esist from them.

[2] But as few know that this is the Christian religion itself, and these
alone have charity and faith and are led by the Lord and do good from
Him, something will be said of those who fail to examine themselves but
still think that they possess religion. They are 1. Those who confess
themselves guilty of all sins but do not search out any one sin in
themselves. 2. Those who neglect the search on religious principle.
3. Those who in absorption with the mundane give no thought to sins and
hence do not know them. 4. Those who favor them and therefore cannot know
them. 5. With all these, sins do not appear and therefore cannot be
removed. 6. Finally, the reason, so far unknown, will be made plain why
evils cannot be removed apart from their being searched out, appearing,
being acknowledged, confessed and resisted.

278 r. But these points will be considered one by one, for they are
fundamentals of the Christian religion on man's part.

First, _of those who confess themselves guilty of all sins, but do not
search out any one sin in themselves._ They say, "I am a sinner. I was
born in sin. From head to foot there is nothing sound in me. I am nothing
but evil. Good God, be gracious to me, pardon, cleanse and save me. Make
me to walk in purity and in a right path"; and more of the kind. And yet
the man does not examine himself and hence does not know any evil, and no
one can shun what he is ignorant of, still less fight against it. After
his confessions he also thinks that he is clean and washed, when
nevertheless he is unclean and unwashed from the head to the sole of the
foot. For the confession of all sins is the lulling of them all to sleep
and finally blindness to them. It is like a generality devoid of anything
specific, which amounts to nothing.

[2] Second: _Those who omit the search in consequence of their religion._
They are especially those who separate charity from faith. They say to
themselves, "Why should I search out evil or good? Why evil, when it does
not condemn me? Why good, when it does not save me? Faith alone, thought
and uttered with trust and confidence, justifies and purifies from all
sin, and when once I am justified, I am whole in the sight of God. I am
indeed in evil, but God wipes it away the moment it is committed and it
no longer appears"; and much else. But who does not see, if he opens his
eyes, that these are empty words, without reality because nothing of good
is in them?