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| Chapter XV. Of the value of the lust of the flesh against the spirit in our case.
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Chapter XV.
Of the value of the lust of the flesh against the spirit
in our case.
To begin with, because it
is an immediate reproof of our sloth and carelessness, and like some
energetic schoolmaster who never allows us to deviate from the line of
strict discipline, and if our carelessness has ever so little exceeded
the limits of due gravity which become it, it immediately excites us by
the stimulus of desire, and chides us and recalls us to due moderation.
Secondly, because, in the matter of chastity and perfect purity, when
by God’s grace we see that we have been for some time kept from
carnal pollution, in order that we may not imagine that we can no
longer be disturbed by the motions of the flesh and thereby be elated
and puffed up in our secret hearts as if we no longer bore about the
corruption of the flesh, it humbles and checks us, and reminds us by
its pricks that we are but men.1304
| 1304 Suo nos rursum
quamvis quieto ac simplici visitans fluxu. | For as we
ordinarily fall without much thought into other kinds of sins and those
worse and more harmful, and are not so easily ashamed of committing
them, so in this particular one the conscience is especially humbled,
and by means of this illusion it is stung by the recollection of
passions that have been neglected, as it sees clearly that it is
rendered unclean by natural emotions, of which it knew nothing while it
was still more unclean through spiritual sins; and so coming back at
once to the cure of its former sluggishness, it is warned both that it
ought not to trust in the attainments of purity in the past, which it
sees to be lost by ever so small a falling away from the Lord, and also
that it cannot attain the gift of this purity except by God’s
grace alone, since actual experience somehow or other teaches us that
if we are anxious to reach abiding perfection of heart we must
constantly endeavour to obtain the virtue of
humility.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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