True Christian Religion #530

530. The question then is asked: how is one to repent? The answer is, in deed; that is, by examining oneself, recognising and acknowledging one's sins, praying to the Lord, and starting a new life. The previous section [525-527] showed that repentance is impossible without self-examination. But what purpose does self-examination serve, but to enable us to recognise our sins? Or what purpose does their recognition serve, unless we acknowledge their presence in us? Or what purpose would these three actions serve, if not to enable us to confess them before the Lord, to appeal for His help, and from this point on to start a new life, which is the end in view? This is real repentance.

This is the way we need to develop and act, as every person may know, once he has left childhood behind, and more and more as he becomes his own master and knows his own mind, if he considers baptism, which is a kind of washing standing for regeneration. For at baptism his godparents promised on his behalf that he would renounce the devil and all his works. The same is true on considering the Holy Supper: all are warned that before they are fit to approach they must repent of their sins, turn towards God, and embark on a new life. The same may be seen on considering the Ten Commandments or the Catechism which all Christians have before them; here six of the Ten Commandments are simply instructions not to do evil deeds, and unless one puts them away by repentance, one cannot love the neighbour, much less love God. Yet on these two commandments the Law and the Prophets, that is, the Word, depend, and consequently so too does one's salvation. If real repentance is practised from time to time, in fact as often as one prepares oneself to partake of the Holy Supper, and if one thereafter refrains from one or two sins one caught oneself committing, this is enough to start the process of making it real. Anyone at that point is on his way to heaven, for that is when a person begins to become spiritual instead of natural, and to be born anew under the Lord's guidance.