515. The third question to be discussed is whether there is such a thing as this contrition without repentance. I have asked many people in the spiritual world who had convinced themselves that faith imputes the merit of Christ, whether they had experienced any contrition, and they replied: 'What use is contrition when we have believed for certain from childhood up that Christ by His passion has taken away all our sins? Contrition does not square with this belief, since contrition means throwing oneself into hell and torturing one's conscience, yet knowing that one is redeemed, and rescued from hell and so unharmed.' They added that the rule of contrition is nothing but a pretence, which has been seized on in place of the repentance so often mentioned and enjoined in the Word. There might perhaps be some emotion in the case of the simple who know very little about the Gospel, when they hear of or think about the torments of hell.
They said too that the consolation of the Gospel, which was impressed upon them from the time they began to grow up, so far banished contrition that in their hearts they laughed at the mention of it. Hell, they said, could no more strike fear into them than the fire of Vesuvius or Etna can into the inhabitants of Warsaw or Vienna; or any more than the basilisks and poisonous snakes of the Arabian desert, or the tigers and lions in the forests of Tartary, can into those who are living safely, tranquilly and quietly in some European city. The wrath of God had no more frightened them and made them contrite than the wrath of the king of Persia can the people of Pennsylvania. These statements and the arguments drawn from their traditional lore convinced me that contrition, unless it is repentance as shortly to be described, is nothing but a mockery born of the imagination.
Another reason why the Reformed churches adopted contrition in place of repentance was to cut themselves off from the Roman Catholics, who insist on repentance and at the same time on charity. So when the Reformed churches had established the doctrine of justification by faith alone, they claimed the reason was that by repentance, just as by charity, something smacking of merit entered into their faith and sullied it.
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