The later repentance

6. I say, “Repentance rightly understood.” For this must not be confounded with the former repentance. The repentance consequent upon justification is widely different from that which is antecedent to it. This implies no guilt, no sense of condemnation, no consciousness of the wrath of God. It does not suppose any doubt of the favour of God, or any fear that hath torment. It is properly a conviction wrought by the Holy Ghost, of the sin which still remains in our heart, of the φρόνημα σαρκός· the carnal mind, which “does still remain,” as our church speaks, “even in them that are regenerate:” altho’ it does no longer reign, it has not now dominion over them. It is a conviction of our proneness to evil, of an heart bent to backsliding, of the still-continuing tendency of the flesh to lust against the spirit. Sometimes, unless we continually watch and pray, it lusteth to pride, sometimes to anger, sometimes to love of the world, love of ease, love of honour, or love of pleasure more than of God. It is a conviction of the tendency of our heart to self-will, to atheism, or idolatry: and above all to unbelief, whereby in a thousand ways, and under a thousand pretences, we are ever departing, more or less, from the living God.