change any thing, the Scriptures, accommodating their language to our ideas, say that he repents. Thus we read that " it repented him that he had made man," [1] and also that it repented him to have made Saul king. [2]
But an important distinction is to be made between these different significations of the word: to repent, in its first meaning, argues imperfection — in its second, the agitation of a disturbed mind — in the third, penance is a virtue and a sacrament, the sense in which it is here used.
We shall first treat of penance as a virtue, not only because it is the bounden duty of the pastor to form the faithful, with whose instruction he is charged, to the practice of every virtue; but also, because the acts which proceed from penance as a virtue, constitute the matter, as it were, of penance as a sacrament; and if ignorant of it in this latter sense, impossible not to be ignorant also of its efficacy as a sacrament. The faithful, there fore, are first to be admonished and exhorted to labour strenuously to attain this interior penance of the heart, which we call a virtue, and without which exterior penance can avail them very little. [3] This virtue consists in turning to God sincerely and from the heart, and in hating and detesting our past transgressions, with a firm resolution of amendment of life, hoping to obtain pardon through the mercy of God. It is accompanied with a sincere sorrow, which is an agitation and affection of the mind, and is called by many a passion, and if accompanied with detestation, is, as it were, the companion of sin. It must, how ever, be preceded by faith, for without faith no man can turn to God. Faith, therefore, cannot on any account be called a part of penance. [4] That this inward affection of the soul is, as we have already said, a virtue, the various precepts which enforce its necessity prove; for precepts regard those actions only, the performance of which implies virtue. Besides, to experience a sense of sorrow at the time, in the manner, and to the extent which are consonant to reason and religion, is no doubt an exercise of virtue: and this sorrow is regulated by the virtue of penance. Some conceive a sorrow which bears no proportion to the enormity of their crimes: " There are some," says Solomon, " who are glad when they have done evil;" [5] whilst others, on the contrary, consign themselves to such morbid melancholy and to such a deluge of grief, as utterly to abandon all hope of salvation. Such perhaps was the condition of Cain when he exclaimed: " My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon:" [6] such certainly was the condition of Judas, who, " repenting," hanged himself in despair, and thus sacrificed soul and body. [7] Penance, therefore, considered as a
- ↑ Gen. vL 6.
- ↑ 1 Kings xv. 11.
- ↑ Vide Amb. in sermone de pcen. et citatur. de poenit. dist. 3. cap. poenitentm. Aug. lib. de vera et felsa poen. c. 8. et habetur de pcen. 3. c. 4. Greg. horn. 34. in Kvang. et lib. 9. Kegist. Epist. 39.
- ↑ Trid. Sess. 14. de poen. c. 3, can. 4.
- ↑ Prov. ii. 14.
- ↑ Gen. iv. 13.
- ↑ Matt. xxvii. 3.
