362 Pr?cE :iT?Sric?ow. [Book [l. abstinence reduced me so much that I was unable to aueud to what was called the duties of the altar. At length I resolved, if' possible, to find out what X had been guilty, of; for my knees were too sore to allow me to kneel any more without severe pain. At the end of throe weeks I took courage, and humbly asked my ghostly father, ' Vfnat is the crime for which I was thus punished ?' To which he replied, ' You have been guilty of speaking irreverenfiy to Father O'Gorman, and the penance was to humble you, and keep you on your right course of duty.' "Now my great crime of irreverence committed against the priest, Michael O'Gorman, was this: That priest forcibly took away my Bible, and cast it into the fire, with the notes on the Douay Testament. As I was much displeased and grieved at his burning my Bible, I told him of it, and said, ' I do not thank you for such treatment.' That was my sin against the popish priest, and that was my terrible punishment. "T. HooA?q." For voluntary dru,?ke?ss, without scanda/, Dens recommends the following penance: "That he would read for two days the psalm M/serere, on his knees; that he wonld fast twice in the week; and ...?tltat he would distribute to the poor twice as much as he hath spent in /drink. But if he be a poor man and a labouter, he is to recite,. for three successive days, on his knees, five paters and aves; for two days, not to drink any thing before noon, and in the evening to eat only half a meal; on the two next Sundays not to enter the church; but after midday he may go to preaching or to praises."* Our author seems to have no idea of teaching his penitent to turn from his sin and avoid the (?ccasion of it, as well as to look up to God for grace to enable him to do so. He directs him to have recourse to expedients, which are ,mthing more, in the way in which such things are used, than or ?e//s, or i;?�antatiooz; because the guilty person is not pointed to �the right way to get rid of drunkenness, nor to the right source for aid, but he is directed to paters, aves, and other such things, very much like the charmers or spellers who had certain amulets to apply in the place of true remedies. The plan of reformation recommended by Dens is, therefore, more like the incantations of a magician than the sound doctrines of the gospel. 18. Let us examine the testimony of the fathers on this subject. It must be owned that Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine, speak of our making satisfaction to God by the temporal pains which we endure. To this we answer, that if they use the term satisfaction in the Roman Catholic sense, we affirm that their grossly unscriptural language merely shows how soon and how easily a specious and flat- tering corruption crept into the church. But it is doubted whether this is their meaning. It is certain that in the idioms of both Greek and Latin the same phrase signifies indifferently-, to ?v? s?ti?faction, and to .?'?.?'o'pu,J/s/onent. This seems to be the true key to the phraseology employed by certain fathers. When they 8peak of men's making satis- faction to God for their sins, they mean, not that their pains were me- ritorious, but that sin will be attended by metired punishment. Be this as it may-, if we are to be guided by the fathers, we must vo? Ut legat duobum diebum lindmum Mt,ero'z, &c.?Thed. dz $attJj'?., No. 17?, vi, p. Sin. 1
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