ppear which he has never been able to
see or to confess, then he may have, ready and prepared, a
practice of trusting in the mercy which God offers to the
unworthy; according to the word, "His heart is prepared to trust
in the Lord." [21] [Ps. 57:7] How shall a man hope, in the face of
the sudden inroads of such a great mass of sins, if he has not
learned in this life, while there was time, to hope in the Lord
against the smallest, nay, against even an imagined sin? If you
say, "What if this were despising the sacrament and tempting
God?" I answer, It will not be tempting God if it is done for the
glory of God; that is, if you do it, not because you despise
God's sacrament nor because you want to tempt Him (since you are
ready to make the fullest confession), but only in order that you
may accustom a troubled conscience to trust in God and not to
tremble at the rustling of every falling leaf. Do not doubt that
everything pleases God which is done to the end that you may have
trust in Him, since it is all His glory that we trust with our
whole heart in His mercy.

I do not wish, however, that a man should always go to the altar
without confession; but I say that it should be done sometimes,
and then only for the arousing of trust in God and the destroying
of trust in our own act of confession. For a man will hardly go
to mass without guilt, if he thinks his forgiveness sure because
he has confessed, rather than because God is merciful; nay, this
is altogether an impiety. The _summa summarum_[22] is, "Blessed
are all they that put their trust in the Lord." [Ps. 2:12] When
you hear this word, "in the Lord," know that he is unblessed who
puts his trust in anything whatsoever that is not the Lord
Himself. And such a man those "artists of confession" make; for
what has the "art of confession" done except to destroy the art
and practice of confiding, until at last we have learned to
confess a great deal, to confide not at all.

TWELFTH

[Sidenote: Reserved Cases--No Hidden Sins can be Reserved]

In the matter of reserved cases,[23] many are troubled. For my
own part, because I know that the laws of men to be subject to
mercy, and be applied with mildness rather than with severity, I
follow the custom and advice of those who think that in hidden
sins no case is to be reserved, and therefore all penitents are
to be absolved whose sins are hidden, as are the sins of the
flesh, that is to say, every form of lust, the procur