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Now all these motives are taught us by faith and the
Christian religion, and therefore the repentance
which results from them is very laudable though
imperfect.
Laudable certainly it is, for neither Holy
Scripture nor the Church would stir us up by such
motives if the penitence thence proceeding were not
good, and we see manifestly that it is a most
reasonable thing to repent of sin for these
considerations, yea, that it is impossible that he
who considers them attentively should not repent. Yet
still it is an imperfect repentance, because divine
love is not as yet found in it.
Ah! do you not see, Theotimus, that all these
repentances are made for the sake of our own soul, of
its felicity, of its interior beauty, its honour, its
dignity, and in a word for love of ourselves,
although a lawful, just and well-ordered love.
And note, that I do not say that these repentances
reject the love of God, but only that they do not
include it; they do not repulse it, yet they do not
contain it ; they are not contrary to it, but as yet
are without it; it is not forbidden entrance, and yet
it is not in. The will which simply embraces good is
very good, yet if it so embrace this as to reject the
better, it is truly ill-ordered, not in accepting the
one but in repulsing the other. So the vow to give
alms this day is good, yet the vow to give only this
day is bad, because it would exclude the better,
which is to give both to-day, to-morrow, and every
day when we are able.
Certainly it is good, and this cannot be denied,
to repent of our sins in order to avoid the pains of
hell and obtain heaven, but he that should make the
resolution never to be willing to repent for any
other motive, would wilfully shut out the better,
which is to repent for the love of God, and would
commit a great sin. And what father would not be ill
pleased that his son was willing indeed to serve him,
yet never with love, or by love?
The beginning of good things is good, the progress
better, the end the best. At the same time, it is as
a beginning that the beginning is good, and as
progress that progress is good: and to wish to finish
the work by its beginning or in its progress would be
to invert the order of things. Infancy is good, but
to desire to remain always a child would be bad; for
the child of a hundred years old is despised. It is
laudable to begin to learns yet he that should begin
with intention never to perfect himself would go
against all reason.
Fear, and those other motives of repentance of
which I spoke, are good for the beginning of
Christian wisdom, which consists in penitence; but he
who deliberately willed not to attain to love which
is the perfection of penitence, would greatly offend
him who ordained all to his love, as to the end of
all things.
To conclude: the repentance which excludes the
love of God is infernal like to that of the damned.
The repentance which does not reject the love of God,
though as yet it be without it, is a good and
desirable penitence, but imperfect, and it cannot
give salvation until it attain love and is mingled
therewith. So that as the great Apostle said that
though he should deliver his body to be burned, and
all his goods to the poor, wanting charity it would
profit him nothing,(1) so we may truly say, that
though our penitence were so great that it should
cause our eyes to dissolve in tears, and our hearts
to break with sorrow, yet if we have not the holy
love of God, all this would profit nothing for
eternal life.
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