Chapter 11. Load the Conscience with Guilt; Further Directions

The third direction proposed: load the conscience with the guilt of the perplexing distemper. The ways and means whereby that may be done. The fourth direction: vehement desire for deliverance. The fifth: some distempers rooted deeply in men's natural tempers; considerations of such distempers; ways of dealing with them. The sixth direction: occasions and advantages of sin to be prevented. The seventh direction: the first actings of sin vigorously to be opposed.

This is the third direction:

Load your conscience with the guilt of it. Not only consider that it has a guilt, but load your conscience with the guilt of its actual eruptions and disturbances.

For the right improvement of this rule, some particular directions are in order.

First, take God's method in it, and begin with generals, and so descend to particulars.

(1) Charge your conscience with that guilt which appears in it, from the rectitude and holiness of the law. Bring the holy law of God into your conscience; lay your corruption to it; pray that you may be affected with it. Consider the holiness, spirituality, fiery severity, inwardness, absoluteness of the law; and see how you can stand before it. Be much in affecting your conscience with the terror of the Lord in the law, and how righteous it is that every one of your transgressions should receive a recompense of reward. Perhaps your conscience will invent shifts and evasions to keep off the power of this consideration; as, that the condemning power of the law does not belong to you, you are set free from it, and the like; and so though you be not conformable to it, yet you need not be so much troubled at it. But:

1. Tell your conscience, that it cannot manage any evidence to the purpose, that you are free from the condemning power of sin, while your unmortified lust lies in your heart; so that perhaps the law may make good its plea against you for a full dominion, and then you are a lost creature. Wherefore it is best to ponder to the utmost, what it has to say.

Assuredly he who pleads in the most secret reserve of his heart, that he is freed from the condemning power of the law, thereby secretly to countenance himself in giving the least allowance unto any sin or lust, is not able on Gospel grounds to manage any evidence unto any tolerable spiritual security, that indeed he is in a due manner freed from what he so pretends himself to be delivered.

2. Whatever be the issue, yet the law has commission from God to seize upon transgressors wherever it finds them, and so bring them before his throne, where they are to plead for themselves; this is your present case: the law has found you out, and before God it will bring you: if you can plead a pardon, well and good; if not, the law will do its work.

3. However, this is the proper work of the law, to discover sin in the guilt of it, to awaken and humble the soul for it, to be a glass to represent sin in its colors; and if you deny to deal with it on this account, it is not through faith, but through the hardness of your heart and the deceitfulness of sin.

This is a door that too many professors have gone out at, unto open apostasy; such a deliverance from the law they have pretended, as that they would consult its guidance and direction no more; they would measure their sin by it no more; by little and little this principle has insensibly from the notion of it proceeded to influence their practical understandings; and having taken possession there, has turned the will and affections loose to all manner of abominations.

By such ways then as these, persuade your conscience to hearken diligently to what the law speaks in the name of the Lord unto you, about your lust and corruption. If your ears be open, it will speak with a voice that shall make you tremble, that shall cast you to the ground, and fill you with astonishment. If ever you will mortify your corruptions, you must tie up your conscience to the law, shut it from all shifts and exceptions until it owns its guilt, with a clear and thorough apprehension: so that thence (as David speaks) your iniquity may ever be before you.

(2) Bring your lust to the Gospel, not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt; look on him whom you have pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to your soul: What have I done? what love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on? Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Spirit for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash; that the blessed Spirit has chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value, that for this vile lust's sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape, if I neglect so great salvation? In the mean time, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation, I have despised them all, and esteemed them as a thing of nothing, that I might harbor a lust in my heart.

Have I obtained a view of God's fatherly countenance, that I might behold his face, and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed, that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavor to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption? Entertain your conscience daily with this treaty; if it can stand before this aggravation and not sink and melt, I fear your case is dangerous.

Secondly, descend to particulars. As under the general law and Gospel, all the benefits of it are to be considered, as redemption, justification, and the like; so in particular, consider the management of the love of them toward your own soul, for the aggravation of the guilt of your corruption.

1. Consider the infinite patience and forbearance of God towards you in particular: consider what advantages he might have taken against you, to have made you a shame and a reproach in this world, and an object of wrath for ever. Consider how you have dealt treacherously and falsely with him from time to time, flattered him with your lips, but broken all promises and engagements; and that by the means of that sin you are now in pursuit of; and yet he has spared you from time to time, although you seemed boldly to have put it to the trial how long he could hold out. And will you yet sin against him? will you yet weary him, and make him to serve with your corruptions?

Have you not often been ready to conclude of yourself, that it was utterly impossible that he should bear any longer with you; that he would cast you off, and be gracious no more; that all his forbearance was exhausted, and hell and wrath was even ready prepared for you; and yet above all your expectation he has returned with visitations of love; and will you yet abide in the provocation of the eyes of his glory?

2. How often have you been at the door of being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; and by the infinite rich grace of God have been recovered to communion with him again?

Have you not found grace decaying; delight in duties, ordinances, prayer and meditation, vanishing; inclinations to loose careless walking, thriving; and those who before were entangled, almost beyond recovery? Have you not found yourself engaged in such ways, societies, companies, and that with delight, as God abhors? and will you venture any more to the brink of hardness?

3. All God's gracious dealings with you in providential dispensations, deliverances, afflictions, mercies, enjoyments, all ought here to take place. By these and the like means, load your conscience, and leave it not until it be thoroughly affected with the guilt of your indwelling corruption: until it is sensible of its wound, and lies in the dust before the Lord. Unless this be done to the purpose, all other endeavors are to no purpose. While the conscience has any means to alleviate the guilt of sin, the soul will never vigorously attempt its mortification.

Fourthly, being thus affected with your sin, in the next place, get a constant longing, breathing after deliverance from the power of it. Suffer not your heart one moment to be contented with your present frame and condition. Longing desires after any thing, in things natural and civil, are of no value nor consideration, any further, but as they incite and stir up the person in whom they are, to a diligent use of means for the bringing about the thing aimed at. In spiritual things it is otherwise. Longing, breathing and panting after deliverance, is a grace in itself, that has a mighty power to conform the soul into the likeness of the thing longed after. Hence the Apostle describing the repentance and godly sorrow of the Corinthians, reckons this as one eminent grace that was then set on work; vehement desire (2 Corinthians 7:11). And in this case of indwelling sin, and the power of it, what frame does he express himself to be in? (Romans 7:24) — his heart breaks out with longings into a most passionate expression of desire of deliverance. Now if this be the frame of saints, upon the general consideration of indwelling sin, how is it to be heightened and increased, when thereunto is added the perplexing rage and power of any particular lust and corruption? Assure yourself, unless you long for deliverance you shall not have it.

This will make the heart watchful for all opportunities of advantage against its enemy; and ready to close with any assistances that are afforded for its destruction; strong desires are the very life of that praying always which is enjoined us in all conditions, and in none is more necessary than in this; they set faith and hope on work, and are the soul's moving after the Lord.

Get your heart then into a panting and breathing frame, long, sigh, cry out; you know the example of David.

The fifth direction is:

Consider whether the distemper with which you are perplexed, be not rooted in your nature, and cherished, fomented and heightened from your constitution. A proneness to some sins may doubtless lie in the natural temper and disposition of men. In this case consider:

1. This is not in the least an extenuation of the guilt of your sin.

Some with an open profaneness will ascribe gross enormities to their temper and disposition. And whether others may not relieve themselves from the pressing guilt of their distempers by the same consideration, is uncertain. It is from the fall, from the original depravation of our natures, that the fuel and nourishment of any sin abides in our natural temper. David reckons his being shaped in iniquity, and conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5), as an aggravation of his following sin, not a lessening or extenuation of it. That you are peculiarly inclined unto any sinful distemper, is but a peculiar breaking out of original lust in your nature, which should peculiarly abase and humble you.

2. That which you have to fix upon on this account, in reference to your walking with God, is, that so great an advantage is given to sin, as also to Satan, by this your temper and disposition, that without extraordinary watchfulness, care and diligence, they will assuredly prevail against your soul. Thousands have been on this account hurried headlong to hell, who otherwise (at least) might have gone at a more gentle, less provoking, less mischievous rate.

3. For the mortification of any distemper so rooted in the nature of a man, unto all other ways and means already named or further to be insisted on, there is one expedient peculiarly suited. This is that of the Apostle (1 Corinthians 9:27): I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection. The bringing of the very body into subjection, is an ordinance of God, tending to the mortification of sin. This gives check unto the natural root of the distemper, and withers it by taking away its fatness of soil. Perhaps because the Papists (men ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, the work of his Spirit, and whole business in hand) have laid the whole weight and stress of mortification in voluntary services and penances — leading to the subjection of the body, knowing indeed the true nature neither of sin nor mortification — it may on the other side be a temptation to some, to neglect some means of humiliation, which by God himself are owned and appointed. The bringing of the body into subjection in the case insisted on, by cutting short the natural appetite, by fasting, watching, and the like, is doubtless acceptable to God, so it be done with the ensuing limitations.

(1) That the outward weakening and impairing of the body, be not looked upon as a thing good in itself, or that any mortification consists therein (which were again to bring us under carnal ordinances) but only as a means for the end proposed; the weakening of any distemper in its natural root and seat. A man may have leanness of body and soul together.

(2) That the means whereby this is done, namely, by fasting and watching, and the like, be not looked on as things that in themselves, and by virtue of their own power, can produce true mortification of any sin; for if they would, sin might be mortified without any help of the Spirit, in any unregenerate person in the world. They are to be looked on only as ways whereby the Spirit may, and sometimes does put forth strength for the accomplishing of his own work, especially in the case mentioned. Want of a right understanding and due improvement of these and the like considerations, has raised a mortification among the Papists that may be better applied to horses and other beasts of the field, than to believers.

This is the sum of what has been spoken; when the distemper complained of seems to be rooted in natural temper and constitution, in applying our souls to a participation of the blood and Spirit of Christ, an endeavor is to be used, to give check in the way of God, to the natural root of that distemper.

Sixthly, consider what occasions, what advantages your distemper has taken to exert and put forth itself, and watch against them all. This is one part of that duty which our blessed Savior recommends to his disciples under the name of watching (Mark 13:37): I say unto you all, Watch; which in Luke 21:34 is, Take heed that your hearts be not overcharged. Watch against all eruptions of your corruptions. I mean that duty which David professed himself to be exercised unto: I have (said he) kept myself from my iniquity — he watched all the ways and workings of his iniquity to prevent them, to rise up against them. This is that which we are called unto under the name of considering our ways: consider what ways, what companies, what opportunities, what studies, what businesses, what conditions, have at any time given, or do usually give advantages to your distempers, and set yourself heedfully against them all. Men will do this with respect unto their bodily infirmities and distempers; the seasons, the diet, the air, that have proved offensive shall be avoided. Are the things of the soul of less importance? Know that he that dares to dally with occasions of sin, will dare to sin. He that will venture upon temptations unto wickedness, will venture upon wickedness. Hazael thought he should not be so wicked as the prophet told him he would be: to convince him, the prophet tells him no more, but Thou shalt be king of Syria. If he will venture on temptations unto cruelty, he will be cruel. Tell a man he shall commit such and such sins, he will startle at it: if you can convince him, that he will venture on such occasions and temptations of them, he will have little ground left for his confidence.

Seventhly, rise mightily against the first actings of your distemper, its first conceptions; suffer it not to get the least ground. Do not say, thus far it shall go, and no further. If it has allowance for one step, it will take another. It is impossible to fix bounds to sin. It is like water in a channel; if it once break out, it will have its course. Its not acting, is easier to be compassed than its bounding. Therefore does James give that gradation and process of lust (James 1:14-15), that we may stop at the entrance. Do you find your corruption to begin to entangle your thoughts; rise up with all your strength against it, with no less indignation than if it had fully accomplished what it aims at. Consider what an unclean thought would have; it would have you roll yourself in folly and filth. Ask envy what it would have; murder and destruction is at the end of it. Set yourself against it with no less vigor, than if it had utterly debased you to wickedness. Without this course you will not prevail. As sin gets ground in the affections to delight in it, it gets also upon the understanding to slight it.

The second specific direction. Get a clear sense of (1) the guilt of the troubling sin. Considerations to help with this are proposed. (2) The danger — which is manifold: 1. Hardening. 2. Temporal correction. 3. Loss of peace and strength. 4. Eternal destruction. Rules for applying this consideration properly. (3) The evil of it: 1. In grieving the Spirit. 2. In wounding the new creature.

The second direction is this: get a clear and lasting sense upon your mind and conscience of (1) the guilt, (2) the danger, and (3) the evil of the sin that is troubling you.

(1) The guilt of it. One of the deceits of a dominating lust is that it minimizes its own guilt. 'Is it not a small thing?' 'When I bow in the house of Rimmon — God be merciful to me in this.' 'Though this is bad, it is not as bad as such and such an evil. Other godly people have struggled with such things. Think of the dreadful sins some of them actually fell into!' Sin diverts the mind from an honest assessment of its guilt in countless ways. Its foul vapors darken the mind so that it cannot judge rightly. Troubling reasonings, excusing promises, turbulent desires, treacherous half-intentions to repent, and vague hopes of mercy all have a share in disturbing the mind's assessment of a dominating lust's guilt. The prophet tells us that lust will do this completely when it reaches its height (Hosea 4:11): 'Harlotry, wine, and new wine take away the understanding' — the understanding, which is what 'heart' often refers to in scripture. Solomon tells us of the young man enticed by the loose woman: he was among the simple, a young man without sense (Proverbs 7:7). And what was his folly (verse 23)? He did not know it would cost him his life. He did not consider the guilt of what he was involved in. This is what lust does in the heart — it darkens the mind so that it cannot judge rightly about its own guilt. Let this then be the first concern of anyone who wants to mortify sin: fix a right judgment of its guilt in his mind. To help with this, take these considerations:

1. Though the power of sin is weakened by indwelling grace in those who have it — so that sin does not have dominion over them as it does over others — the guilt of the sin that still remains is actually heightened and aggravated by that grace (Romans 6:1-2): 'What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?' How shall we do it — we who have received grace from Christ working against it? We would surely be more evil than anyone if we did. There is incomparably more evil and guilt in the working of remaining sin in your heart than there would be in the same amount of sin if you had no grace at all.

2. Just as God sees abundant beauty and excellence in the desires of His servants' hearts — more than in even the most glorious acts of other people — so God sees great evil in the workings of lust in their hearts, more than in the open and notorious acts of wicked people, or in many outward sins that the saints may fall into. This is because those outward sins meet with more inward resistance and are generally followed by more humiliation. So Christ, in dealing with His failing children, goes straight to the root. He looks past their profession (Revelation 3:15): 'I know you; you are something quite different from what you profess — and this makes you detestable.'

Let these and similar considerations lead you to a clear sense of the guilt of your indwelling lust, so that there is no room in your heart for thoughts that minimize or excuse it — thoughts by which sin quietly gathers strength and prevails.

(2) Consider the danger of it, which is manifold:

1. The danger of being hardened by its deceitfulness. The apostle solemnly charges this upon the Hebrews (Hebrews 3:12-13): 'Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.' 'Take care,' he says — use every means, consider your temptations, watch diligently. There is treachery and deceit in sin that tends toward hardening your heart away from the fear of God. The hardening mentioned here is of the most complete kind — utter moral numbness. Sin tends toward it, and every disorder and lust will make at least some progress in that direction. You who were tender and used to melt under the word and under afflictions will grow — as some have profanely put it — 'sermon-proof' and 'sickness-proof.' You who once trembled at the presence of God, at thoughts of death and standing before Him — even when you had more assurance of His love than you have now — will develop a stubbornness of spirit that none of these things can move. Your soul and your sin will be spoken of, and spoken to, and you will feel nothing. You will pass through duties — prayer, attending services, reading — and your heart will not be affected in the slightest. Sin will grow a trivial thing to you. You will walk past it as if it were nothing. This is what it will come to — and what will the end of such a condition be? Can anything sadder befall you? Is it not enough to make any heart tremble to think of being brought to a state where you have slight thoughts of sin — slight thoughts of grace, of mercy, of the blood of Christ, of the law, of heaven and hell — all coming together at the same time? Take heed: this is where your lust is working — toward the hardening of the heart, the searing of the conscience, the blinding of the mind, the deadening of the affections, and the deceiving of the whole soul.

2. The danger of serious temporal correction — what scripture calls vengeance, judgment, and punishment (Psalm 89:30-33). Even if God does not cast you off entirely for the corruption in your heart, He will visit you with the rod. Though He pardons and forgives, He will still punish your offenses. Remember David and all his troubles. Think of him fleeing into the wilderness and consider God's hand upon him. Is it nothing to you that God might kill your child in anger, ruin your estate in anger, break your bones in anger, let you become a scandal and a reproach in anger, bring you low and destroy you, make you lie down in darkness in anger? Is it nothing that He might punish, ruin, and undo others because of you? Let me not be misunderstood — I am not saying God always sends these things on His people in anger. God forbid. But what I am saying is this: when He does deal with you this way, and your conscience confirms what your provocations have been, you will find His dealings full of bitterness to your soul. If you do not fear these things, I am afraid you may already be under hardening.

3. Loss of peace and strength all a person's days. To have peace with God and strength to walk before God is the sum of the great promises of the covenant of grace. In these things is the life of our souls. Without them in some meaningful measure, to live is to die. What good does life do us if we never see the face of God in peace? If we have no strength to walk with Him? An unmortified lust will certainly rob a person of both. This is so clearly demonstrated in David that nothing could be plainer. How often does he complain that his bones are broken, his soul disturbed, his wounds severe on this account? Take another instance (Isaiah 57:17): 'Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry and struck him; I hid My face and was angry.' What peace is there for a soul while God hides Himself? What strength while He strikes? (Hosea 5:15): 'I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face.' 'I will leave them, hide My face' — and what will become of their peace and strength? If you have ever enjoyed peace with God, if His terrors have ever made you afraid, if you have ever had strength to walk with Him, or ever mourned in prayer and been troubled by your weakness — think of this danger that hangs over your head. Perhaps in only a little while you will see the face of God in peace no more. Perhaps by tomorrow you will not be able to pray, read, attend services, or perform any duty with the least cheerfulness, life, or vigor — and possibly you may never see a quiet hour as long as you live. You may carry broken bones full of pain and terror all your remaining days. Indeed, God may shoot His arrows at you, fill you with anguish and confusion — with fears and perplexities — make you a terror and an astonishment to yourself and others, show you hell and wrath at every moment, frighten and unnerve you with dreadful senses of His hatred, so that your wound runs open through the night and your soul refuses comfort, so that you wish for death rather than life — your soul may even prefer strangling. Consider this at length. Though God might not utterly destroy you, He might bring you into a condition where you have vivid and crushing apprehensions of your own destruction. Let these thoughts become familiar to you. Let your soul know what is likely to be the end of its present course. Do not turn away from this consideration until it has made your soul tremble within you.

4. There is the danger of eternal destruction. For the proper handling of this consideration, note:

1. There is such a connection between persisting in sin and eternal destruction that, although God resolves to deliver some from persisting in sin so that they will not be destroyed, He will deliver no one from destruction who persists in sin. Therefore, as long as anyone remains under the enduring power of sin, the threats of destruction and everlasting separation from God must be held out to him (Hebrews 3:12; Hebrews 10:38). This is God's way of dealing: if anyone turns away from Him and draws back through unbelief, God's soul takes no pleasure in him — that is, His wrath will pursue him to destruction (Galatians 6:8).

2. A person so entangled (as described above) under the power of some corruption can have, at that moment, no clear and prevailing evidence of his interest in the covenant — by whose power he might be delivered from fear of destruction. Therefore destruction from the Lord may rightly terrify him. He may and ought to look on it as the likely end of his present course and way. 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus' (Romans 8:1). True — but who can claim this for themselves? Those who walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. But you may ask: is this not persuading people to unbelief? I answer: no. There are two different judgments a person may make about himself: (1) a judgment about his person, and (2) a judgment about his ways. It is the judgment of his ways, not his person, that I am speaking of. Let a person hold the best evidence of his standing as a person that he can — it is still his duty to judge that an evil way leads to destruction. Not to judge this is atheism. I am not saying that in such a condition a person ought to throw away his evidences of personal standing in Christ. I am saying he cannot hold onto them. There are two kinds of self-condemnation:

First, with respect to what one deserves: when the soul concludes that it deserves to be cast out from God's presence. This is not unbelief — it is an effect of faith.

Second, with respect to the outcome: when the soul concludes it will be damned. I am not saying this is anyone's duty, and I am not calling people to it. But what I am saying is this: a person ought to conclude that the path he is on leads to death, so that he may be moved to flee from it. This is another consideration that ought to weigh upon such a soul if it truly desires to be freed from the entanglement of its lusts.

(3) Consider the present evils of it. Danger looks at what is coming; present evils are here now. Some of the many evils attending an unmortified lust may be mentioned.

1. It grieves the Holy and Blessed Spirit, who is given to believers to dwell and abide in them. The apostle, turning people away from many lusts and sins, gives this as the great motive (Ephesians 4:30): 'Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.' 'Do not grieve that Spirit of God,' he says — through whom you receive so many and so great benefits, of which he names one signal and comprehensive one: being sealed for the day of redemption. He is grieved by it as a tender and loving friend is grieved by the unkindness of someone he has served well. This is how it is with this tender and loving Spirit, who has chosen our hearts as His dwelling place to do everything there that our souls need. He is grieved by our sheltering His enemies — those He came to destroy — in our hearts alongside Him. He does not afflict willingly or grieve us (Lamentations 3:33). Shall we daily grieve Him? If there is any gracious integrity left in the soul — if it has not been utterly hardened by the deceitfulness of sin — this consideration will certainly affect it. Consider who and what you are, who the Spirit is who is being grieved, what He has done for you, what He comes to your soul for, what He has already done in you — and be ashamed. Among those who walk with God, there is no greater motivation and incentive to universal holiness and the keeping of heart and spirit in complete purity than this: the blessed Spirit who has undertaken to dwell in them as temples of God, and to keep them fit for the One who dwells there, is constantly attending to what they are entertaining in their hearts — and rejoices when His temple is kept undefiled. It was a severe aggravation of Zimri's sin that he brought his mistress into the congregation before the eyes of Moses and the rest who were weeping for the people's sins (Numbers 25:6). Is it not an equally severe aggravation to excuse a lust or allow it to remain in the heart — when it is entertained (as it must be, if we are believers) directly under the watchful eye of the Holy Spirit, who is personally committed to keeping His dwelling place pure and holy?

2. The Lord Jesus is freshly wounded by it. His new creation in the heart is wounded. His love is frustrated, His adversary gratified. Just as a complete abandonment of Him through the deceitfulness of sin is a crucifying Him afresh and putting Him to open shame, so every sheltering of the sin He came to destroy wounds and grieves Him.

3. It will take away a person's usefulness in his generation. His work, his efforts, and his labors seldom receive God's blessing. If he is a preacher, God commonly blows against his ministry, so that he labors and receives no honor in it, doing no real work for God. The same may be said of people in other callings. The world today is full of withering, fruitless professing Christians. How few walk in any beauty or glory; how barren and useless most of them are. Among the many reasons that could be given for this sad condition, it may rightly be feared that this is not the least effective: many people harbor soul-devouring lusts in their hearts that lie like worms at the root of their obedience, gnawing and weakening it day by day. Every grace, every means by which graces may be exercised and strengthened, is damaged by this — and as for any real fruit, God blights such people's efforts.

This, then, is the second direction. It addresses the opposition to be made against lust with respect to its habitual presence in the soul. Keep alive on your heart these or similar considerations of lust's guilt, danger, and evil. Give much time to meditating on these things. Cause your heart to dwell and abide with them. Draw your thoughts into these considerations. Do not let them drift away or wander until they begin to exercise real power over your soul — until they make it tremble.