14. Unfortunately for the Catholic Church, she did not stop here, but attached too great importance to external marks of {238} repentance, to works of penance--to tears, fastings, mortifications of the flesh, and pilgrimages. Men were required to go barefooted, to wear coarse raiment next their bodies, to become exiles from their homes or to renounce the world and embrace a monastic life. Finally in the eleventh century voluntary whippings were added to these other punishments [see note 6, end of section]; and men learned to look upon these works of penance as purchasing a forgiveness of sins, and paid little attention to the inward regeneration of the heart. "As confession and penance are easier than the extirpation of sin and the abandonment of vice, many ceased contending against the lusts of the flesh, and preferred gratifying them at the expense of a few mortifications." [32] Especially did this become the case when the doctrine was promulgated that substitutes could be hired to receive the punishment originally inflicted upon the offender, and monks and priests could be found willing to undergo it for a consideration. 15. The church trusted too much in the works of penance, and did not insist stoutly enough upon repentance--a godly sorrow which worketh a reformation of life. If the reformers went to one extreme in attributing man's justification wholly to the act of faith and the grace of God, the Catholic church went to the other in assigning too much value to works of penance and performances of human invention for the forgiveness of sins. NOTES. 1. Indulgences to be Accompanied by Amendment of Life.--The doctrine and the sale of indulgences were powerful incentives to evil among an ignorant people. True, according to the church, indulgences {239} could benefit those only who promised to amend their lives, and who kept their word. But what could be expected from a tenet invented solely with a view to the profit that might be derived from it? The vendors of indulgences were naturally tempted for the better sale of their merchandise to present their wares to the people in the most attractive and seducing aspect. The learned themselves did not fully understand the doctrine. All the multitude saw in them was that they permitted men to sin; and the merchants were not over eager to dissipate an error so favorable to their sale.--D'Aubigne.