(Admonition 33.) In one way are those to be admonished who are overcome by sudden concupiscence, and in another those who are bound in fault out of deliberation. For those whom sudden concupiscence overcomes must be admonished to attend that they are daily placed in the war of the present life, and to cover with the shield of anxious fear the heart which cannot foresee its wounds; that they may shudder at the hidden darts of the lying-in-wait enemy, and in so murky a contest may fortify themselves within the camp of the mind by continual intention. For if the heart be destitute of the anxious care of circumspection, it is laid open to wounds, because the crafty enemy strikes the breast the more freely, the more he finds it naked of the breastplate of foresight.
Those who are overcome by sudden concupiscence must be admonished to cease from over-anxious care of earthly things; because, while they too immoderately entangle their intention in transitory things, they know not by what darts of faults they are pierced through. Whence also through Solomon the voice of one smitten and sleeping is expressed, who says: 'They beat me, but I grieved not; they dragged me, and I felt it not. When shall I awake, and again find wine?' (Prov. 23:35). For the mind, sleeping from the care of its own solicitude, is beaten and grieves not, because just as it looks not forward to imminent evils, so neither does it recognize what it has perpetrated. It is dragged and by no means feels it, because it is led through the allurements of vices, yet is not roused to the guard of itself.
It indeed desires to awake, that it may again find wine, because, although it is pressed down by the sleep of torpor from the guard of itself, it yet strives to be watchful for the cares of the world, that it may ever be made drunk with pleasures; and while it sleeps toward that in which it ought to have watched carefully, it seeks to be watchful toward that other in which it might laudably have slept. Hence it is written above: 'And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a drowsing pilot who has lost the helm' (Ibid. 34). For he sleeps in the midst of the sea who, placed amid the temptations of this world, neglects to foresee the motions of assailing vices as imminent heaps of the waves. And he loses the helm as a pilot, when the mind, for governing the ship of the body, loses the zeal of solicitude.
For to lose the helm at sea is not to hold provident intention amid the storms of this world. For if the pilot carefully grips the helm, now he directs the ship against the waves head-on, now he cleaves the onset of the winds by an oblique course. So when the mind vigilantly governs the soul, now it treads down and overcomes some things, now it declines others by foreseeing them; that it may both subject present things by labouring, and grow strong against future contests by looking ahead. Hence again of the strong warriors of the heavenly fatherland it is said: 'The sword of every one upon his thigh, because of fears in the night' (Song of Songs 3:8). For the sword is set upon the thigh, when by the edge of holy preaching the depraved suggestion of the flesh is subdued.
By 'night' is expressed the blindness of our weakness, for whatever adversity threatens in the night is not seen. Each man's sword, therefore, is placed upon his thigh 'because of the fears of the night' (Cant. III, 8), namely because holy men, while they dread the things they do not see, stand ever prepared for the struggle of the contest. Hence again it is said to the bride: 'Thy nose is as the tower which is in Lebanon' (Cant. VII, 4). For a thing which we do not discern with our eyes we often foresee by its scent; and through the nose we distinguish odours and stenches. What, then, is designated by the nose of the Church but the provident discretion of the saints?
This nose is likened to the tower which is in Lebanon, because their discerning foresight is set so high that it sees the conflicts of temptations even before they come, and stands firm against them when they arrive. For things that are foreseen as future become of less force when they are present; because, when a man is made the more ready against the blow, the enemy who thought himself unlooked-for is weakened by that very fact of being anticipated. But, on the contrary, those are to be admonished who are bound in fault by deliberate design, that they may weigh with provident consideration how, when they do evil of set purpose, they kindle a stricter judgment against themselves; so that a harsher sentence strikes them the more, the more tightly the chains of deliberation bind them in their fault.
Perhaps they would wash away their sins the more quickly by penance, had they fallen into them merely by headlong rashness. For a sin is more slowly loosed which is also made solid by deliberation. For unless the mind despised things eternal in every way, it would not perish in fault by deliberate judgment. In this, then, those who perish through design differ from those who fall by rashness: that whereas these last fall from the state of righteousness by sinning, yet very often they at the same time fall into the snare of despair. Hence it is that through the prophet the Lord reproves not so much the depravity of rash impulses as the deliberate zeal of transgressions, saying: 'Lest my indignation go forth like fire, and be kindled, and there be none to quench it, because of the malice of your pursuits' (Jer. IV, 4). Hence again He says in wrath:
'I will visit you according to the fruit of your pursuits' (Jer. XXI, 14). Because, therefore, sins committed by deliberate design differ from other sins, the Lord pursues not so much the evil deeds themselves as the eager purposes of depravity. For in deeds one sins often through infirmity, often through negligence, but in eager purposes one sins always with malicious intent. Contrariwise, of the blessed man it is rightly said through the Prophet in explanation: 'And he hath not sat in the seat of pestilence' (Ps. I, 1). For the seat is wont to be that of a judge or of one presiding. But to sit in the seat of pestilence is to commit depraved things out of judgment; to sit in the seat of pestilence is both to discern evil things by reason, and yet to perpetrate them out of deliberation.
He sits, as it were, in the seat of perverse counsel who is lifted up with such elation of iniquity that he strives to accomplish evil even by design. And just as those who are honoured with the dignity of the chair are set over the surrounding crowds, so the offences of those who fall by rashness are surpassed by sins sought out through deliberate zeal. They are therefore to be admonished, that those who bind themselves in fault even by design may gather from this with what vengeance they shall one day be smitten, who now become not the associates of the wicked, but their leaders.