Fail Not, Every Night, to Pass an Inquisition on Your Soul

Fail not, what employment soever you have, every night, as in the presence of God and His holy angels, to pass an inquisition on your soul, what ill it hath done, what good it has left undone; what slips, what fall, it has had that day; what temptations have prevailed upon it, and by what means or after what manner.

Ransack every corner of thy dark heart; and let not the least peccadillo, or kindness to a sin, lurk there; but bring it forth, bewail it, protest against it, detest it, and scourge it by a sever sorrow. Thus, each day’s breach between God and your soul being made up, with more quiet and sweet hope thou mayest dispose thyself to rest.

Certainly at last this inquisition, if steadily persued, will vanquish all customary sins, whatever they may be. I speak it upon this reason, because I presume thou wilt not have the face to appear before God every night confessing the same offense; and thou wilt forbear it, lest thou mayest seem to mock God, or despise Him, which is dreadful but to imagine.

-Alexander Whyte, The Duty of Prayer, p. 241

Thanks to 5 Pt. Salt for their post – “Why We Fail To Examine Our Hearts

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