For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be regretted: but the sorrow of the world works death.
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 7:10 Go To 2 Corinthians 7
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
And, in another passage, he says: “The sorrow that is according to God produces repentance that tends to salvation of which one does not repent.” He who is sad according to God is sad in repentance for his sins; sorrow because of one’s own iniquity produces justice. First, let what you are displease you so that you may be able to be what you are not. “The sadness that is according to God produces repentance that tends to salvation of which one does not repent.” He says: “repentance that tends to salvation.” What sort of salvation? That of which one does not repent. What does that mean? One of which you do not repent at any time. For we have had a life of which we ought to have repented; we have had a life calculated to inspire repentance. But we cannot come to that life of which one does not repent except through repentance for an evil life. Will you, my brothers, as I had begun to say, ever find dung in a sifted mass of wheat? Nevertheless, the wheat arrives at that luster, at that fine and beautiful appearance, by means of dung; the foulness was the path to a beautiful result.
