AC 9448-9449, 9452 - the Forgiveness of Sins & Divine Mercy

AC 9448-9449, 9452
To be able to be kept by the Lord in the good of love,
and the truths of faith,
and to be withheld from evils and falsities,
is the Forgiveness of Sins.
And to shun evil and falsity,
and to feel aversion for them,
is then Repentance.
But these are possible only with those who,
through regeneration,
have received new life from the Lord;
because these things belong to the new life.

The signs that sins have been forgiven are the following.
Delight is felt in worshiping God for the sake of God;
in being of service to the neighbor for the sake of the neighbor;
thus in doing good for the sake of good,
and in believing truth for the sake of truth.
There is an unwillingness to merit by anything
that belongs to charity and faith.
Evils, such as enmities, hatreds, revenges,
unmercifulness, adulteries, in a word,
all things that are against God and against the neighbor,
are shunned and are held in aversion.

But the signs that sins have not been forgiven are the following.
God is not worshiped for the sake of God;
and the neighbor is not served for the sake of the neighbor;
thus good is not done and truth is not spoken
for the sake of good and truth,
but for the sake of self and the world.
There is a desire to merit by our deeds;
others are despised in comparison with ourselves;
delight is felt in evils, such as enmities, hatred,
revenge, cruelty, adulteries;
and the holy things of the church are held in contempt,
and are at heart denied.

The Lord regenerates a person from Divine Mercy.
This is done from his infancy
down to the last of his life in the world,
and afterward to eternity.
Thus it is from Divine Mercy
that the Lord withdraws a person from evils and falsities,
and leads him to the truths of faith and goods of love,
and afterward keeps him in these.
And after this, in Divine Mercy
He raises him to Himself in heaven, and makes him happy.
All this is what is meant by the Forgiveness of Sins from Mercy.
They who believe that sins are forgiven in any other way,
are quite mistaken;
for it would be the absence of mercy
to see a multitude of men in the hells, 
and not save them,
if it could be done in any other way.
And yet the Lord is mercy itself,
and wills not the death of anyone,
but that he may live.