may easily be drawn. Amongst these matters, he will, on no account, omit to inform the faithful, that to a good confession integrity is essential. All mortal sins must be revealed to the minister of religion: venial sins, which do not separate us from the grace of God, and into which we frequently fall, although as the experience of the pious proves, proper and profitable to be confessed, may be omitted without sin, and expiated by a variety of other means. [1] Mortal sins, as we have already said, although buried in the darkest secrecy, and also sins of desire only, such as are forbidden by the ninth and tenth commandments, are all and each of them to be made matter of confession. Such secret sins often inflict deeper wounds on the soul, than those which are committed openly and publicly. It is, however, a point of doctrine defined by the Council of Trent; [2] and as the holy Fathers testify, the uniform and universal doctrine of the Catholic Church: " Without the confession of his sin," says St. Ambrose, " no man can be justified from his sin." [3] In confirmation of the same doctrine, St. Jerome, on Ecclesiastes, says; " If the serpent, the devil, has secretly and without the knowledge of a third person, bitten any one, and has infused into him the poison of sin; if unwilling to disclose his wound to his brother or master, he is silent and will not do penance, his master who has power to cure him, can render him no service." The same doctrine we find in St. Cyprian, in his sermon on the lapsed: " Although guiltless," says he, " of the heinous crime of sacrificing to idols, or of having purchased certificates to that effect; yet. as they entertained the thought of doing so, they should confess it with grief, to the priest of God." [4] In fine, such is the unanimous voice, such the unvarying accord of all the Doctors of the Church. [5] In confession we should employ all that care and exactness which we usually bestow upon worldly concerns of the greatest moment, and all our efforts should be directed to effect the cure of our spiritual maladies and to eradicate sin from the soul. With the bare enumeration of our mortal sins, we should not be satisfied; that enumeration we should accompany with the relation of such circumstances as considerably aggravate or extenuate their malice. Some circumstances are such, as of them selves to constitute mortal guilt; on no account or occasion whatever, therefore, are such circumstances to be omitted. Has any one imbrued his hands in the blood of his fellow man? He must state whether his victim was a layman or an ecclesiastic. Has he had criminal intercourse with any one? He
- ↑ Quomodo venialia dimittantur vide Aug. in Ench. cap. 71. citatur de poenit. dist- 3. c, de quotidianis, et in Cone. Tolet. 4. cap. 9.
- ↑ Sess. 14. de poenit. c. 5. et can. 7.
- ↑ Lib. de Paradiso, c. 4. c. 1. super illud: si mordeat serpens.
- ↑ Circa finem.
- ↑ Singula percata mortalia confiteri oportere decent August, lib. de vera el falsa poenit. cap. 10. Gregor. homil. 10. super Ezekiel. Ambr. lib. de pared, cap. 14. Hieron. in Ecclesiast. c. 10. Cypr. de lapsis circa finem. Vid. et de posnit. dist. 3. cap. sunt plures, &c. pluit et ibid. dist. 1. c. quern pcen. et ibid, pass
