, he cannot settle on any certainty through the Word of God. The doctrine we teach is free and clear from all these absurdities. For the absolution is conditional: the sinner must trust that God is merciful to him, sincerely seeking cleansing from sin in the sacrifice of Christ, and obeying the grace offered to him. So the one who, in the office of preacher, declares what God's Word has instructed him to declare cannot err. And the sinner may embrace a sure and clear absolution when that simple condition is stated — namely, receiving the grace of Christ — according to the Master's own general teaching in Matthew 9:29: 'Be it done to you according to your faith.' This truth has been wickedly despised in the papacy.

How foolishly they twist what Scripture says about the power of the keys I have promised to address elsewhere, and there will be a more fitting place for it when I treat of church government. But readers should note that what Christ says — partly about the preaching of the Gospel and partly about excommunication — is being wrongly twisted to apply to auricular, secret confession. So when they argue that the power of loosing was given to the apostles and that priests may use this power by forgiving sins confessed to them, it is clear they are starting from a false and foolish premise. The absolution that serves faith is nothing other than a witness of pardon drawn from the free promise of the Gospel. The other kind of confession — the one connected to church discipline — has nothing to do with secret sins. It concerns public example, so that the common offense caused by a grave sin can be removed. When they scrape together testimonies here and there to prove that it is not enough to confess sins to God alone or to a layman, but that a priest must hear the confession — their effort is shameless and something they ought to blush over. For when the early fathers advised sinners to open their hearts to their pastor, this cannot be interpreted as referring to the specific recitation that was not yet practiced at that time. Then Lombard and others like him — with their characteristic dishonesty — appear to have deliberately exploited forged documents under whose cover they could deceive the simple. They do honestly admit that since absolution always accompanies repentance, no bond properly remains when a person is truly repentant — even before he has confessed — and that the priest therefore does not so much forgive sins as pronounce and declare them already forgiven. Yet in the word 'declaring' they quietly smuggle in a serious error, substituting a ceremony for doctrine. And when they add that a person is absolved before the church who had already received pardon before God, they inappropriately apply to each individual what we have said is appointed for common discipline — dealing with the offense caused by a gross and public sin. But they then immediately corrupt this moderation by adding another kind of forgiveness involving the imposing of penalties and satisfaction — by which they presumptuously claim for their own sacramental acts the power to divide what God has everywhere promised us in full. For when God simply requires repentance and faith, this division and qualification amounts to robbing God. It is as if the priest, taking on the role of a civil judge, steps in as an intermediary before God and will not permit God in His free generosity to restore to favor the man who has lain prostrate before the judge's seat and been punished there.

The whole matter comes down to this: if they wish to make God the author of this counterfeit confession, their falsehood is exposed — as I have proven them to be false forgers in the few passages they cite. But since it is evident that this is a human-made law, I say it is both tyrannical and injurious to God — who, having bound people's consciences to His Word, wills them to be free from human bondage. When a requirement of this kind is imposed as necessary for obtaining pardon — a requirement God intended to be free — I say this is a sacrilege that cannot be tolerated, because nothing belongs more properly to God than the forgiveness of sins, on which our salvation depends. I have shown that this tyranny was first introduced when the world was plunged into wretched ignorance. I have also shown that it is a harmful law that either drives to despair those poor souls in whom any fear of God remains, or where carelessness reigns, flatters them with empty reassurances and makes them spiritually duller. Finally I have shown that whatever softening measures they introduce serve no other purpose than to entangle, obscure, and corrupt pure doctrine, and to cover over ungodliness with a deceptive veneer.

They assign the third place in repentance to satisfaction — and everything they babble about it can be overthrown with a single word. They say it is not enough for a repentant person to stop doing evil and change his life for the better; he must also make satisfaction to God for what he has done. They claim there are many means by which we can redeem sins: weeping, fasting, offerings, and works of charity. By these we must win God's favor; by these we must pay our debt to God's righteousness; by these we must make amends for our offenses; by these we must earn pardon. For although in the largeness of His mercy God has forgiven our guilt, they say His justice retains the penalty — and that penalty must be redeemed with satisfactions. In the end, everything they say comes down to this: we obtain forgiveness of sins from God's mercy, but by means of our own works, through which the offense of our sins may be compensated and full satisfaction may be made to God's righteousness. Against these lies I set the free forgiveness of sins — nothing in all of Scripture is more plainly stated than this. First, what is forgiveness, if not a gift of sheer generosity? A creditor is not said to forgive when he issues a receipt confirming payment. He forgives when, without any payment, he voluntarily and freely cancels the debtor's bond. Second, why is the word 'freely' added, if not to rule out any notion of satisfaction? With what boldness, then, do they still set up their satisfactions, struck down as they are by such a powerful thunderbolt? Moreover, when the Lord cries out through Isaiah — 'It is I, it is I, who blot out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins' — does He not openly declare that He draws the cause and ground of forgiveness from His own goodness alone? Furthermore, when all of Scripture testifies that forgiveness of sins is to be received in Christ's name, does that not exclude every other name? How then can they teach that it is received in the name of satisfactions? They cannot deny that this is what they are doing, even when they call satisfactions only helpful means. For when Scripture says 'in the name of Christ,' it means that we bring nothing and claim nothing of our own, but rest entirely on Christ's merit alone. As Paul says, where he affirms that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting their sins against them — he immediately shows the means and manner: because He who knew no sin was made sin for us.

Such is their perverseness: they say that forgiveness of sins and reconciliation are accomplished once and together when we are received into God's favor through Christ in baptism — but that after baptism we must rise again through satisfactions, and that Christ's blood profits us only insofar as it is distributed through the keys of the church. I am not speaking of something doubtful; they have exposed their own error in their plainest writings — not one or two of them, but the scholastic theologians as a whole. Their master, having confessed that Christ paid the penalty for sins on the cross according to Peter's teaching, immediately corrected himself with this qualification: that in baptism all temporal penalties of sins are released, but after baptism they are diminished through the help of penance, so that Christ's cross and our penance work together. But John says something very different: 'If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins.' 'I am writing to you, children, because your sins have been forgiven for His name's sake.' He is speaking to the faithful. When he presents Christ as the propitiation for sins, he shows that there is no other satisfaction by which God's displeasure can be appeased. He does not say: 'God was once reconciled to you through Christ; now seek other means.' He presents Christ as a perpetual advocate, always restoring us by His intercession to the Father's favor — a perpetual propitiation, by which our sins are continually cleansed. For this remains forever true, as John the Baptist said: 'Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.' He takes them away — He and no other. That is to say: since He alone is the Lamb of God, He alone is also the offering for sin, He alone the propitiatory sacrifice, He alone the satisfaction. The right and power to forgive sins belongs properly to the Father, as distinguished from the Son. But Christ is placed in another rank — by taking on Himself the penalty we deserved, He has removed our guilt before God's judgment. It follows that we will have no share in the satisfaction made by Christ unless that honor remains entirely His — an honor that those who try to appease God with their own compensations are wrongfully taking for themselves.

Here two things must be kept in view: that Christ may retain His full and undivided honor, and that consciences, assured of the forgiveness of sins, may find peace with God. Isaiah says that the Father laid upon His Son the iniquity of us all, so that we might be healed by His wounds. Peter repeats this in other words, saying that Christ bore our sins in His body on the cross. Paul writes that sin was condemned in His flesh when He was made sin for us. That is: the power and curse of sin was destroyed in His flesh when He was given as a sacrifice, upon which the entire weight of our sins was cast — with all their curse and condemnation, with God's dreadful judgment and the sentence of death. No room should be given to the view that after our first cleansing each person experiences the benefit of Christ's passion only in proportion to his own satisfactory repentance. Rather, whenever we fall, we are to be called back to Christ's satisfaction alone. Set before you now their harmful foolishness: for example, that God's grace works alone in the first forgiveness of sins, but that after a fall, our own works contribute to obtaining a second forgiveness. If this view holds, what happens to everything that has been ascribed to Christ alone? There is a world of difference between our iniquities being laid on Christ to be cleansed in Him, and our cleansing them by our own works; between Christ being the one who obtains mercy and our needing to make God merciful through our works. And when it comes to calming the conscience — what peace can a person's conscience find in hearing that his sins are redeemed by satisfactions? When will he ever know with certainty that he has satisfied enough? He will always doubt whether God is favorable to him; he will always be troubled and always trembling. Those who rest on trivial satisfactions hold God's judgment in too much contempt and have little sense of how great the gravity of sin is — as we will show in another place. But even if we were to grant that some sins can be redeemed by proper satisfaction, what will they do when they are weighed down by so many sins that a hundred lifetimes entirely devoted to the task could not suffice? Furthermore, all the passages affirming the forgiveness of sins are addressed not to beginners alone, but to the already regenerate children of God — those who have long been nurtured in the church's care. The message Paul extols so highly — 'We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God' — is not directed to strangers, but to those who had already been regenerated. Yet Paul dismisses satisfactions entirely and sends them to the cross of Christ. Likewise, when he writes to the Colossians that Christ made peace through the blood of His cross — reconciling all things, whether on earth or in heaven — he does not limit this to the moment when we are first received into the church. He extends it to our entire life. This is plain from the passage itself, where he says that the faithful have redemption through the blood of Christ — that is, the forgiveness of sins. It would be unnecessary to pile up more passages, for they readily present themselves everywhere.

Here they flee to the refuge of their foolish distinction: that some sins are venial and some deadly; that deadly sins require serious satisfaction; and that venial sins are cleansed by easier remedies — saying the Lord's Prayer, receiving a sprinkling of holy water, receiving absolution at the mass. In this way they mock and trifle with God. Though the words 'venial' and 'deadly sin' are constantly on their lips, they have never been able to distinguish one from the other — except that they make ungodliness and uncleanness of heart into venial sins. But we, following Scripture as the rule of right and wrong, declare that the wages of sin is death, and that the soul that sins is worthy of death. The sins of the faithful are venial — not because they do not deserve death, but because by God's mercy there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because those sins are not imputed, because they have been taken away by pardon. I know how unjustly they slander this teaching of ours. They say it is the strange Stoic conclusion about the equality of sins. But they can easily be convicted by their own words. I ask them: among the very sins they call deadly, do they not acknowledge that some are greater than others? It does not follow that sins are equal simply because they are all deadly together. When Scripture definitively states that the wages of sin is death, that obedience to the law is the way of life, and that transgression of the law brings death — they cannot escape that verdict. What end of satisfying will they ever find in such a mountain of sins? If the satisfaction for one day covers one sin, then while they are working on that one satisfaction, they are wrapping themselves in many new sins — since even the most righteous person does not pass a single day without falling many times. When they then set about making satisfaction for these new sins, they pile up an enormous number — indeed an uncountable one. When the hope of satisfying is thus cut off, what are they standing on? How dare they still speak of satisfying?

They try to wriggle free — but as the proverb says, the water still clings to them. They invent a distinction between guilt and penalty. They admit that God's mercy forgives the guilt, but insist that when the guilt is forgiven, the penalty remains — and that God's righteousness requires the penalty to be paid. Satisfactions, they say, properly belong to the release of that penalty. Good God, what a slippery sleight of hand this is! Now they admit that forgiveness of guilt lies freely open to people — though elsewhere they teach that it must be earned with prayers, weepings, and all kinds of preparations. But everything Scripture teaches about the forgiveness of sins stands directly against this distinction. Though I believe I have already more than sufficiently proven this, I will add some further testimonies to pin down these evasive opponents so firmly they cannot even curl the tip of their tail. This is the new covenant the Lord has made with us in His Christ: that He will remember our iniquities no more. What He means by these words we learn from another prophet, where the Lord says: 'If the righteous turns from his righteousness, I will not remember any of his righteous deeds. If the wicked turns from his wickedness, I will not remember any of his iniquities.' When He says He will not remember their righteousness, it means He will not consider it when rewarding them. Therefore, not to remember sins means not to call them to punishment. The same idea is expressed elsewhere as: casting sin behind His back, wiping it away like a cloud, drowning it in the depths of the sea, not imputing it, and hiding it. By such expressions the Holy Spirit makes His meaning plain to us, if we are willing to listen and learn. Truly: if God punishes sins, He imputes them; if He takes vengeance, He remembers them; if He calls them to judgment, He has not hidden them; if He examines them, He has not cast them behind His back; if He looks upon them, He has not wiped them away like a cloud; if He sifts them, He has not cast them into the depths of the sea. Augustine expounds this plainly: 'If God has covered sins, He will not look upon them. If He will not look upon them, He will not note them. If He will not note them, He will not punish them — He will not acknowledge them but will rather pardon them. Why then did He say that sins were covered? That they should not be seen. What was meant by God seeing sins? That He punished them.' But let us hear also from another prophetic passage what conditions the Lord attaches to forgiving sins. 'If your sins are as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow; if they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' And in Jeremiah we read: 'In that day the iniquity of Jacob shall be searched for, and it shall not be found; and the sins of Judah shall not be — for I will pardon those I preserve.' Do you want a brief summary of what these words mean? Consider what is meant on the other side by these expressions: that the Lord ties up iniquities in a sack, gathers them into a bundle to store away, and engraves them with an iron stylus on a diamond stone. If these expressions mean (as is beyond doubt) that vengeance will be given as repayment, then it is equally beyond doubt that the opposite expressions affirm that the Lord remits all repayment of vengeance. Here I ask readers not to listen to my own interpretations, but only to allow God's Word to take its proper place.

What would Christ have done for us if we were still compelled to suffer pain for our sins? When we say that He bore all our sins in His body on the cross, we mean nothing other than that He suffered all the pain and punishment that our sins deserved. Isaiah has expressed this even more vividly: 'The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him.' What is the punishment that brings peace, if not the pain due to sin — which we would have had to endure before we could be reconciled to God, had He not stepped into our place? You see it plainly: Christ suffered the pains of sin in order to deliver His own from those pains. Whenever Paul speaks of the redemption accomplished by Christ, he uses the Greek word apolutrosis — by which he means not merely redemption in the ordinary sense, but the actual price and satisfaction of redemption. In this sense he writes that Christ gave Himself as an antilutron — a ransom price paid on our behalf. As Augustine says: 'What propitiation is there before the Lord but sacrifice? And what sacrifice is there but the one offered for us in the death of Christ?' What was prescribed in the law of Moses for cleansing offenses provides us with a powerful argument. For the Lord there does not prescribe this or that form of satisfying — He requires full recompense through sacrifices alone. And He does this while setting out every other ceremony of atonement with the most careful detail and order. Why then does He command that faults be repaid not through any human works at all, but only through sacrifices for satisfaction — unless it is His will to declare that there is only one kind of satisfaction by which His judgment is appeased? For the sacrifices the Israelites offered were not valued by the human act of offering, but by their truth — that is, by the one sacrifice of Christ alone. Hosea has expressed very well, in just a few words, what kind of payment the Lord accepts from us: 'Take away iniquity, O God' — there is the forgiveness of sins. 'And we will offer the calves of our lips' — there is the satisfaction. I know they will still slip away by distinguishing between eternal punishment and temporal punishments. But when they teach that temporal punishment is any punishment of body or soul that God inflicts, short of eternal death — this restriction helps them very little. For the passages cited above expressly mean that God receives us into favor on this condition: that in pardoning the guilt, He pardons all the punishment we deserved along with it. Whenever David or the other prophets ask pardon for sins, they also pray to be released from the punishment. Indeed the very sense of God's judgment drives them to do this. And whenever they promise mercy from the Lord, they almost always go on to speak expressly of the punishments and their forgiveness. When the Lord declares in Ezekiel that He will end the Babylonian exile — and that He will do so for His own sake, not for the Jews' sake — He sufficiently shows that both forgiveness and release from punishment are free gifts. Finally, if through Christ we are delivered from the guilt of fault, the punishments that flow from it must also cease.

But since they also arm themselves with Scripture passages, let us see what kind of arguments they produce. They say: David, rebuked by the prophet Nathan for adultery and murder, received forgiveness of his sin — and yet was afterward punished by the death of the son born from that adultery. We are therefore taught to redeem with satisfactions those punishments that extend beyond the forgiveness of guilt. They add that Daniel advised Nebuchadnezzar to redeem his sins with acts of mercy. And Solomon writes that through righteousness and godliness iniquities are forgiven. And in another place, that love covers a multitude of sins — a statement Peter also confirms. Again, in Luke the Lord says of the sinful woman that many sins are forgiven her because she loved much. But they have always distorted and misunderstood God's ways. If they had noticed — as they should not have overlooked — that God's judgment comes in two kinds, they would have seen in David's punishment something very different from retributive vengeance. But because it matters greatly that we all understand what purpose God's chastisements serve when He corrects us for our sins, and how far they differ from the examples in which He pursues the wicked and reprobate in wrath — I think it useful to summarize this briefly. For the sake of clarity, let us call one kind of judgment the judgment of revenge, and the other the judgment of chastisement. When God punishes His enemies with the judgment of revenge, He acts in wrath against them: He confounds them, destroys them, and reduces them to nothing. So let us take retribution to be God's punishment when it is joined with His indignation. His judgment of chastisement is not so severe: He is not acting in anger, He does not punish to destroy, He does not strike with lightning to kill. Therefore it is not properly punishment or retribution but correction and instruction. The one is the act of a judge; the other is the act of a father. When a judge punishes an offender, he focuses on the offense and punishes the very fault. When a father corrects his child with some firmness, he is not seeking revenge or inflicting punishment — he is teaching and making the child more careful going forward. Chrysostom uses a somewhat different comparison in one place, but it comes to the same point: 'A son is beaten, and a servant is also beaten — but the servant is punished as a slave because he has offended, while the son is chastised as a free person who needs correction. For one, the correction serves for benefit and improvement; for the other, it serves as a lash and punishment.'

To have the whole matter in a brief, ready summary, let this be the first of two distinctions. Wherever punishment is retributive, it displays God's curse and wrath — which He always withholds from the faithful. Chastisement, by contrast, is a blessing of God and bears witness to His love, as Scripture teaches. This distinction is sufficiently expressed throughout God's Word. Whatever afflictions the wicked suffer in this present life are like a foretaste of hell, giving them a distant view of their eternal condemnation. So far from being improved or benefited by such afflictions, they are through them being prepared for the cruel hell that finally awaits them. But the Lord disciplines His servants when He chastises them — He does not put them to death. Therefore they acknowledge that being struck by His rod was good for their genuine instruction. And just as we read everywhere that the saints endure such punishments with a calm spirit, they have always prayed to escape the first kind of scourge. 'Discipline me, O Lord,' says Jeremiah, 'but in justice, not in Your anger, lest You reduce me to nothing' (Jeremiah 10:24). 'Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not know You, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon Your name.' And David says: 'O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, or discipline me in Your wrath' (Psalm 6:1; Psalm 38:1). It does not contradict this that the Lord is sometimes said to be angry with His own when He punishes their sins. As in Isaiah: 'I will praise You, O Lord, for although You were angry with me, Your anger turned away and You comforted me' (Isaiah 12:1). Again, Habakkuk: 'In wrath remember mercy' (Habakkuk 3:2). And Micah: 'I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against Him' (Micah 7:9). Here we are reminded that those who are justly punished gain nothing by murmuring against Him — but also that the faithful find relief from their sorrows by reflecting on God's purpose. In the same way it is said that He defiles His own inheritance — though we know He will never truly defile it. This is said not in respect of God's purpose in punishing, but of the intense feeling of grief experienced by those who bear any degree of His severity. But He not only presses His faithful with no small rigor — He sometimes wounds them so deeply that they feel they are not far from the condemnation of hell. In this way He shows them that they have deserved His wrath, so that they will loathe themselves for their sins, be moved with greater urgency to appease God, and make haste to seek pardon. But even in the very same act He displays a clearer testimony of His gracious kindness than of His wrath. For the covenant made with us in our true Solomon stands firm. He who cannot deceive has declared that it shall never be nullified: 'If his children forsake My law and do not walk in My rules, if they violate My statutes and do not keep My commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not remove My steadfast love from him' (Psalm 89:30-33; 2 Samuel 7:14). To assure us of this love, He says that the rod with which He will correct Solomon's descendants will be 'of men' and 'stripes of the sons of men' — phrases that express moderation and gentleness, while also implying that those who feel God's hand against them in wrath are overwhelmed with crushing and deadly dread. How carefully He tends to this gentleness in chastising His Israel He shows in the prophet: 'I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction — but not in the manner of silver, or you would have been wholly consumed' (Isaiah 48:10). He teaches that chastisements serve to refine His people — but He also says that He uses them with such moderation that they are not consumed by them. And that is necessary. For the more a person reverently fears God and devotes himself to godliness, the more sensitive he is to bear God's displeasure. The reprobate, even when groaning under His scourges, do not consider the cause — they turn their backs on their own sins and on God's judgment. This carelessness produces hardness, or else their murmuring and kicking against Him and their raging against their Judge overwhelms them with mad fury. But when the faithful are warned by His correction, they immediately turn to examine their sins. Struck with dread and horror, they flee in humility to pray to Him for pardon. If the Lord did not soothe the sorrows with which these poor souls torment themselves, they would faint a hundred times even under small tokens of His displeasure.

Now let this be the second distinction: when the reprobate are struck by God's scourges, they have already begun in some sense to suffer the pains of His judgment. Though they will not escape unpunished for having disregarded such tokens of God's wrath, they are not punished for the purpose of bringing them to a better mind — only to prove to their own great harm that God is a Judge and Avenger. But children are beaten with rods not to punish them before God for their sins, but to bring them to improvement. Therefore chastisements have their eye on the future more than on the past. I would rather express this in Chrysostom's words than my own: 'For this God lays suffering upon us — not to punish our past sins, but to correct us against the future.' And Augustine says: 'What you suffer, what makes you grieve — this is medicine for you, not pain; chastisement, not damnation. Do not cast off the scourge, if you do not wish to be cast off from the inheritance. Know, brothers, that all this misery of humanity, while the world groans, is a medicinal sorrow, not a penal sentence.' I have cited these statements so that the way I have spoken above does not seem new or unusual to anyone. To this same end belong all the complaints full of indignation in which the Lord frequently reproaches the people for stubbornly despising His punishments. In Isaiah He says: 'Why should I strike you any more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint; from the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness.' But since the prophets are full of such sayings, it is enough to have shown briefly that God punishes His church for no other purpose than to tame and amend it. So when He cast Saul out of the kingdom, He punished him in retribution. When He took from David his infant son, He corrected David for his amendment. Along these lines is Paul's statement to be understood: 'When we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.' That is: when we who are God's children are afflicted by our heavenly Father's hand, this is not punishment meant to destroy us, but only chastisement meant to instruct us. Augustine is plainly on our side here. He teaches that the pains by which God chastises people alike must be understood differently — because to the saints they are battles and exercises after the forgiveness of their sins, while to the reprobate they are pains of wickedness without forgiveness. In this connection he recalls how pains were laid on David and other godly people, and says that they served this purpose: that their godliness should be exercised and proven through such humbling. And where Isaiah says that the Jewish people had their iniquity forgiven because they had received full chastisement at the Lord's hand — this does not prove that pardon of sins depends on full payment of the penalty. It amounts to this: 'Because you have already suffered enough, and through the severity and extent of it have been worn away with long mourning and grief, the time has now come that, receiving the announcement of full mercy, your hearts should rejoice and find in Me your Father.' For there God took on the character of a father who relents even of his just severity when he has been compelled to correct his son sharply.

The faithful must be furnished with these thoughts in the bitterness of afflictions. Judgment begins at the house of the Lord, where His name is called upon. What would God's children do if they believed the severity they feel from God to be His retribution? For the one who, being struck by God's hand, imagines God to be a punishing judge, can only conceive of Him as angry and hostile — and detests God's very scourge as a curse and condemnation. In the end, he can never be persuaded that God loves him if he thinks God is still intent on punishing him. Only the one who thinks God is angry with his sins, yet merciful and loving toward him personally, benefits under God's rod. Otherwise what must necessarily happen is what the prophet complained of: 'Your wrath, O God, has swept over me; Your terrors have overwhelmed me.' And what Moses writes: 'We have come to an end in Your wrath; we are brought to an end by Your anger. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence. For all our days pass away under Your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh.' By contrast, David speaks of God's fatherly chastisements to show that the faithful are helped by them rather than crushed: 'Blessed is the man whom You discipline, O Lord, and whom You teach out of Your law, to give him rest from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked.' It is a hard temptation when God seems to spare unbelievers and wink at their faults while appearing more severe toward His own. Therefore He gave His people a reason for comfort in the instruction of the law, by which they learn that being called back to the right path is a provision for their salvation — while the wicked are carried headlong in their errors, whose end is the pit. And it makes no difference whether the punishment is eternal or temporary. War, famine, pestilence, and sickness are just as much God's curses as eternal death when they are laid upon people as instruments of the Lord's wrath and vengeance against the reprobate.

I think everyone can now see where the Lord's chastisement of David was aimed: it was instruction, showing that God is gravely displeased with murder and adultery — as He made plain by His great anger toward even His beloved and faithful servant — and teaching David never to be so bold as to repeat such a deed. It was not a penalty by which David was to make a certain payment to God. The same must be said about the other correction in which the Lord punished His people with a severe plague for the disobedience David had fallen into by counting the people. God freely forgave David the guilt of his sin. But because it served both the public example of all generations and David's own humbling that so grave an offense should not go without visible consequence, He chastised him sharply with His rod. We ought also to keep this purpose in view when considering the universal curse on humanity. After we obtain pardon, we still suffer the miseries laid on our first parent as a penalty for sin. Through these trials we are reminded how gravely God is displeased with the transgression of His law — so that, being cast down and humbled by the awareness of our own miserable condition, we may more earnestly long for true blessedness. But the person who thinks that the calamities of this present life are laid upon us as payment for the guilt of sin is profoundly mistaken. I believe that was also Chrysostom's meaning when he wrote: 'If God therefore lays penalties upon us to call us, persisting in evil, to repentance, then once repentance is shown the penalty is superfluous.' Therefore, as He knows it to be useful for each person's character, He deals with one person more roughly and with another more tenderly. So when He intends to teach that He is not without limit in exacting punishment, He reproaches the hard-hearted and stubborn people for continuing to sin even while under the rod. In this sense He complains that Ephraim was like a half-baked loaf — scorched on one side and raw on the other — because the corrections did not reach their minds, so that the people might have their vices driven out and be made ready to receive pardon. Whoever speaks this way shows that as soon as a person repents, God will immediately be moved to relent — and that He is driven to severity in chastising faults by our own stubbornness, which should have been replaced with willing amendment. Yet since we are all so hard and dull that we universally need chastisement, God in His wisdom as our Father has seen fit to exercise all without exception with a shared scourge throughout their lives. But it is remarkable that they fix their eyes so narrowly on David's one example while not being moved by the many examples in which they could see free forgiveness of sins. We read that the tax collector left the temple justified. No penalty followed. Peter received pardon for his offense. His tears we read about, says Ambrose — his satisfaction we do not read about. And the paralyzed man heard these words: 'Rise, your sins are forgiven you.' No penalty was imposed on him. All the accounts of absolution recorded in Scripture are presented as freely given. From this large number of examples a general rule should have been drawn — not from that one special case that contains its own particular circumstances.

When Daniel exhorted Nebuchadnezzar to redeem his sins with righteousness and his iniquities with mercy to the poor, he did not mean that righteousness and mercy are satisfying appeasements of God that redeem penalties — God forbid that there should ever be any redemption except the blood of Christ alone. Rather, Daniel uses the word 'redeeming' with reference to people rather than to God. He was saying: 'O king, you have governed with injustice and violence, you have crushed the humble, you have plundered the poor, you have treated your people harshly and wrongfully. For your unjust exactions, your violence and oppression — now show them mercy and justice.' Similarly, Solomon says that love covers a multitude of sins — but before men, not before God. For the full verse reads: 'Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.' Following his usual pattern of contrasting opposites, Solomon is comparing the evils that grow from hatred with the fruits of love: those who hate each other bite, bark at, reproach, and slander one another, turning everything to the worst. But those who love each other overlook many things, look the other way at many things, and forgive many things — not because they approve of one another's faults, but because they bear with them and help one another through gentle correction rather than wounding one another with reproach. There is no doubt that Peter cites this verse in the same sense — unless we are willing to accuse him of distorting and wrongfully twisting Scripture. When he teaches that sin is purged by mercifulness and generosity, he does not mean that compensation is thereby made for sin before God, so that God is appeased by such satisfaction and releases a penalty He would otherwise have imposed. Rather, in the customary manner of Scripture, he declares that those who turn away from their former vices and iniquities and turn to God in godliness and truth will find Him merciful. It is as if he were saying that God's wrath ceases and His judgment rests when we cease from our evil ways. He is not describing the cause of pardon but the manner of true conversion. This is similar to the way the prophets frequently declare that hypocrites vainly trouble God with invented ceremonies in place of repentance — for it is uprightness of life and the duties of love that please Him. Likewise the author of the letter to the Hebrews, commending generosity and kindness, teaches that such sacrifices please God. And when Christ, rebuking the Pharisees for attending only to the washing of cups while neglecting the cleanness of the heart, commanded them to give alms so that all might be clean — He was not urging them to make satisfaction, but only teaching what kind of cleanness pleases God. We have treated this type of expression elsewhere.

As for the passage in Luke, no one who has read the parable the Lord recited there with sound judgment will raise a dispute with us about it. The Pharisee thought to himself that the Lord did not know the woman He had so readily received into His presence. He assumed Christ would not have received her if He had known what a sinner she was. From this he concluded that Christ could not be a prophet — otherwise He would have seen through her. To show that she was not a sinner, since her sins had already been forgiven, the Lord told this parable. Two debtors owed money to the same creditor: one owed fifty, the other five hundred. Both had their debts forgiven. Which one would love him more? The Pharisee answered: the one forgiven more. The Lord replied: understand from this that this woman's sins are forgiven her, because she loved much. In these words — as you can see — He makes her love not the cause but the proof of her forgiveness. The comparison is drawn from the debtor who was forgiven five hundred: the Lord does not say that the debt was forgiven because he loved much, but that he loved much because it was forgiven. The parable must be applied in this way: 'You think this woman is a sinner. But you should know she is not — for her sins have been forgiven. And that her sins have been forgiven, her love should prove to you, since by it she is giving thanks for the benefit received.' It is an argument drawn from the effect that follows, in which something is proved by the signs that come after it. By what means she obtained forgiveness the Lord openly declares: 'Your faith,' He says, 'has saved you.' Therefore we obtain forgiveness by faith; by love we give thanks and testify to the Lord's generosity.

As for what is commonly found in the books of the early writers about satisfaction, it moves me very little. I see that many of them — I will speak plainly — indeed nearly all of those whose writings survive have either erred on this point or spoken on it too harshly and obscurely. But I will not grant that they were so untrained and unskilled as to have written these things in the sense that the modern satisfactionists read into them. Chrysostom writes in one place: 'Where mercy is sought, examination ceases; where mercy is asked, judgment is not strict; where mercy is pleaded, there is no room for punishment; where mercy is present, there is no inquisition. Where mercy is present, the answer is pardon.' However these words may be twisted, they can never be made to agree with the scholastic theologians' doctrine. In the book of Ecclesiastical Doctrines, attributed to Augustine, it is written: 'Satisfaction for repentance is to cut off the causes of sins and not to allow entry to their suggestions.' This shows that even at that time the doctrine of satisfaction as a payment for sins already committed was being set aside — since they referred all satisfaction to watchfulness in avoiding sins in the future. I will not cite what Chrysostom says elsewhere — that God requires nothing of us except that we confess our sins to Him with tears — since such statements are found frequently in his writings and others'. Augustine in some places does call works of mercy remedies for obtaining forgiveness of sins. But so that no one should stumble over that expression, he himself corrects it in another place: 'The flesh of Christ — the true and only sacrifice for sins — covers not only those sins wholly put away in baptism, but also those that afterward creep in through weakness, for which the whole church prays daily: Forgive us our trespasses. And they are forgiven by that singular sacrifice.'

For the most part the early writers called satisfaction not a repayment owed to God, but a public declaration by which those who had been excommunicated, when seeking readmission to fellowship, would assure the church of their repentance. Certain fastings and other practices were prescribed for repentant persons, by which they could demonstrate to others that they were truly and sincerely weary of their former life — or rather, to blot out the memory of their former conduct. And so they were said to make satisfaction not to God but to the church. Augustine also expresses this in his Enchiridion to Laurence: 'From that ancient custom the confessions and satisfactions in use today took their beginning.' These are truly poisonous offspring, through which there remains not even a shadow of the better original form. I know the early writers sometimes speak harshly on this subject, and as I just said, I do not deny that perhaps they erred in it. But what was sprinkled with only a few spots, once handled by these men's unwashed hands, is left thoroughly defiled. And if we must contend on the authority of the early writers — good God, what kind of early writers do they put before us? A large part of what Peter Lombard, their champion, has stitched into his patchwork Sentences was cobbled together from the tasteless nonsense of certain monks that circulates under the names of Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom. On this particular question he draws almost everything from a book called Augustine's On Repentance — a work foolishly cobbled together, mixing good and bad, by some compiler. It bears Augustine's name, but it is the kind of book that any moderately educated person would refuse to acknowledge as his. But I will not examine their foolishness more narrowly than this — let the readers forgive me, for I want to spare them the tedium. It would not be very laborious for me, and yet would be quite satisfying, to expose to their well-deserved shame the things they have so long boasted of as deep mysteries. But since my purpose is to teach faithfully and usefully, I pass them by.