113. A person does not see the lusts of his evil; he sees their enjoyments, to be sure, but still he reflects little on them, for they divert thought and drive off reflection. Unless he learned from elsewhere that they are evils he would call them goods and give them expression freely according to his thought's reasoning; doing so, he appropriates them to himself. So far as he confirms them as allowable he enlarges the court of his ruling love, which is his life's love. Lusts constitute its court, being its ministers and retinue, as it were, by which it governs the exteriors of its realm. But such as is the king, such are the ministers and retinue, and such is the kingdom. If the king is diabolic, his ministers and the retinue are insanities, and the people of his realm are falsities of every kind. The ministers (who are called wise although they are insane) cause these falsities to appear as truths by reasonings from fallacies and by fantasies and cause them to be acknowledged as truths. Can such a state in a man be changed except by the evils being removed in the external man? Then the lusts which cling to the evils are also removed. Otherwise no outlet offers for the lusts; they are shut in like a besieged city or like an indurated ulcer.
114. (iv) Only with man's participation can evils in the external man be removed by the Lord. In all Christian churches it is an accepted point of doctrine that before coming to the Holy Communion a person should examine himself, see and confess his sins, and do penitence, desisting from his sins and rejecting them because they are from the devil; and that otherwise the sins are not forgiven him and he is damned. The English, despite the fact that they are in the doctrine of faith alone, nevertheless in the exhortation to the Holy Communion openly teach self-examination, acknowledgment, confession of sins, penitence and renewal of life, and warn those who do not do these things with the words that otherwise the devil will enter into them as he did into Judas, fill them with all iniquity, and destroy both body and soul. Germans, Swedes and Danes, who are also in the doctrine of faith alone, teach the same in the exhortation to the Holy Communion, also warning that otherwise the communicants will make themselves liable to infernal punishments and eternal damnation for mixing sacred and profane together. These words are read out by the priest in a deep voice to all who are about to observe the Holy Supper, and are listened to by them in full acknowledgment that they are true.
[2] Nevertheless, after hearing a sermon on the same day about faith alone and to the effect that the law does not condemn them because the Lord has fulfilled it for them, and that of themselves they cannot do any good which is not self-righteous and thus that one's works have nothing saving in them, only faith alone has, these same persons return home completely forgetting their earlier confession and rejecting it so far as they think along the lines of the sermon. But which is true, the latter or the former? Contrary to each other, both cannot be true. Which is? That there can be no forgiveness of sins, thus no salvation but only eternal damnation, apart from self-examination, the knowledge and acknowledgment, confession and breaking off of sins, that is, apart from repentance? Or that such things effect nothing towards salvation inasmuch as full satisfaction for all the sins of men has been made by the Lord through the passion of the cross for those who have faith, and that those in faith alone with trust that it is so and with confidence in the imputation of the Lord's merit, are sinless and appear before God like men with shining faces for having washed?
[3] It is plain from this that the religion common to all churches in Christendom is that one shall examine himself, see and acknowledge his sins and then desist from them, and that otherwise there is no salvation, but damnation. This, moreover, is divine truth itself, as is plain from passages in the Word in which man is bidden to do penitence, as from the following:
John said, Do . . . fruits worthy of repentance . . . this moment the axe is at the root of the tree; every tree not giving good fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire (Lu 3:8, 9).
Jesus said, Unless you do repentance, you shall all . . . perish
(Lu 13:3,5).
Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of God; . . . do repentance, and believe the gospel (Mk 1:14, 15).
Jesus sent out the disciples who on going out were to preach that men should repent (Mk 6:12).
Jesus told the apostles that they were to preach repentance and the remission of sins to all peoples (Lu 24:27).
John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins (Mk 1:4; Lu 3:3).