3. Response to the First Objection

106. If it be said to the first of these [n.104] that ‘penance, as far as concerns itself, could delete all sins, yet when it is prevented by some higher or more potent cause, it does not delete them; but that other cause is so present here that baptismal grace as to the other six sins prevents penance or the effect of it’ -

This does not seem reasonable, because pretense is naturally taken away first before anything is caused by baptism; but in that prior moment he must have true penance, because “pretense is not taken away without true penance,” according to Augustine, On Baptism against the Donatists I ch.12 n.18; “true penance reconciles fully to God in every respect,” Ps.-Augustine, On True and False Penance ch.9 n.24 [in Lombard’s text, IV d.15 ch.7 n.4]; therefore Baptism cannot prevent the effect of penance as to anything that needs to be deleted; rather penance prevents as to everything.

107. It can therefore be said differently that true penance perfectly reconciles to God, and consequently leaves no sin behind. But yet penance does not per se cure everything that was present, but only what is the object of the penance (namely what the penitent is penitent about). But sometimes it is necessary for ‘every sin that is deleted’ to be the object of penance, namely if all the sins were committed after baptism; and sometimes it is not necessary, as in the matter at hand.

108. Therefore not by virtue of penance are all these sins dismissed; but in the sacrament of confession they are partly dismissed by penance, partly by another cause; and so there is got there not a half pardon but a total pardon from God; not however total through penance, because there was no need to do penance for all the sins that were present.

109. And accordingly it should be said that those six sins [n.100] are destroyed as to punishment and as to guilt, nor is it necessary to have contrition or make confession or satisfaction for them, but only for the seventh that was the cause of the pretense.