SELF-EXAMINATION AND CONFESSION.
Self-examination should always precede confession. Those who arrive at
this degree should expose themselves to God, who will not fail to
enlighten them, and to make known to them the nature of their faults.
This examination must be conducted in peace and tranquillity, expecting
more from God than from our own research the knowledge of our sins.
When we examine ourselves with an effort, we easily make mistakes. We
"call evil good, and good evil;" and self-esteem easily deceives us. But
when we remain exposed to the searching gaze of God, that Divine Sun
brings to light even the smallest atoms. We must then, for
self-examination, abandon ourselves utterly to God.
When we are in this degree of prayer, God is not slow to reveal to us
all the faults we commit. We have no sooner sinned than we feel a
burning reproach.
It is God Himself who conducts an examination which nothing escapes, and
we have only to turn towards God, and suffer the pain and the correction
which He gives. As this examination by God is continual, we can no
longer examine ourselves; and if we are faithful to our abandonment to
God, we shall soon be better examined by the divine light than we could
be by all our own efforts. Experience will make this known. One thing
which often causes astonishment to the soul is, that when it is
conscious of a sin, and comes to confess it to God, instead of feeling
regret and contrition, such as it formerly felt, a sweet and gentle love
takes possession of it.
Not having experienced this before, it supposes that it ought to draw
itself out of this condition to make a definite act of contrition. But
it does not see that, by doing this, it would lose true contrition,
which is this _intuitive love_, infinitely greater than anything it
could create for itself. It is a higher action, which includes the
others, with greater perfection, though these are not possessed
distinctly.
We should not seek to do anything for ourselves when God acts more
excellently in us and for us. It is hating sin as God hates it to hate
it in this way. This love, which is the operation of God in the soul, is
the purest of all love. All we have to do then is to remain as we are.
Another remarkable thing is, that we often forget our faults, and find
it difficult to remember them; but this must not trouble us, for two
reasons: The first, that this very forgetfulness is a proof that the sin
has been atoned for, and it is better to forget all that concerns
ourselves, that we may remember God alone. The second reason is, that
God does not fail, whenever confession is needful, to show to the soul
its greatest faults, for then it is He Himself who examines it.