“I should have thought with you,” he replied; “and yet it seems this must not be the case, for the fathers of our College of Clermont have maintained (in their Theses of the 23rd May and 6th June 1644) ‘that attrition may be holy and sufficient for the sacrament, although it may not be supernatural:’ and (in that of August 1643) ‘that attrition, though merely natural, is sufficient for the sacrament, provided it is honest.’ I do not see what more could be said on the subject, unless we choose to subjoin an inference, which may be easily drawn from these principles, namely, that contrition, so far from being necessary to the sacrament, is rather prejudicial to it, inasmuch as, by washing away sins of itself, it would leave nothing for the sacrament to do at all. That is, indeed, exactly what the celebrated Jesuit Father Valencia remarks. (Tom. iv., disp. 7, q. 8, p. 4.) ‘Contrition,’ says he, ‘is by no means necessary in order to obtain the principal benefit of the sacrament; on the contrary, it is rather an obstacle in the way of it—_imo obstat potius quominus effectus sequatur_.’ Nobody could well desire more to be said in commendation of attrition.”[224] “I believe that, father,” said I; “but you must allow me to tell you my opinion, and to show you to what a dreadful length this doctrine leads. When you say that ‘attrition, induced by the mere dread of punishment,’ is sufficient, with the sacrament, to justify sinners, does it not follow that a person may always expiate his sins in this way, and thus be saved without ever having loved God all his lifetime? Would your fathers venture to hold that?”