now published. Therein (Chap. IV) do we read: "Thou
shalt by no means forsake the Lord's commandments, but shalt guard
what thou hast received, neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom.
In the Church thou shalt _confess thy transgressions_, and thou shalt
not come forward for thy prayer with an evil conscience." And again
(Chap. XIV): "But on the Lord's Day do ye assemble and break bread,
and give thanks, after _confessing your transgressions_, that your
sacrifice may be pure."

_In the latter part of the second century_, the pupil of the great St.
Polycarp, St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, born about 120 A. D., and who
died in 202, writing against the Valentinians and certain Gnostics led
by Marcus, states explicitly that many of the women who had been led
into heresy and impurity, and who afterwards returned to the Church,
_confessed even publicly_, and wept over their defilement. "But
others, ashamed to do this, and in some manner secretly despairing
within themselves of the life of God, apostatized entirely."[38]

The same writer, styled "the Light of the Western Gauls," mentions
that "Cordon who appeared before Marcion, he also under Hyginus, the
eighth bishop, having come into the Church _and confessing_, thus
completed his career."

_In the last decade of the second century_, and in the first twenty
years of the third century, the famed Tertullian, who was born at
Carthage about the year 160, and who lived and labored in Rome and
North Africa, ending his life, it is variously stated, from 220 to
240, wrote, before joining the Montanist sect: "If thou drawest back
_from confession (exomologesis), consider in_ thine heart that
hell-fire which _confession shall quench for thee_; and first imagine
to thyself the greatness of the punishment, that thou mayest not doubt
concerning the adoption of the remedy. * * * When, therefore, thou
knowest that against hell-fire, after that first protection of the
baptism ordained by the Lord, there is _yet in confession
(exomologesis) a second aid_, why dost thou abandon thy salvation? Why
delay to enter on that which thou knowest will heal thee? Even dumb
and unreasoning creatures know at the season the medicines which are
given them from God. * * * Shall the sinner, _knowing that confession
has been instituted by the Lord_ for his restoration, pass over that
which restored the king of Babylon to his kingdom? * * * Why should I
say more of _these two planks_, I may call them,