Week 2    Day 5

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Shunning Adultery as to the Will

Conjugial Love 494

That adulteries of the third and fourth degree, whether committed in act or not, are evils of sin according to the measure and quality of the understanding and will within them. That adulteries from reason or understanding, being those of the third degree, and adulteries from the will, being those of the fourth degree, are grievous and therefore are evils of sin according to the quality of the understanding and the will within them, can be seen from the comments on them in nos. 490-493. The reason is because man is man from his will and understanding, for from these two exist not only all that is done in the mind but also all that is done in the body. Who does not know that the body does not act of itself, but the will by the body? and that the mouth does not speak of itself but the thought by the mouth? Wherefore, if will were taken away, action would cease in a moment; and if thought were taken away, the speech of the mouth would cease in a moment. Hence it is fully evident that adulteries committed in act are grievous according to the measure and quality of the understanding and the will within them.

That they are grievous in like manner [even] if not committed in act is plain from these words of the Lord:

It was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say to you, That whoever looks on the woman of another to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matt. 5:27, 28)

To commit adultery in the heart is to commit it in the will.

[2] There are many reasons which cause an adulterer not to be an adulterer in act and yet an adulterer in will and understanding. [The reasons listed here are the same as listed in True Christian Religion 316, and are omitted for brevity.]

Conjugial Love 153

That chastity cannot be predicated of those who abstain from adulteries solely on account of various external reasons. Many believe that mere abstinence from adulteries in bodily act is chastity, when yet this is not chastity unless at the same time the abstinence be in the spirit also. It is man’s spirit—by which is here meant his mind as to its affections and thoughts— which makes what is chaste and unchaste; for it is from the spirit that these exist in the body, the body being altogether such as is the mind or spirit. From this it follows that those who abstain from adulteries in bodily act and not from the spirit, are not chaste, as neither are those who abstain from them in spirit by reason of the body.

There are many reasons which cause a man to desist from them in bodily act, and also in the spirit by reason of the body. Yet he who does not desist from them in bodily act from the spirit is unchaste. For the Lord says, if any man has looked on another woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28) ...

From this it is clear that even a wicked man can shun adulteries as hurtful, but that none but a Christian can shun them as sins. From the above, the truth of the proposition is now established, that chastity cannot be predicated of those who abstain from adulteries solely on account of various external reasons.

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