Just so we should
endeavor, since uneasiness of conscience and remorse are of this
kind of complexion, to flee and shun these states of mind."[66]
[66] Tract on God, Man, and Happiness, Book ii. ch. x.
Within the Christian body, for which repentance of sins has from
the beginning been the critical religious act, healthy-mindedness
has always come forward with its milder interpretation.
Repentance according to such healthy- minded Christians means
GETTING AWAY FROM the sin, not groaning and writhing over its
commission. The Catholic practice of confession and absolution
is in one of its aspects little more than a systematic method of
keeping healthy- mindedness on top. By it a man's accounts with
evil are periodically squared and audited, so that he may start
the clean page with no old debts inscribed. Any Catholic will
tell us how clean and fresh and free he feels after the purging
operation. Martin Luther by no means belonged to the
healthy-minded type in the radical sense in which we have
discussed it, and he repudiated priestly absolution for sin. Yet
in this matter of repentance he had some very healthy- minded
ideas, due in the main to the largeness of his conception of God.
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