t was done: Since no one
could remember all his sins (especially as committed through
an entire year), they inserted this provision, namely, that if
an unknown sin should be remembered later [if the remembrance
of a concealed sin should perhaps return], this also must be
repented of and confessed etc. Meanwhile they were [the person
was] commended to the grace of God.

Moreover, since no one could know how great the contrition
ought to be in order to be sufficient before God, they gave
this consolation: He who could not have contrition, at least
ought to have attrition, which I may call half a contrition or
the beginning of contrition, for they have themselves
understood neither of these terms nor do they understand them
now, as little as I. Such attrition was reckoned as contrition
when a person went to confession.

And when it happened that any one said that he could not have
contrition nor lament his sins (as might have occurred in
illicit love or the desire for revenge, etc.), they asked
whether he did not wish or desire to have contrition [lament].
When one would reply Yes (for who, save the devil himself,
would here say No?), they accepted this as contrition, and
forgave him his sins on account of this good work of his
[which they adorned with the name of contrition]. Here they
cited the example of St. Bernard, etc.

Here we see how blind reason, in matters pertaining to God,
gropes about, and, according to its own imagination, seeks for
consolation in its own works, and cannot think of [entirely
forgets] Christ and faith. But if it be [clearly] viewed in
the light, this contrition is a manufactured and fictitious
thought [or imagination], derived from man's own powers,
without faith and without the knowledge of Christ. And in it
the poor sinner, when he reflected upon his own lust and
desire for revenge, would sometimes [perhaps] have laughed
rather than wept [either laughed or wept, rather than to think
of something else], except such as either had been truly
struck by [the lightning of] the Law, or had been vainly vexed
by the devil with a sorrowful spirit. Otherwise [with the
exception of these persons] such contrition was certainly mere
hypocrisy, and did not mortify the lust for sins [flames of
sin]; for they had to grieve, while they would rather have
continued to sin, if it had been free to them.

As regards confession, the procedure was this: Every one had
[was enjoined] to enumerate all his sins