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BUT that dejection and sorrow which "worketh repentance steadfast unto
salvation" is obedient, civil, humble, kindly, gentle, and patient, as it
springs from the love of God, and unweariedly extends itself from desire of
perfection to every bodily grief and sorrow of spirit; and somehow or other
rejoicing and feeding on hope of its own profit preserves all the
gentleness of courtesy and forbearance, as it has in itself all the fruits
of the Holy Spirit of which the same Apostle gives the list: "But the fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, goodness, benignity, faith,
mildness, modesty." But the other kind is rough, impatient, hard, full
of rancour and useless grief and penal despair, and breaks down the man on
whom it has fastened, and hinders him from energy and wholesome sorrow, as
it is unreasonable, and not only hampers the efficacy of his prayers, but
actually destroys all those fruits of the Spirit of which we spoke, which
that other sorrow knows how to produce.
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