Note 218 — LETTER X.

That is, the sacrament of penance, as it is called. “That contrition is at all times necessarily required for obtaining remission of sins and justification, is a matter determined by the fathers of Trent. But mark yet the mystery. They equivocate with us in the term contrition, and make a distinction thereof into perfect and imperfect. The former of these is contrition properly; the latter they call attrition, which howsoever in itself it be no true contrition, yet when the priest, with his power of forgiving sins, interposes himself in the business, they tell us that attrition, by virtue of the keys, is made contrition: that is to say, that a sorrow arising from a servile fear of punishment, and such a fruitless repentance as the reprobate may carry with them to hell, by virtue of the priest’s absolution, is made so fruitful that it shall serve the turn for obtaining forgiveness of sins, as if it had been that godly sorrow which worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. By which spiritual cozenage many poor souls are most miserably deluded.” (Ussher’s Tracts, p. 153.)