_Direct._ IV. Reverence thy own conscience. Mark what it speaketh now, for it will shortly speak it in a more terrible manner: hear it voluntarily; for it is terrible to hear it when thou canst not resist: treat with conscience in the way while it is reconcilable; for thou knowest not how terrible a tormentor it is. I doubt not but it hath given thee some gripes for thy very lust, before it ever came to practice; but the sorest of its gripes now, are but like the playing of the cat with the mouse, before the killing gripe is given. Doth no man see thee? Conscience seeth thee; and thou art a wretch indeed if thou reverence not conscience more than man: as Chrysostom saith, Suppose no man know the crime but himself and the woman with whom he did commit it! How will he bear the rebukes of conscience, when he carrieth about with him so sharp and bitter an accuser? For no man can overrun himself; and no man can avoid the sentence of this court within him: it is a tribunal not to be corrupted with money, nor perverted by flattery; for it is divine, being placed in the soul by God himself: the less the adulterer now feeleth it, the more he hasteneth to the perdition of his soul. Dost thou not feel a sentence passed within thee? a terrible sentence, telling thee of the wrath of a revenging God? Bless God that it is not yet an irreversible sentence; but sue out thy pardon quickly lest it come to that. Dost thou not feel, that thou art afraid and ashamed to pray or to address thyself to God? much more afraid to think of dying, and appearing before him? If thy sin make thee ready to fly from him now, if thou knewest how, canst thou look him in the face at last; or canst thou hope to stand with comfort at his bar? Art thou fit to live in heaven with him, that makest thyself unfit to pray to him? Even lawful procreation (as I said before) doth blush to come too near to holy exercises:[456] as Chrysostom saith, _Die quo liberis operam dedisti legitime, quamvis crimen illud non sit, orare tamen non audes--Quod si ab incontaminato lecto resurgens times ad orandum accedere; quum in diaboli lecto sis, cur horribile Dei nomen audes invocare?_ Conscience is a better friend to thee than thou dost imagine when it would reclaim thee from thy sin; and will be a sharper enemy than thou canst now imagine, if thou obey it not.
_Direct._ V. Suppose thou sawest written upon the door of the house or chamber where thou enterest to sin, "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge," Heb. xiii. 4. And write that, or such sentences, upon thy chamber door, or at least upon thy heart. Keep thy eye upon the terrible threatenings of the dreadful God. Darest thou sin, when vengeance is at thy back? Will not the thought of hell-fire quench the fire of lust, or restrain thee from thy presumptuous sin? Dost thou not say with Joseph, "How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" Gen. xxxix. 7. As it is written of a chaste woman, that being tempted by a fornicator, wished him first at her request to hold his finger in the fire: and when he refused, answered him, Why then should I burn in hell to satisfy you? So ask thyself, Can I easilier overcome the flames of hell, than the flames of lust?
_Direct._ VI. Remember man that God stands by. If he were not there, thou couldst not be there; for in him thou livest, and movest, and art. He that made the eye must see, and he that made the light and darkness, doth see as well in the dark as in the light; if thou imagine that he is absent or ignorant, thou believest not that he is God; for an absent and ignorant God is no God. And darest thou, I say darest thou, commit such a villany and God behold thee? What! that which thou wouldst be ashamed a child should see! which thou wouldst not do if a mortal man stood by! Dost thou think that thy locks, or secrecy, or darkness, have darkened or shut out God? Dost thou not know that he seeth not only within thy curtains, but within thy heart? Oh what a hardened heart hast thou, that in the sight of God, thy Maker and thy Judge, darest do such wickedness! Ask thy conscience, man, Would I do this if I were to die to-morrow, and go to God? would I do this if I saw God, yea, or but an angel, in the room? If not, shouldst thou do it, when God is as sure there as if thou sawest him? O remember, man, that he is a holy God, and hateth uncleanness, and that he is a "consuming fire," Heb. xii. 29.