Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 464

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464. II. THAT FOR CHRISTIANS, CONCUBINAGE CONJOINTLY WITH THE WIFE IS [ALTOGETHER] UNLAWFUL AND DETESTABLE. It is unlawful because it is against the conjugial covenant, and detestable because against religion, and what is against the latter and at the same time against the former is against the Lord. Wherefore, as soon as any one adjoins a concubine to his wife without a real weighty cause, heaven is closed to him and by the angels he is no more numbered among Christians. Moreover, from that time he spurns the things of the Church and religion, and afterwards does not lift up his face above nature, but turns to her as to a deity which favors his lust, by the influx of which his spirit is then animated. The interior cause of this apostasy Will be laid open in what follows. That such concubinage is detestable, this the man himself does not see because after heaven has been closed to him he becomes spiritually insane. But a chaste wife sees it clearly because she is conjugial love, and this love nauseates it. Therefore, many of them are then repellent to actual conjunction with their men, as something which would contaminate their chastity from the contact of the lust adhering to the men from the courtesans.


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