Repentance

All create things come into existence in one of two ways.

The first is a descending series which comes to rest in and upon the earth.

The second is an ascent of living forms out of the earth, and out of the things produced from seeds sown, in successively higher orders.

In the descending creations, the atmospheres, spiritual and natural, are produced in succession by lower formations of the higher.

In the return series, the higher forms are prepared in the lower, and are thence born to a higher life.

These last are living growths. Their upward development is effected by an impulse of the life contained seeking its source.

This upward movement puts on successively higher embodiments—vessels which hold back from a final absorption of the create into the uncreate.

In the universe of descending and ascending forms, the human is an epitome of total creation.

The life blood of the brain and body comes down and goes up in the making of a man.

The inmost human is an undefiled creation which vivifies the paternal seed of man, and molds his body.

The body born into the world, in all the marvels of its structure, is in its primitive formation a responsive containant of its soul; and this until the hidden inheritance from the seed of the father and the blood of the mother successively awake and intervene.

After birth the inborn aspiration of the individual forms itself into a beginning mind.

This mind, whatever the direction of its development, whether to good or evil, is inbuilt between the God-given soul and the body, and is discretely separate from both.

The mind is the return kingdom in man, and the subject of an ever higher evolution, given in emulation of its Divine Source, as that Source is represented in the soul; yet the mind never becomes one with the soul.

The mind may, in its freedom, reject this upward emulation by turning to, and becoming increasingly inbound in, the affection of bodily pleasures.

In either case the mind undergoes a continuous development in accord with the direction of its turning.

Its enlargement becomes manifest as it passes from first obscure sensations to more defined thoughts and feelings.

During infancy and childhood the foundations of this development are laid successively. Each is the basis for an advanced formation.

In this process the living experiences, which are various and numberless, congruous and incongruous, good and evil, are recorded.

Only a Divine ordering and a Providential guarding could encompass in one form good and evil things, which because of their antagonism, cannot be joined together.

The things impressed upon the mind in each stage of its development are preparatory and competent to receive those that follow.

Providence guides in this with an unerring hand, so that the present state of life may be a sequence from the past and opened to the future. Whatever the future brings falls into prepared states, and is received and qualified thereby.

The mind, at any given time in this life, holds within itself a little world which may enclose a little heaven or a little hell. In adult life one or the other is confirmed.

From the beginning the ground is laid, and a balance provided between good and evil.

In later life it may be seen that every good and every evil harks back to earlier states which are congruent with and receptive of them.

Our interest is concerned with the things pertaining to man's past which make repentance in adult life possible; that is, with the events and states of childhood which by their presence in the mind provide the ground of repentance.

All so-called good remains conspire to this end, while every evil entanglement is a block in the way.

There are, however, special states in the past of the child which have a direct bearing upon the possibility of repentance. These early states are images, having a certain likeness to, but lacking the soul of, free repentance.

They are implanted by the discipline imposed as guards against wrongdoing. They carry the fear of punishment—a constraining fear which insists upon an avoidance of that which is forbidden, which checks the doing of that which results in punishment.

This discipline establishes a close association of ideas in the mind of the child between wrongdoing and its painful consequences.

The pain, when remembered, produces an uneasiness of the mind—a fear. The lesson learned is that to hurt is to be hurt.

The realization of this brings the first intimation of the retaliatory law of life.

No child can escape this knowledge, no matter what the system of education or the mode of parental training may be.

This discipline comes, to a large extent, by ways and from sources outside of and apart from, parental guidance or school training.

Neither the tender hearts of parents, not training by love alone, which refuses all punishment, can keep the child from learning, by experience, the punitive side of life.

An offence against others, if not wisely disciplined by those who are over the child, is certain to receive attention from irate companions. This last is a potent constraint, often more effective and more feared by the child.

The only way of escape from this is by isolation, but this, fortunately, is not possible. There is a disciplinary value in the play and counter play of retaliations between children.

The child lives most intimately in the world of its companions. It seeks this world with avidity. The things it learns from other children, and the discipline encountered, in some respects are more potent than those from any other source. In that world, as the child gives, so will it receive, and in consequence, something like self-restraint arises.

Many and passionate are the sorrows of childhood, from which an escape is sought. Ways are tried; readjustments with the groups are made; broken friendships are renewed. Never mind the motive. In any case it has in view self-protection advancement in favor with equals. There is herein a vague image of repentance.

The primitive beginning is made when the parent insists that a child should say it is sorry before it knows the meaning of the word.

Experience of years brings added meaning, as affection deepens; then regret becomes contrition, which is a more interior stricture. This may, in time, be followed by a confession of sin, which opens the door to repentance.

Parents explain the need and cause of their applied punishment—sometimes at length. If in this explanation they go beyond the child's ability to understand, the mark is missed; yet the child understands something. Its instinctive faith in the parent is a marvel of confidence. At a later date they work themselves free from this first implicit reliance, as their normal conceit of opinion develops. This is a part of life and is normal development—its natural growth through learning, and the opening of affections. These all are so many prefigures to be later fulfilled or closed off as the case may be.

Even so, regret for wrongdoing, in the child's mind, is an image vitally significant of a later turning from evil to good.

Indeed, all things of adult life are early symbolized in the thoughts and affections of childhood. Not only in the apparent goods and truths, apparent evils and falsities, but also as to child freedom and its alternation of states.

As the ceaseless alternations of states, with the adult, are the most potent means in the hand of the Lord in effecting man's regeneration, so also with the child. Its alternations of states are the living means which enable its development—which initiate every advance and open to new issues of life with an increase of freedom. Thus the child enters the youth period, which is the beginning of higher seed formation—the seed of the rational mind is implanted, which manifests itself in a notable physical change, and a corresponding determination to do as the youth wills, aside from parental control. "The boy's will is the wind's will," or something like that. This not infrequently begets a startling feeling of impotence on the part of parents.

A change in the manner of control is necessary. The boy becomes creative, as if in his own right; furtively at first, and with little understanding yet as the seed of manhood comes to life, which is accompanied by an unaccountable restlessness which drives the lad afield. He becomes a venturesome wanderer beyond the home environment. The understanding parent will call him back, knowing that he will go again, until he discovers a settlement for himself.

There is a great mental relief on leaving the parental home. A world of wide freedom opens.

There are other bonds, not the less binding because self-imposed. The opening to rational freedom begins in and with this youthful development.

Its attainment, even as all things of life, is gradual. With it comes an increasing responsibility among men, and before God.

The quality and degrees of this freedom before God, at any given time, can be gauged by the Lord alone.

When it is said that man alone is responsible for his way of life, whether for evil or good, we must understand that there are many qualifications to this during the period of transition from childhood to manhood. Of necessity there is then less and more of rational freedom.

This freedom, whatever its states at any time, is coequal with the power of repentance, which also is less and more during the period of transition. It is of one kind in the beginning, and another at the end.

At first it is little more than a vague sense of evil in oneself, but as the mind ascends as by successive gradients, it opens to a higher light, and more interior perceptions and motives whereby the first recognition of evil within oneself leads to a more interior contrition—a heartfelt sorrow, in which case true repentance may be nigh. This calls for an inward effort to put aside the evil known and confessed.

The confession that man of himself is entirely evil is of essential value as a primary dogmatic truth, but is pointless until some one evil is discovered.

The sensing of an evil as peculiar to oneself, and as an actuality, is a most humiliating experience. It induces a definite feeling of shame. It does not refer to all in a general way as sinners, and to ourselves as vaguely included. This inclusive characterization leaves the individual well nigh untouched.

On the other hand, when some one evil is felt as a peculiar possession, the realization of it may bring us to our knees, in which case the point of contact with real repentance is effected.

Something of signal import is here involved, i.e., the sight of a special evil in self draws aside the veil of our customary observance of the amenities—the decencies of life into which we have been trained, and this though such civilities may possess a certain external sincerity which has in the past disguised the underlying quality of the proprial life.

Self-examination draws aside this veil, and the impelling emotions which have prompted our actions come to view. To look these frankly in the face, even within the closet of our mind, is a task.

Lest we neglect this introspection, we are advised to examine our motives at stated times. Indeed, a stated time is set for us, lest we forget.

In the beginning this undertaking is superficial. Life adds to its seriousness and multiplies its findings, as the custom of self-examination becomes habitual.

While it is true that the total of man's self-life is evil—is selfish—and that there is no end to its malign involvements, yet we may note that a counterbalance is provided by the many apparent goods and truths—innocences left over from infancy and childhood; and apart from these the evils of the self-life would damn from the beginning, and from them there could be no redemption.

No, the Lord's Providence is ever present and operative. From the beginning it stores up within the growing mind counteracting influences, to the end that with the arrival at adult life there may be within the mind, even as sacred mansions, these Divine implantations competent to receive a vivifying influx given us as an enablement as of self from God.

It is said, as of self, because the things called "remains" are implanted by the Lord in such a way as to appear as if they belonged to the man as if of equal right in the person's life with their opposites. For they also stand in his mind, in part, as memories pertaining to his past life.

Therefore it is said that man repents as of self because his empowerment on such occasions is by the Lord through the things which seemingly belong to him.

From these, and these alone, arises the power of self-compulsion against evil, which, if repeated, establishes within the man a new proprium, so called because it is a new appropriation of life from the Lord—a little here and little there.

This in time becomes much, as man's engagement against his evils is undertaken as a self-imposed responsibility; undertaken in a freedom which assumes that responsibility.

The after reformation and regeneration are the Lord's work—a hidden process, i.e., the ordering of truths and the implanting of regenerate goods in the human mind, in an image of heaven. This the Lord alone can do.

Resistance to evils discovered in oneself must, therefore, be a conscious effort on the part of man, and that it may be so beyond all questioning, man's determination thereto is exercised with no manifest help from the Lord.

We may and should pray for help in the face of our selfish vanities; pray that we may be lifted up above the drift of our passions, but the need is for more than prayer. The call is for resolution, which we may after confess is also a gift from God. The enablement is indeed from Him alone, but it can become effective only through the remains of His Providential implanting, i.e., by a resolution which finds the source of its strength, and its impulse, in the innocences left over from childhood. From this source alone man is enabled to comply with the will of God. Note therefore that this as of self-arising out of these "reliquae" is to be sharply distinguished from the man's original proprial life.

Because remains appear to belong to the man, so also is the effort thence derived felt distinctly his.

Man was created with a view to his taking upon himself this responsibility, and bearing it as his own, as something having its origin in him.

Yet he may know, in the light of truth, that it is from God alone.

These are the simple facts of human life. God gives the power, but in so doing He makes man responsible for its use—its employment—so that it is clearly of man's choice if he fails.

For this reason his failure cannot be ascribed to God. This may not be the logic of man's reasoning, but it is the truth of God.