From this natural and reasonable diffidence arose, in humble and
timorous piety, a disposition to confound penance with repentance, to
repose on human determinations, and to receive from some judicial
sentence the stated and regular assignment of reconciliatory pain. We
are never willing to be without resource: we seek in the knowledge of
others a succour for our own ignorance, and are ready to trust any that
will undertake to direct us when we have no confidence in ourselves.
This desire to ascertain by some outward marks the state of the soul,
and this willingness to calm the conscience by some settled method, have
produced, as they are diversified in their effects by various tempers
and principles, most of the disquisitions and rules, the doubts and
solutions, that have embarrassed the doctrine of repentance, and
perplexed tender and flexible minds with innumerable scruples concerning
the necessary measures of sorrow, and adequate degrees of
self-abhorrence; and these rules, corrupted by fraud, or debased by
credulity, have, by the common resiliency of the mind from one extreme
to another, incited others to an open contempt of all subsidiary
ordinances, all prudential caution, and the whole discipline of
regulated piety.
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