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 6. To deliberate whether we shall commit mortal sin or not, weighing the reasons on either side, is itself a grievous sin. It is against the precept of charity, by which we are obliged ever to cling unswervingly to God; it is a grievous injury to God, as if a subject were seriously to deliberate whether he should or should not be faithful to his king and country.

7. In this chapter we have for the most part kept in view the objective malice of sin. As a rule, the confessor should judge of sins confessed according to the objective malice, but he will, of course, bear in mind that the subjective malice of sin may be very different from the objective. The subjective malice of sin will depend upon the degree of instruction and knowledge, the graces which the sinner had received, the violence of the temptation to which he was subjected, whether he was influenced by habit, perhaps unconsciously formed, or whether he was the subject of hereditary tendency, and many other considerations. It is obvious that the question of subjective malice must be generally left to the infinite knowledge of God, who alone sees and penetrates the inmost recesses of the heart.