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? Who cannot think and speak so, with trust and confidence,
too, even when he is thinking of hell and eternal condemnation? Does he
want to know anything further about either truth or good? Of truth he
says, "What is truth except that which confirms this faith?" and of good,
"What is good except what is in me from this faith? And that it may be in
me I will not do it as from myself, for that would be self-righteous and
what is self-righteous is not good." So he neglects all until he does not
know what evil is; what then is he to search out and see in himself? Is
it not his state then that a pent-up fire of lusts of evil consumes the
interiors of his mind and lays them waste even to the entrance? He is on
guard only at the door to keep the fire from appearing. After death the
door is opened and the fire appears for all to see.

[3] Third: _Those absorbed with the mundane give no thought to sins,