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REPENTANCE

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 12, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 46.

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REPENTANCE

By H. A. St. John

ELDER H. A. ST. JOHN.
1. True repentance toward God embraces, first, some knowledge of sin, hence some knowledge of the law the transgression of which is sin; second, conviction, or a godly sorrow for all known sin; third, a confession of all known sin; and fourth, a turning from all known sin.
2. True repentance must be preceded and accompanied by genuine faith in God and Christ.
3. Conviction, or godly sorrow for sin, is occasioned by the operation of the Holy Spirit, without which there could be no penitence. Hence the ability, or power, to repent is a gracious gift of God.
4. The object of confession is to secure pardon, or justification. All valid confession must necessarily embrace a full purpose to abandon the practice of all known sin, henceforth and forever.
5. All valid confession must embrace the spirit of restitution, also the work of restitution to the extent of the knowledge and ability of the penitent.
6. Secret sins, known only to God and the individual, and not against a fellow being, should be confessed to God only.
7. Sins open to the gaze of our fellow men should be confessed publicly, and to one another.
8. The confession of secret sins or sins against individuals, to a promiscuous public assembly, or to the world, or to the Church, or to a confessor, is debasing to manhood, degrading to the noble instincts of the soul, and unnecessary to pardon. Furthermore, it may give the enemies of our Lord a chance to blaspheme that worthy name wherewith we are called.
9. Sins of ignorance and sins forgotten are generally, if not invariably, among the sins freely forgiven the truly penitent at conversion.
10. There is a cross, a deep contrition, in confessing to God what He already knows, or to our fellow men what they already know, if godly sorrow exists. If the soul has not godly sorrow, the confession is not acceptable to God, and the object is not gained.