§ 3. Sins from Human Frailty.

It is one thing to fall into venial sins only through frailty in occasions of sin; and another to commit them through pure and culpable negligence. That man sins through frailty and unawares, who not being taken captive by the love of any creature, is ever ready to abandon all things which he knows for certain that God wills he should abandon; but who yet is prone to fall when occasion offers, through elation of mind, or impatience, or sloth, idleness, levity, and overabundance of words, or sensual and carnal affections, and who is intemperate in food and drink, or more mirthful than is meet, or immoderately anxious and busy; yet as soon as he recovers himself he grieves that he has not been more guarded, and, utterly abhorring the least stain of sin, immediately seeks pardon for it. His heart is not corrupt, and sins and passions have not much hold upon him, nor do they greatly impede in him the grace of God.

On the other hand, he certainly offends through pure and culpable negligence, who is wilfully and with his own knowledge held captive by love and affection for creatures, and unrestrainedly seeks from them pleasure and delight. For even though he may possess himself in freedom when occasions of sin are removed, he yet, for the most part, desires those occasions, and he neglects and makes light of the faults 142he is thus led into, which he ought to hold in detestation. It is evident that the heart of this man is corrupt. Nevertheless, he also may obtain forgiveness, if after his fall he conceives true contrition and makes a resolution to amend.