True Christian Religion (Chadwick) n. 514

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514. The second question is whether, since that sort of contrition is not repentance, it is of any importance. It is said to contribute to faith, as what precedes does to what follows, but still not to enter into faith and be linked to it by being mixed with it. But what is this following faith but a belief that God the Father imputes the righteousness of His Son, and then declares a person who is unaware of any sin to be righteous, new and holy, thus clothing him in a robe washed and made white by the blood of the Lamb? When he goes out clad in that robe, what are the evils he has committed in his life but like brimstone cast into the depths of the sea? What then is Adam's sin, but like something covered over or removed to a distance or taken away by Christ's imputed merit? When a person by that faith walks in the righteousness and at the same time in the innocence of God the Saviour, what use is contrition to him, except to make him feel sure he is in Abraham's bosom, from where he may look upon those who have not yet been contrite before acquiring faith as the wretched in hell, or as dead? For they say that there is no living faith in those who lack contrition. It can therefore be said that if they have plunged themselves in damnable evils, or if they now do so, they pay no more attention to them or are no more aware of them than piglets lying in the filth of a street's gutters are aware of the foul stench. From this it is plain that when this contrition is not repentance it is nothing.


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