The Soul's Preparation for Christ

Therefore when your companions come about you, cry shame of your selves, and say, The Lord knows, and all the country knows, that I have been a drunkard, and an adulterer; it is the gall ⟨p. 230⟩of my heart. Now if God had not been merciful unto me, I had drunk, and drunk my last: it hath cost me dear, and so it will be with you too. It is strange to see how God throws some upon their death-beds, and fills their consciences full of horror, & yet a man cannot wrest a word from them. Nay, though all their drunken companions come about them, they have not a word to say to them, I do not think that the heart of any Christian will endure it, if ever God break his heart kindly.

Therfore when your companions come about you, cry shame of your selves, and say, The Lord knowes, and all the country knowes, that I have beene a drunkard, and an adulterer; it is the gall ⟨p. 230⟩of my heart. Now if God had not beene mercifull unto me, I had drunk, and drunk my last: it hath cost me deare, and so it will be with you too. It is strange to see how God throwes some upon their death-beds, and fils their consciences full of horrour, & yet a man cannot wrest a word from thē. Nay, though all their drunken companions come about them, they have not a word to say to thē, I doe not thinke that the heart of any Christian wil endure it, if ever God break his heart kindly.

Thus you see when a man is bound to confess his sin, this is far enough from the tyrannical confession of that strange popish doctrine of auricular confession: they hold, all men are bound, whatsoever their condition be, whether their sins be pardoned or unpardoned, they are bound to confess all their mortal sins, and to expect their pardon authoritatively from the Priests hand,¹ upon the pain of great matters. The aim of the papists herein is, first, to snare mens consciences; and secondly, to pick mens purses: for when a man hath confessed his mortal sins, his conscience is snared, and then they must give so much money for the pardon of them agreeable to the offence. Now we bind no man upon pain to come necessarily, but if he can get pardon from God in the use of the means, and get power against his corruptions, in this case we enjoin no man to confess; but when the Saints do come, it is not because we will or can sell pardons, but only to fit them for mercy. And this is the truth, and that our Church holds.