07 Dec




















outwardly. For venial sins, whereby we are not ex- MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN 47 eluded from the grace of God, and into which we fall more frequently, although they be rightly and profit- ably, and without any presumption, declared in con- fession, as the custom of pious persons demonstrates, yet may they be omitted without guilt, and be expiated by many other remedies. But, since all mortal sins, even those of thought, render men children of wrath and enemies of God, it is necessary to seek also for the pardon of them all from God, with an open and modest confession. And hence, while the faithful of Christ are careful to confess all the sins which occur to their memory, they without doubt lay them all bare before the mercy of God to be pardoned ; whereas they who act otherwise, and knowingly keep back certain sins, such set nothing before the divine bounty to be forgiven through the priest. For if the sick be ashamed to show his wound to the physician, his medical art cures not that which it knows not of. We gather furthermore, that those circumstances which change the species of the sin are also to be ex- plained in confession ; because that, without them, the sins themselves are neither entirely set forth by the penitents, nor are they known clearly to the judges, and it cannot be that they can estimate rightly the

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