How guilty am I of these things! What an indictment to my soul! How often have I neglected such perusals of my mind over this reality? O, indeed I say to my soul, “What have I done? What love, what mercy what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on!”

Secondly, let us consider sin in relation to the gospel.

Bring your lust to the gospel. Not for relief, but for further conviction of your guilt. Look on Him whom you have pierced, and let it trouble you. Say to your soul,

‘What have I done? What love, what mercy what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this how I pay back the Father for His love? Is this how I thank the Son for His blood? Is this how I respond to the Holy Spirit for His grace? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, and the Holy Spirit has chosen to dwell in? How 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 count fellowship with Him of so little value that, for this vile lust’s sake, I have hardly left Him any room in my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great salvation?’

‘What shall I say to the Lord? His love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation—I have despised all of them! I have considered them as nothing, that I might harbour lust in my heart. Have I seen God as my Father, that I might provoke Him to His face? Was my soul washed that there might be room for new defilements? Shall I seek to disappoint the purpose of the death of Christ? Shall I grieve the Holy Spirit, Who has sealed me unto the day of redemption?’

Allow your conscience to consider these things every day. See if your conscience can resist the way in which these considerations aggravate guilt. If this does not cause your conscience to sink and melt, I fear that your case is very dangerous.

Then let us consider three particular instructions.

We should love and consider all the benefits we have under the gospel. As we cherish our redemption, justification and the like, certainly this will aggravate the guilt of the corruptions of our hearts.

1. Consider the infinite patience and forbearance of God towards us. Consider how He might have been against you and made you a shame and reproach in the world. You might have been an object of wrath forever. How you have dealt treacherously and falsely with Him from time to time. You have flattered Him with your lips, while breaking all promises and engagements by holding to the sin you are now seeking. He has spared you from time to time and you have tested Him to see how long He might be patient. Will you continue to sin against Him? Will you weary Him and cause Him to put up with your corruptions?

Have you not often felt that it seemed impossible that He could bear much longer with you? That He might cast you off, and be gracious no more? That all His forbearance was exhausted, and that hell and wrath were now prepared for you? Yet, despite this expectation, He has returned with visitations of love. Will you yet abide in that which provokes the eyes of His glory?

2. How many times have you been at the door of being hardened by sin, and then the infinite and rich grace of God has recovered you to fellowship with Him again? Have you not found yourself slipping from the delights of your spiritual duties? Has your desire for the ordinances, prayer, and meditation begun to vanish? Has the inclination to a loose and careless walk before God begun to thrive? It is amazing that this might happen to those who have been rescued from entanglements almost beyond recovery! Are you finding yourself delightfully engaged in such ways and friendships as are a grief to the Lord? Will you allow yourself to drift any further towards the brink of hardness of heart?

3. It is important now to consider all God’s gracious dealings with you. Consider His providential blessings, deliverances, mercies, and enjoyments that He has given you. Fill your conscience with such memories. Do not leave these meditations until your heart is strongly influenced with the guilt of indwelling corruption.

Continue with such meditations until you feel the wound of your corruptions in your conscience and you seek to lie in the dust before the Lord. Unless you can get your conscience into such a state, you will not be able to gain the victory. As long as your conscience is able to justify your failure, your soul will never vigorously attempt the mortification of sin.

—John Owen, The Mortification of Sin (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1656/2004), 78-79.

Read the rest of this great work on Christian sanctification, holiness and mortification of sin, here.