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they were not repented of; for by that accident they become mortal; as by the contrary accident, to wit, if the sinner repents worthily, not only the smallest, but the greatest also, become venial: the impenitent pays for all; all together. But if the man be a worthy penitent, if he continues and abides in God's love, he will find a mercy according to his circumstances, by the measures of God's graciousness, and his own repentance; so that by accident they may be pardoned; but if that accident does not happen, if the man be not penitent, the sins shall be punished directly, and for their own natural demerit. The sum is this:

If a man repents truly of the greater sins, he also repents of the smallest; for it cannot be a true repentance which refuses to repent of any; so that if it happens, that for the smallest he do smart in hell, it is because he did not repent truly of any, greatest, nor smallest. But if it happens, that the man did not commit any of the greater sins, and yet did indulge to himself a licence to do the smallest,-even, for those which he calls the smallest, he may perish; and what he is pleased to call little, God may call great. "Cum his peccatis neminem salvandum," said St. Bernard:" with these," (even the smallest sins) actually remaining upon him unrepented of in general or particular, " no man can be saved."

SECTION IV.

The former Doctrine reduced to Practice.

36. I HAVE been the more earnest in this article, not only because the doctrine which I have all this while opposed, makes all the whole doctrine of moral theology to be inartificial, and in many degrees useless, false, and imprudent; but because of the immediate influence it hath to encourage evil lives of men. For,

37. I. To distinguish a whole kind of sins, is a certain way to make repentance and amendment of life imperfect and false. For when men by fears and terrible considerations are scared from their sins, as most repentances begin with fear, they still retain some portions of affection to their

t Serm. 1. de Cœnâ Dom, et serm. 1. de Convers. Pauli.

sin, some lookings back and fantastic entertainments, which if they be not pared off by repentance, we love not God with all our hearts; and yet by this doctrine of distinguishing sins into mortal and venial in their whole kind and nature, men are taught to arrest their repentances, and have leave not to proceed farther; for they who say sins are venial in their own nature, if they understand the consequences of their own doctrine, do not require repentance to make them so, or to obtain a pardon which they need not.

38. II. As by this means our repentances are made imperfect, so is a relapse extremely ready; for while such a leaven is left, it is ten to one but it may sour the whole mass. St. Gregory said well ", " Si curare parva negligimus, insensibiliter seducti audenter etiam majora perpetramus:" we are too apt to return to our old crimes, whose relics we are permitted to keep and kiss.

39. III. But it is worse yet. For the distinction of sing mortal and venial in their nature is such a separation of sin from sin, as is rather a dispensation or leave to commit one sort of them; the expiation of which is so easy, the pardon so certain, the remedy so ready, the observation and exaction of them so inconsiderable. For there being so many ways of making great sins little, and little sins none at all, found out by the folly of men and the craft of the devil,—a great portion of God's right, and the duty we owe to him, are by way of compromise and agreement, left as a portion to carelessness and folly: and why may not a man rejoice in those trifling sins, for which he hath security he shall never be damned? As for the device of purgatory, indeed if there were any such thing, it were enough to scare any one from committing any sins, much more little ones. But I have conversed with many of that persuasion, and yet never observed any to whom it was a terror to speak of purgatory, but would talk of it as an antidote or security against hell, but not as a formidable story to affright them from their sins, but to warrant their venial sins, and their imperfect repentance for their mortal sins. And indeed let it be considered; if venial sins be such as the Roman doctors describe them; that they neither destroy nor lessen charity,' or the grace of God, that they only hinder the fervency of an act,' which sleep or business

" Lib. 10. Moral, c. 14.

or any thing that is most innocent, may do ; that they are not against the law, but besides it; as walking and riding, standing and sitting, are; that they are not properly sins, that 'all the venial sins in the world cannot amount to one mortal sin;' but as time differs from eternity, finite from infinite, so do all the venial sins in the world put together, from one mortal act; that for all them a man is nevertheless beloved, and loves God nothing the less; I say, if venial sins be such (as the Roman writers affirm they are), how can it be imagined to be agreeable to God's goodness to inflict upon such sinners, who only have venial sins unsatisfied for, such horrible pains (which they dream of in purgatory) as are, during their abode, equal to the intolerable pains of hell, for that which breaks none of his laws, which angers him not, which is not against him or his love, which is incident to his dearest servants? Pro peccato magno paulum supplicii satis est patri;' but if fathers take such severe amends of their children for that which is not properly sin, there is nothing left by which we can boast of a father's kindness. In this case, there is no remission; for if it be not just in God to punish such sins in hell, because they are consistent with the state of the love of God, and yet they are punished in purgatory, that is, as much as they can be punished; then God does remit to his children nothing for their love's sake, but deals with them as severely as for his justice he can, in the matter of venial sins; indeed, if he uses mercy to them at all, it is in remitting their mortal sins; but in their venial sins, he uses none at all. Now if things were thus on both' sides, it is strange, men are not more afraid of their venial sins, and that they are not more terrible in their description, which are so sad in their event; and that their punishment should be so great, when their malice is so none at all; and it is strangest of all, that if men did believe such horrible effects to be consequent of venial sins, they should esteem them little, and inconsiderable, and warn men of them with so little caution. But to take this wonder off, though they affright men with purgatory at the end, yet they make the bugbear nothing by their easy remedies and preventions in the way. Venial sins may be taken off, according to their doctrine, at as cheap a rate as they may be committed; but of this I shall give a fuller account in the sixth section of this

chapter. In the meantime, to believe purgatory, serves the ends of the Roman clergy, and to have so much easiness and leave in venial sins, serves the ends of their laity; but as truth is deserved in the former, so are piety and the severities of a holy life very much slackened by the latter.

40. But as care is taken that their doctrine do not destroy charity or good life by looseness and indulgence, so care must be taken that ours do not destroy hope, and discountenance the endeavours of pious people; for if the smallest sins be so highly punishable, who can hope ever to escape the intolerable state of damnation? And if God can be eternally angry for those things which we account small sins, then no man is a servant or a friend of God; no man is in the state of the divine favour; for no man is without these sins; for they are such,

Quæ non possit homo quisquam evitare cavendo,

⚫ a man, by all his industry, cannot wholly avoid.' Now because the Scripture pronounces some persons 'just,' and 'righteous,' as David and Josiah, Zachary and Elizabeth, who yet could not be innocent and pure from small offences: either these little things are in their own nature venial, or the godly have leave to do that, which is punished in the ungodly; or some other way must be found out, how that which is in its own nature damnable, can stand with the state of grace; and upon what causes, sins which of themselves are not so, may come to be venial, that is, more apt and ready to be pardoned, and in the next dispositions to receive a mercy.

SECTION V.

41. I. No just person does or can indulge to himself the keeping of any sin whatsoever; for all sins are accounted of by God according to our affections, and if a man loves any, it becomes his poison. Every sin is damnable when it is chosen deliberately, either by express act or by interpretation; that is, when it is chosen regularly or frequently. He that loves to cast over in his mind the pleasures of his past sin, he that entertains all those instances of sin, which ke

thinks not to be damnable, this man hath given himself up to be a servant to a trifle, a lover of little and fantastic pleasures. Nothing of this can stand with the state of grace. No man can love sin and love God at the same time; and to think it to be an excuse to say the sin is little, is as if an adulteress should hope for pardon of her offended lord, because the man whom she dotes upon, is an inconsiderable person.

42. II. In sins we must distinguish the formality from the material part. The formality of sin is disobedience to God, and turning from him to the creature by love and adhesion. The material part is the action itself. The first can never happen without our will; but the latter may by surprise, and indeliberation, and imperfection of condition. For in this life our understanding is weak, our attention trifling, our advertency interrupted, our diversions many, our divisions of spirit irresistible, dur knowledge little, our dulness frequent, our mistakes many, our fears potent, and betrayers of of our reason; and at any one of these doors sin may enter, in its material part, while the will is inactive, or the understanding dull, or the affections busy, or the spirit otherwise employed, or the faculties wearied, or reason abused: therefore if you inquire for venial sins, they must be in his throng of imperfections, but they never go higher. Let no man therefore say, I have a desire to please myself in some little things; for if he desires it, he may not do it, that very desire makes that it cannot be venial, but as damnable as any, in its proportion.

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43. III. If any man about to do an action of sin, inquires whether it be a venial sin or no,-to that man, at that time, that sin cannot be venial: for whatsoever a man considers, and acts, he also chooses and loves in some proportion, and therefore turns from God to the sin, and that is against the love of God, and in its degree destructive or diminutive of the state of grace. Besides this, such a person in this inquiry asks leave to sin against God, and gives a testimony that he would sin more if he durst. But in the same degree in which the choice is lessened, in the same degree the material part of the sin receives also diminution.

44. IV. It is remarkable, that amongst the ancients this distinction of sins into mortal and venial, or, to use their own words, 'graviora et leviora,' or 'peccata et crimina,' does

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