“Christ bestowed on us the medicine of penance, by which all our sins may be cancelled and extirpated.—Then what is this medicine, and how is it formed? By condemning our own sins, and by confession. It is written: I have not hidden mine iniquity: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my heart : (Psalm xxxi. 5.)-Again : Declare thine iniquities, that thou mayest be justified : (Isai. xliii. 26.) And again: The just man is his first accuser :"-(Prov. xviii. 17.)-Homil. ix. in Ep.ad Hebr. T. xii. p. 98.—“ This time of fasting is helpful to us : let us all hasten to the Confession of our sins, and abstaining from all wickedness, practise virtue." Homil. ix. in Gen. T. iv. p. 71.—“Sin is the cause of great shame; if we allow this--we ought to hasten to Confession and to satisfaction. For the Lord, when we have sinned, requires only, that we confess our failings, and return no more to them.” Ib. p. 73, 74.-“At this time, we must fast and pray more fervently, and make a full and exact Confession of our sins. - For the enemy knows, that we can now treat of those things which belong to our salvation, and obtain much by confessing our sins, and shewing our wounds to the physician.” Ibid. Homil. xxx. p. 294, 301.-“ The fornicator, or adulterer, who has been guilty of any such crime, though he may be concealed from all, yet never lives in peace.--If such a one, as becomes him, use the aid of his conscience, and hasten to confess his crimes, and disclose his ulcer to the physician, who may heal, and not reproach, and receive remedies from him: would he speak to him alone, without the privity
