do sin, all men must repent, or all men must perish. And very many periods of Scripture are directed to lapsed Christians, baptized persons falling into grievous crimes, calling them to repentance. So Simon Peter to Simon Magus: MeTaνóŋσOν άπò Kakías, 'Repent of thy wickedness';' and to the Corinthian Christians St. Paul urges the purpose of his legation; 'We pray in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.' The Spirit of God reproved some of the Asian churches for foul misdemeanours, and even some of the angels, the Asian bishops,' calling upon them to return to their first love,' and 'to repent and to do their first works;' and to the very Gnostics, and filthiest heretics he gave 'space to repent,' and threatened extermination to them, if they did not do it 'speedily'.' For, 10. Baptism is eiç uɛrávolav, the admission of us to the covenant of faith and repentance; or as Mark the Anchoret called it, πρόφασίς ἐστι τῆς μετανοίας, “ the introduction to repentance,' or that state of life that is full of labour and care, and amendment of our faults;' for that is the best life that any man can live: and therefore repentance hath its progress after baptism, as it hath its beginning before: for first repentance is unto baptism,' and then baptism unto repentance.' And if it were otherwise, the church had but ill provided for the state of her sons and daughters by commanding the baptism of infants. For if repentance were not allowed after, then their early baptism would take from them all hopes of repentance, and destroy the mercies of the Gospel, and make it now to all Christendom a law of works in the greater instances; because since in our infancy we neither need, nor can perform, repentance,-if to them that sin after baptism, repentance be denied, it is in the whole denied to them for ever to repent". But "God hath provided better things for us, and such which accompany salvation." 11. For besides those many things which have been already considered, our admission to the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper, is a perpetual entertainment of our hopes: because then and there is really exhibited to us the body that was broken, and the blood that was shed for remission of Acts, viii. 22. Apocal. ii. 16. 5. 21. " Vide Great Exemplar, part 1. disc. of Baptism, p. 175, &c. sins:' still it is applied, and that application could not be necessary to be done anew, if there were not new necessities; and still we are invited to do actions of repentance, ' to examine ourselves, and so to eat:' all which, as things are ordered, would be infinitely useless to mankind, if it did not mean pardon to Christians falling into foul sins even after baptism. 12. I shall add no more but the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians; "Lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many who have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness, which they have committed *." Here is a fierce accusation of some of them, for the foulest and the basest crimes; and a reproof of their not repenting, and a threatening them with censures ecclesiastical I suppose this article to be sufficiently concluded from the premises. The necessity of which proof they only will best believe, who are severely penitent, and full of apprehension and fear of the divine anger, because they have highly deserved it. However, I have served my own needs in it, and the need of those whose consciences have been, or shall be, so timorous as mine hath deserved to be. But against the universality of this doctrine there are two grand objections; the one is the severer practice and doctrine of the primitive church, denying repentance to some kind of sinners after baptism :-the other, the usual discourses and opinions concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost. Of these I shall give account in the two following sections. SECTION III. Of the Difficulty of obtaining Pardon: the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church in this Article. 13. NOVATIANUS and Novatus said, that the church had not power to minister pardon of sins, except only in baptism; which proposition, when they had well digested and considered, they did thus explicate. That there are some capital 2 Cor. xii. 21, sins, crying and clamorous, into which if a Christian did fall after baptism, the church hath nothing to do with him, she could not absolve him. 14. This opinion of theirs, was a branch of the elder heresy of Montanus, which had abused Tertullian, who fiercely declaims against the decree of Pope Zephyrinus, because, against the custom of his decessors, he admitted adulterers to repentance, while at the same time he refused idolaters and murderers. And this their severity did not seem to be put upon the account of a present necessity, or their own zeal, or for the avoiding scandal, or their love of holiness; but upon the nature of the thing itself, and the sentences of Scripture. An old man, of whom Irenæus makes mention, said; “Non debemus superbi esse, neque reprehendere veteres, ne fortè, post agnitionem Dei, agentes aliquid quod non placet Deo, remissionem non habeamus ultrà delictorum, et excludamur à regno ejus:" "We must not be proud and reprove our fathers, lest, after the knowledge of God, we, doing something that does not please God, we may no more have remission of our sins, but be excluded from his kingdom." To the same purpose is that canon made by the Gallic bishops against the false accusers of their brethren; ut ad exitum ne communicent:''that they should not be admitted to the communion or peace of the church, no, not at their death.'— And Pacianus, bishop of Barcinona, gives a severe account of the doctrine of the Spanish churches even in his time, and of their refusing to admit idolaters, murderers, and adulterers to repentance. "Other sins may be cured by the exercise of good works; but these three kill like the breath of a basilisk, and are to be feared like a deadly arrow. They that were guilty of such crimes, did despair. What have I done to you? Was it not in your power to have let it alone? Did no man admonish you? Did none foretell the event? Was the church silent? Did the Gospels say nothing? Did the apostles threaten nothing? Did the priest entreat nothing of you? Why do you seek for late comforts? Then you might have sought for them, when they were to be had. But they that pronounce such men happy, do but abuse you a." 15. This opinion, and the consequent practice, had its fate in several places to live longer or die sooner. And in y De Pudic. c. 5. 9. z Lib. 4. c. 45. a Paræn. ad Pœnit. Africa the decree of Zephyrinus, for the admission of penitent adulterers, was not admitted even by the orthodox and catholics; but they dissented placidly and modestly, and governed their own churches by the old severity. For there was then no thought of any necessity that other churches should obey the sanctions of the Pope, or the decrees of Rome, but they retained the old discipline. But yet the piety and the reasonableness of the decree of Zephyrinus prevailed by little and little, and adulterers were admitted; but the severity stuck longer upon idolaters or apostates: for they were not to be admitted to the peace of the church, although they should afterward suffer martyrdom for the name of Christ: and for this they pretended the words of St. Paul; "Non possunt admitti, secundum Apostolume," as St. Cyprian expressly affirms ; and the same is the sentence of the first canon of the council of Eliberis. 16. When they began to remit of this rigour, which they did in or about St. Cyprian's time, they did admit these great criminals to repentance: once, but no more; as appears in Tertullian, the council of Eliberis, the synod at Syde in Pamphylia against the Messalians 5, St. Ambrose ", St. Austin, and Macedonius ; which makes it suspicious that the words of Origen are interpolated, saying, "In gravioribus criminibus, semel tantùm vel rarò, pœnitentiæ conceditur locus." But once or but seldom; so the words are now; but the practice of that age was not so remiss, for they gave once and no more: as appears in the foregoing authors, and in the eleventh canon of the third council of Toledo. For as St. Clemens of Alexandria affirms; " Apparet, sed non est, pœnitentia, sæpe petere de iis, quæ sæpe peccantur :" "It is but a seeming repentance, that falls often after a frequent return *" 17. But this gentleness (for it was the greatest they then had) they ministered to such only as desired it in their health, and in the days in which they could live the lives of penitents, and make amends for their folly. For if men had lived wickedly, and on their death-beds desired to be admitted to repentance and pardon, they refused them utterly; as appears. St. Cyprian. ep. 52. e De Pœnit. h Ep. 54. Stromat. lib. 2. Heb. vi. 4—6. f Can. 7. d Ubi supra. in that excellent epistle' of St. Cyprian to Antonianus: "Prohibendos omnino censuimus à spe communionis et pacis, si in infirmitate atque periculo cœperint deprecari ;"" At no hand are those to be admitted to church-communion, who repent only in their danger and weakness," because "not repentance of their fault, but the hasty warning of instant or approaching death compelled them: neither is he worthy in death to receive the comfort, who did not think he was to die." And consequently to this severity, in his sermon ' de Lapsis,' he advises that "every man should confess his sin, while his confession can be admitted, while his satisfaction may be acceptable, and his pardon ratified by God."The same was decreed by the fathers in the synod of Arles". 18. This was severe, if we judge of it by the manners and propositions of the present age. But iniquity did so abound, and was so far from being cured by this severe discipline, that it made this discipline to be intolerable and useless. And therefore even from this also they did quickly retire. For in the time of Innocentius" and St. Austin, they began not only to impose penances on dying penitents, but even after a wicked life to reconcile them. They then first began to do it but as it usually happens in first attempts, and insolent actions, they were fearful, and knew not the event, and would warrant nothing. "To hinder them that are in peril of death, from the use of the last remedy, is hard and impious; but to promise any thing in so late a cure is temerarious :" so Salvian:-and St. Chrysostom to Theodorus would not have such persons despaired, so neither nourished up by hope only it is better, nihil inexpertum relinquere quàm morientem nolle curare," " to try every way, rather than that the dying penitent should fail for want of help." But Isidore said plainly," He who living wickedly, repents in the time of his death, as his damnation is uncertain, so his pardon is doubtful." 19. This was the most dangerous indulgence, and easiness of doctrine, that had as yet entered into the church; but now it was tumbling, and therefore could not stop here, but presently, down went all severity. All sinners, and at all times, and as often as they would, might be admitted to repentance and pardon, whether they could or could not per! Epist. 52. ■ Innocent. epist. ad Exuper. Arelat. 1. c. 23. |