I got this SO WRONG! Repentance

Repentance: from True Christianity, chapter 9

“… we are all regenerated when we abstain from things that are evil and sinful and run away from them as we would run if we saw hordes of hellish spirits pursuing us with flaming torches, intending to attack us and throw us onto a bonfire.” (paragraph 510)

What Repentance IS …

“And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” (Luke 18:13)

“Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.” (Luke 15:18,19,21)

“Real repentance is examining oneself, recognising and acknowledging one’s sins, appealing to the Lord and beginning a new life.” (528)

Repentance must be MORE THAN an INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE:

“for repentance to be genuine and effective in a person, it must come from the will, and from thought coming from the will, not from thought alone. In other words, it must be expressed in action, not merely on the lips.” (510 [516])

Repentance must be specific:

“repentance is not possible unless we know not only in a general way but also in specific detail that we are sinners. This is something we cannot know unless we examine ourselves, see the sins that are within us, and condemn ourselves on their account.” (513 [also 525])

Repentance must consider intentions, as well as actions:

“True repentance means not only examining what one does in one’s life, but also what one intends in one’s will to do.” (532)

“But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

Refraining from evils as sins is also repentance. (535)

In the Protestant Christian world, active repentance, which is examining ourselves, recognising and admitting to our sins, praying to the Lord, and starting a new life, is extremely difficult to practice, … Therefore here is an easier kind of repentance: When we are considering doing something evil and are forming an intention to do it, we say to ourselves, “I am thinking about this and I am intending to do it, but because it is a sin, I am not going to do it. ” This counteracts the enticement that hell is injecting into us and keeps it from making further inroads. It is amazing but true that it is easy for any of us to rebuke someone else who is intending to do something evil and say, “Don’t do that – that’s a sin!” And yet it is difficult for us to say the same thing to ourselves. The reason is that saying it to ourselves requires a movement of the will, but saying it to someone else requires only a low level of thought based on things we have heard. (535)

The power of practice and habit:

“It is well known that habits form a kind of second nature, and therefore what is easy for one person is difficult for another. This applies also to examining ourselves and confessing what we have found.” (563)

“It does no harm to confess before a minister, although this is earthly rather than spiritual.” (539)

To the reformed, repentance is difficult because it is not practised. (561)

Those Who Have Never Practised Repentance or Looked at or Studied Themselves Eventually Do Not Even Know What Damnable Evil or Saving Goodness Is (564)