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| Introduction. Virginity Classified Under Three Several Species.
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V.
On Exhortation to Chastity.
506
| 506 [Written, possibly,
circa a.d. 204.] |
[Translated by the Rev. S.
Thelwall.]
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Chapter I.—Introduction.
Virginity Classified Under Three Several Species.
I doubt not, brother, that
after the premission in peace of your wife, you, being wholly bent upon
the composing of your mind (to a right frame), are seriously thinking
about the end of your lone life, and of course are standing in need of
counsel. Although, in cases of this kind, each individual ought
to hold colloquy with his own faith, and consult its strength; still,
inasmuch as, in this (particular) species (of trial), the necessity
of the flesh (which generally is faith’s antagonist at the
bar of the same inner consciousness, to which I have alluded) sets
cogitation astir, faith has need of counsel from without, as an
advocate, as it were, to oppose the necessities of the
flesh: which necessity, indeed, may very easily be
circumscribed, if the will rather than the indulgence of
God be considered. No one deserves (favour) by availing himself
of the indulgence, but by rendering a prompt obedience to the will, (of
his master).507
| 507 Comp. c. iii. and the
references there. | The will of God
is our sanctification,508
for He wishes His
“image”—us—to become likewise His
“likeness;”509
that we may be
“holy” just as Himself is “holy.”510
That good—sanctification, I
mean—I distribute into several species, that in some one of those
species we may be found. The first species is, virginity from
one’s birth: the second, virginity from one’s
second birth, that is, from the font; which (second virginity)
either in the marriage state keeps (its subject) pure by mutual
compact,511
or else perseveres in
widowhood from choice: a third grade remains, monogamy, when,
after the interception of a marriage once contracted, there is
thereafter a renunciation of sexual connection. The first
virginity is (the virginity) of happiness, (and consists in) total
ignorance of that from which you will afterwards wish to be
freed: the second, of virtue, (and consists in) contemning that
the power of which you know full well: the remaining species,
(that) of marrying no more after the disjunction of matrimony by death,
besides being the glory of virtue, is (the glory) of moderation
likewise;512
| 512 Comp. ad Ux., b.
i. c. viii. | for moderation is the
not regretting a thing which has been taken away, and taken away by the
Lord God,513
without whose will
neither does a leaf glide down from a tree, nor a sparrow of one
farthing’s worth fall to the earth.514
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