When men make mistakes, he says--

"One might perhaps expect gnawings of conscience and repentance to help
to bring them on the right path, and might thereupon conclude (as every
one does conclude) that these affections are good things. Yet when we
look at the matter closely, we shall find that not only are they not
good, but on the contrary deleterious and evil passions. For it is
manifest that we can always get along better by reason and love of
truth than by worry of conscience and remorse. Harmful are these and
evil, inasmuch as they form a particular kind of sadness; and the
disadvantages of sadness," he continues, "I have already proved, and
shown that we should strive to keep it from our life. 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.

"When I was a monk," he says "I thought that I was utterly cast away,
if at any time I felt the lust of the flesh: that is to say, if I felt
any evil motion, fleshly lust, wrath, hatred, or envy against any
brother. I assayed many ways to help to quiet my conscience, but It
would not be; for the concupiscence and lust of my flesh did always
return, so that I could not rest, but was continually vexed with these
thoughts: This or that sin thou hast committed: thou art infected
with envy, with impatiency, and such other sins: th