XVI.—Repentance.
Most Christians at the present day will scarcely credit the statement, that, in Swedenborg's time there was no correct understanding of the Scripture doctrine of repentance. Yet it is strictly true. It was believed to consist in a species of anxiety and grief called contrition, which preceded their faith in those about to be regenerated,—a terror arising from fear of the wrath of God and eternal damnation; and that, without this contrition, the faith which attributes to man the merit and righteousness of Christ, could not be bestowed. This contrition, accompanied by the mere lip-confession that the individual was "all mere sin, thereby including all sins and excluding none"—without any perception or acknowledgment of any particular sins in himself—was thought to be repentance. Speaking on this subject in his last great work, Swedenborg says:
