A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion/Chapter 23
XXIII. Repentance.
REPENTANCE is the beginning and foundation of the church in man; and it consists in a man's examining not only the actions of his life, but also the intentions of his will, and in abstaining from evils, because they are sins against God. It is not sufficient for a man to confess himself a sinner in general terms, and to acknowledge that from head to foot he is full of evil, deserving of eternal damnation, and therefore unworthy to lift up his eyes to heaven: for this he may do, and yet not select one evil out of all the multitude within him, which he is determined, by divine assistance, to resist, to shun, and to remove from his heart and life. But he must reflect upon what passes in his mind, and observe what is brought forth thence into act or speech. Especially he must examine the nature of his delights and propensities, as whether he feels a pleasure in any species of hatred, revenue, adultery, theft, false testimony, detraction, or any propensity and lust towards them; also whether he gives way to a spirit of blasphemy and contempt, in relation to God, his Holy Word, and the things of the church. If he refrains from any of these evils, he must further look into himself, and narrowly examine whether it be through fear of the law, or of the loss of reputation, health, friends, or the like: and if he finds, that he resists and abstains from evils from no such external considerations, but purely because they are sins, and prohibited by the divine law, he is then performing true, sincere, and effectual repentance.
But it is an essential condition of such repentance, that the Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ be alone applied to for power to resist evils: for he alone is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; he alone is the God of the church, all-merciful and all-just; and it is he alone that can inspire the inclination and affection of doing good. Wherefore he himself says, "Without me ye can do nothing," John xv. 5.
Repentance avails, if the penitent person be in a state of liberty; but if he repents in a state of compulsion, it is of no avail. States of compulsion may be various, such as sickness, dejection of spirit under some great misfortune, the terrors of approaching death, and likewise all circumstances of sudden fear, which deprive a man of reason. When bad men in a state of compulsion make promises of repentance, and even begin the practice of virtue and goodness, they generally return to their former evil lives, when they are restored to a state of liberty. But it is otherwise with the good.
After a man has examined himself, and acknowledged his sin, and done the work of repentance, he ought to remain steady in goodness to the end of his life: for if he afterwards relapse to his former evil life, and embrace it again, he is then guilty of profanation, inasmuch as he unites evil with good, whereby his last state is worse than his first, according to these words of the Lord: "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first," Matt. xii. 43 to 45.
