A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

IIDeAFFLICTED CONSCIENCES. 311legal and evangelical repentance ; 1. In respect of the object.Contrition, as they say, is sorrow for sin, as an offenceagainst God ; attrition is a grief for sin, as liable to punishment.2. In respect of the cause. Contrition ariseth fromson-like, attrition from servile fear*.This contrition is the cause of the remission of sinst.Well then, thou art a papist and troubled in conscience.Thou knowest well that without contrition, no remission :but when comest thou to that measure and degree whichmay give thee some contentment about the pardon of thysins ? Go unto them in this point for resolution and relief,and thou goest unto a rack. Consult with their chapters," De quantitate Contritionis," of the amount of sorrow,and they are able to confound thee with many desperatedistractions.1. Lookback upon the elder schoolmen; and you shallhave Adrian t and others tell you ofa contrition in the higheststrain, and to which nothing can be added§. This opinionVega refutes 1|,and Bellaimine dislikes it*[[. Note by theway how sweetly they agree ; our concord is angelical inrespect of their confusions.2. Go to Scotus** and his followers, and you shall findhim to talk of a certain intensity of contrition, which is onlyknown unto God; but this Greg.de Valent. censures asvery false tt. You see again, as there is no truth in theirtenets, so no constancy, no concord, and by consequenceno comfort to a truly troubled spirit.3. Come at length to the latter locusts, some modernJesuits, daubers over of their superstitious ruins with manyrotten distinctions (I mean Bellarmine, Greg, de Valent.and their fellows), and they dare not stand either to theunknown intensity of Scotus, nor that of highest pitch, whicliAdrian holds ; but come in with a sorrow for sin, appreciativesummus. And what is that, think you 1Hence Bellarmine (for ^'alent. speaks more warily in thequoted place, Art. '• Neque veni ;" yet very weakly too,for in such cases the troubled mind is not wont to rest upongenerals only, but will in spite of ourselves bring us toparticulars, howsoever Scotus, Navar, and Madina advisethe contrary)— " Sorrow for sin," saith he, " is then summus* See Valent. Disp. vii, q. 8, De Contrit. punct, 2.t Bellar. lib. ii, De Poeuit. cap. xil.t QuEest ii, de Foenit. qnodlib. v, artic. 3.§ \'alent. torn, iv, disp. 7, qu. 8, de Contrltione, punct. 5.Justif. lib. xiii, cap. xiv ad princ.% De Poeiiit. lib. ii, cap. xi, art. denique si summus.** In 4 sent. dist. xiv, q. 2. tt Tom. iv, col. 17, 24.