And law in plenty was forthcoming, so soon as the Church developed the discipline of public confessions followed by appropriate penances for each fault.
She underwent harsh penances sometimes to keep herself as pure as purity can be.
They were always mitigations of satisfactions or penances which had been imposed by the church as outward signs of inward sorrow, tests of fitness for pardon, and the needful precedents of absolution.
There he disowned the sermons of the pardonsellers, let it be seen that he did not approve of the action of the Legate, and so prevailed with Luther that the latter promised to write a submissive letter to the pope, to exhort people to reverence the Roman See, to say that Indulgences were useful to remit canonical penances, and to promise to write no more on the matter unless he happened to be attacked.
The new birth when lost may be restored through repentance, which is not merely (I) sincere sorrow, but also (2) confession of each individual sin to the priest, and (3) the discharge of penances imposed by the priest for the removal of the temporal punishment which may have been imposed by God and the Church.