LECTURE THE ELEVENTH.

ON SATISFACTION AND PURGATORY.

JOHN xx. 23.

"Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained." I OBSERVED, my brethren, in my opening discourse, that nothing was less easy than to render our doctrines acceptable to those who differ from our creed; because difficulties of the most contradictory character are ever found on some point of each doctrine. I may safely say that this remark is particularly true with regard to that dogma which I considered in our interview of Friday last, and which I shall continue to treat of this evening. On the one hand, as I then observed, we are told that the practice enjoined by the Catholic Church, as necessary to obtain remission of sin, is so cruel, so much beyond the power of human endurance, that it cannot be considered a means appointed by the Almighty, as indispensable for the sinner's forgiveness. I remarked that it has been called the rack, the torture, the butchery of the soul;* and it has been thought a sufficient reason for excluding it from the institutions of Christianity, that it was apparently so opposite and contradictory to its mildness.

But then, on the other hand, we are told that the Catholic theory of the forgiveness of sins leads to the commission of crime, by the encouragement held out in the facilities which it presents of obtaining pardon. We are told that the Catholic, who has offended God, believes that he has only to cast himself at the feet of Christ's minister, and accuse himself of his offences, and that in one moment, on the raising of the priest's hand, he is perfectly restored to grace; and returns, "Carnificina animæ."

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prepared and encouraged to recommence his career of crime. How can these two objections be reconciled? How is confession so difficult a practice? and how, at the same time, does it hold out an encouragement to that evil of which it is received as the remedy? And if this answer hold with regard to that portion of the Sacrament of Penance, whereof I have already treated, you will see that the contradiction becomes still stronger, when you take into consideration the third part with its accessaries, which will form the subject of this evening's entertainment; that is, the doctrine of satisfaction,

But even here we are once more assailed by the same contradictory forms of reasoning. We are told, and that by learned divines of the present day, that this very principle, that man can make satisfaction to God, is enough to reconcile Catholics, through a corrupt sentiment of pride, to our doctrine of penance; that we call in the aid of that pride which is always too near to every man, by the idea that he can expiate his sins, or in any way make satisfaction to the divine justice; which feeling insinuates itself into his heart, and becomes more congenial to his spirit, than that process or means which other religions suppose necessary for justification. Assuredly they must know but little of the human heart, who reason thus: for take a system which not merely exacts from the sinner all the sorrow and regret for sin which they demand— not merely the same determination never again to offend, and to reform his life; but, in addition to this, imposes a course of painful humiliation, consisting first, in a declaration of hidden sins to another fellow-creature, and then in the persuasion that he must punish himself, and crucify his flesh; that he must fast, and weep, and pray, and give alms according to his ability; and will you for a moment imagine that all these difficulties become quite palatable, only because joined to the idea that an infinitely small portion of them has some sort of connexion with a power, on the sinner's part, to please and satisfy God? For you will see that the whole merit, so called, of Catholic satisfaction, reduces itself to nothing more than this. Yes, I say that they must have taken a very superficial

measure of the understanding, and passions and feelings of men, who fancy that any other system opposes a severer barrier to sin, and can act more powerfully on the offender, which does not demand from him the slightest outward act that can be disagreeable, and which places the entire difficulty in the consideration, that, by another exclusively, and by the application of his merits, the sinner is to be justified. Balance the two together-weigh the systems, one against anotherexamine the internal structure of one, as I analysed it for you at our last meeting; view it in its outward circumstances, calculate the painful sacrifices which it demands—and, comparing it with the other, tell me which system, supposing each to be equally efficacious, the sinner would prefer, as most easy for obtaining pardon of his sins?

But what a pity that this Protestant doctrine did not appear much earlier in the Church-what a pity that some among the zealous pastors of the Church, holding a similar principle, did not then appear, and standing in the vestibules and outward courts of the churches in great cities, cry out to the penitents clothed in sack-cloth and ashes, some of whom had been for twenty and thirty years doing penance there, "Ye miserable deluded men, what are you doing? You that from a fond idea, that by these painful acts you are satisfying divine justice, are in sooth setting at naught the merits of the Son of God! You are undergoing all this suffering to no purpose; you are not acquiring the slightest favour or grace from God; on the contrary, you are only outraging his mercy and power, and denying the efficacy of his Christ's saving blood. Why not raise up your souls to God, and laying hold of the merits of your Redeemer, without all these penitential works, in one moment be justified; and the time which you are now losing, might be devoted to other, and more useful pursuits." Such, no doubt, had been the preaching of a Protestant, had he existed, in days of old. Think you that those holy penitents would have listened to it? that, with the example of David and the saints before

think you

them, who retired from the world to expiate their sins in humiliation and affliction before God and his people, on the preaching of these doctrines, they would have opened their eyes, and discovered the principle on which they acted to be erroneous? Or can you believe, that so soon after the establishment of Christianity, its vital principle was already lost?

But, my brethren, let us examine a little more closely the two principles of justification. It is said that the Catholic destroys the efficacy of Christ's merits, because he believes that it is in his power to satisfy the divine justice, in some respect, for sin: in other words, that the intervention of any human act in the work of justification, or this introduction of human merits, is radically opposed to simple justification, through the merits of Christ. I would ask is there not as much done by man, in any other system, as there is here? How is it that in other system, he lays hold of the merits of our Saviour, and by their application, to himself obtains justification? Is not man a sinner, and is not this a much more `difficult act for one immersed in sin? Does it not imply greater power and energy in the criminal, than our doctrine that God alone can indeed forgive sins, but that he demands humiliation and painful sacrifices, to appease, in some degree, his offended majesty? Surely this is not giving very much to man, strengthened by grace; for as you will see, the Catholic maintains grace to be the chief instrument in the work of satisfaction. But how much more do you attribute to man, when you suppose that in a moment, while wallowing in his iniquities, he can appropriate to himself all the sublime merits of Christ, and by an effort of his will, so completely clothe himself in them, as to stand justified and holy in the sight of God. The latter attributes to man, a valid complete act of justification, the other imposes upon him painful conditions, subject to a sacramental action, with the consoling thought that God will accept them.

But, proceeding a little nearer still with the investigationwhat is the Catholic doctrine regarding satisfaction? I have