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As pertaining unto satisfaction, thiswise understand, that he that loveth God hath a commandment (as St John saith in the fourth chapter of his first epistle) to “love his neighbor also:” whom if thou have offended, thou must make him amends or satisfaction, or at the leastway, if thou be notable: ask him forgiveness; and if he will have mercy of God, he is bound to forgive thee. If he will not, yet God forgiveth thee, if thou thus submit thyself. But unto God-ward Christ is a perpetual and an everlasting satisfaction for evermore.
As oft as thou fullest [fall] through frailty, repent and come again, and thou art safe and welcome; as thou mayest see by the similitude of the riotous son, Luke 15. If thou be lopen [leaped] out of sanctuary, come in again. If thou be fallen from the way of truth, come thereto again, and thou art safe: if thou be gone astray, come to the fold again, and the shepherd, Christ, shall save thee; yea, and the angels of heaven shall rejoice at thy coming, so far it is off that any man shall beat thee or chide thee. If any Pharisee envy thee, grudge at thee, or rail upon thee, thy Father shall make answer for thee, as thou seest in the fore-rehearsed likeness or parable. Whosoever therefore is gone out of the way, by whatsoever chance it be, let him come to his baptism again, and unto the profession thereof, and he shall be safe.
For though that the washing of baptism be past, yet the power thereof, that is to say, the word of God which baptism preacheth, lasteth ever and sayeth for ever: as Paul is past and gone, nevertheless the word that Paul preached lasteth ever, and sayeth ever as many as come thereto with a repenting heart and a stedfast faith.
Hereby seest thou that, when they make penance of repentance, and call it a sacrament, and divide it into contrition, confession, and satisfaction, they speak of their own heads, and lie falsely.
