Repentance, however difficult to be practised, is, if it be explained
without superstition, easily understood. _Repentance is the
relinquishment of any practice, from the conviction that it has offended
God_. Sorrow, and fear, and anxiety, are properly not parts, but
adjuncts of repentance; yet they are too closely connected with it to be
easily separated; for they not only mark its sincerity, but promote its
efficacy.
No man commits any act of negligence or obstinacy, by which his safety
or happiness in this world is endangered, without feeling the pungency
of remorse. He who is fully convinced, that he suffers by his own
failure, can never forbear to trace back his miscarriage to its first
cause, to image to himself a contrary behaviour, and to form involuntary
resolutions against the like fault, even when he knows that he shall
never again have the power of committing it. Danger, considered as
imminent, naturally produces such trepidations of impatience as leave
all human means of safety behind them; he that has once caught an alarm
of terrour, is every moment seized with useless anxieties, adding one
security to another, trembling with sudden doubts, and distracted by the
perpetual occurrence of new expedients.
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