2. Let no man seek to excuse himself for his sins. The remarks made are calculated to comfort the distressed and agonized soul that finds itself fallen into sin, which it hates, and is not intended to encourage a comfortable assurance of peace when there is no peace, and to engage to lack of watchfulness, and want of contrition. [Illustration] Fourth Saturday in Lent. _CONDITIONS THAT AGGRAVATE GUILT._ As there are certain conditions that remove the gravity of guilt attaching to mortal sin, so, on the other hand, are there certain conditions that aggravate the culpability of an act against God's will, conditions that may cause a sin, not in itself heinous, to become deadly in its consequences to the soul. These conditions shall now be taken into consideration. They are four, just as there were four conditions that lessened guilt. The conditions are these:-- (_a_) _An error of Conscience_, which leads the person committing an act, to believe that an act is forbidden by God, which really is harmless or allowable, and he nevertheless commits the act wilfully. Believing a course to be sinful, he takes it deliberately. The course may not be in itself wrong, but in that he thinks it wrong, and wilfully elects to take it, believing that he is going against the Will of God, he sins mortally. This we can see at once, for it is a deliberate revolt of the will against what is believed to be God's Will, and it is the setting of the will in opposition to God which is the condition that makes sin to be mortal. (_b_) _The evil of the end proposed._ That is to say, if anyone allows himself to do an act in itself harmless, or permissible, in order to attain to an evil end, then the act, though in itself harmless and permissible, becomes exceeding sinful. The end proposed poisons the whole course of conduct pursued. In the former case a harmless act is made deadly in its consequences through antecedent ignorance, in this case through subsequent evil. In both cases there is revolt of the will against God. He who desires an evil of any kind, knowing that it is evil, _i.e._, that it is against the law of God, and deliberately compasses that end, makes every step he takes in the course whereby he reaches that end, however indifferent they may be in themselves, taken by themselves, to be mortally sinful to him. This is clear, because throughout he is acting with a will in opposition, and in known opposition, to the Will of God.