A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

:laeINSTRUCTIONS FOR COMFORTINGfor an offence by him committed against God, there are twothings to be considered ; one, that there is no pardon if thesinner doth not earnestly repent ; the other, that he himselfwhich pardoneth hath need of pardon. Of these two points,the first is the cause that the priest's pardon is conditional,because he knoweth not the heart ; the other is a cause thatthe priest should consider of himself that he is rather adelinquent than a judge ; and to teach him to fear, lest thatafter he hath pardoned others, he himself may not obtainpardon. It is a thing certain, that if a sinner seriously convertedand believing in Jesus Christ cannot obtain absolutionof his pastor, who is passionate or badly informed of thetruth, God will pardon him. On the contrary, if a pastorthat is indulgent and winketh at vices, or that is deceivedby appearance of repentance, absolveth an hypocriticalsinner and receiveih him into the communion of the faithful,that hypocritical sinner remaineth bound before God, andshall be punished notwithstanding. For God partaketh notwith the errors of pastors, neither regardeth their passions ;nor can be hindered from doing justice by their ignorance *."3. Let me add Cyprian, who at the first rising of theNovatian heresy, wrote thus to Antonianust "; We do notprejudice the Lord that is to judge, but that he, if he findthe repentance of the sinner to be full and just, may thenratify that which shall be here ordained by us. But if anyone do deceive us with the semblance of repentance, God,who is not mocked, and who beholdeth the heart of man,may judge of those things which we did not well discern,and the Lord may amend the sentence of his servants."Neither let this truth (to wit, that our assuring of mercyand pardon must be conditional upon such like terms asthese, " If thou dost believe and repent as thou oughtestto do ; if these things be in truth as you promise and confess,"&c.) discourage or trouble any that are true of heartwhom the priest will not forgive" (Bellarm. de Poeniteiit. lib. iii,cap. ii), I say then, by pardoning, we must not understand any sovereigntyof remitting sins ; but a declaring and showing to the truerepentant that they are pardoned, ministerially only. To which truth,it is so mighty, even some popish writers subscribe. *' God," saithLomburd, the father of the Romish school, " hath given to priests tobind and unbind, that is, to show that men are bound or unbound."Nay, our polemical divines prove it to be publicly taught from the timeof Satan's loosing until his binding again by the restoring of the purityof the gospel in our days.* Buckler of the taith, by Peter de Moulin against Armour theJesuit, of Auricular Confession.t Ad Antonianum, epist. ii, lib. iv.