Repentance is to be preached as well as remission of sins. Faith must be objective, is only objective, and the way of peace and confidence; the judgment of my own state will never be objective, nor ought to be. But the faith in the objects presented—God’s free and sovereign love, and the Saviour and His work — produces a subjective state which Scripture calls repentance. This is not a preliminary to faith, but its fruit. There is the subjective fruit. There may have been a faith in Christ’s person and words which has wrought a work in the soul before a free gospel may have been even heard; it may have wrought sorrow and self-judgment and made the soul weary and heavy laden. Then a free gospel will produce outward joy. A deep subjective work is a happy and blessed thing produced by the gospel. It is not by man’s work on himself to prepare for it.
J. N. Darby,
Collected Writings, 10:217