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Although, therefore, lust may have many objects, yet when no object
is specified, the word lust usually suggests to the mind the lustful
excitement of the organs of generation. And this lust not only takes
possession of the whole body and outward members, but also makes itself
felt within, and moves the whole man with a passion in which mental
emotion is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which
results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing indeed
is this pleasure, that at the moment of time in which it is
consummated, all mental activity is suspended. What friend of wisdom
and holy joys, who, being married, but knowing, as the apostle
says, "how to possess his vessel in santification and honor, not in
the disease of desire, as the Gentiles who know not God," would not
prefer, if this were possi ble, to beget children without this lust,
so that in this function of begetting offspring the members created for
this purpose should not be stimulated by the heat of lust, but should
be actuated by his volition, in the same way as his other members serve
him for their respective ends? But even those who delight in this
pleasure are not moved to it at their own will, whether they confine
themselves to lawful or transgress to unlawful pleasures; but sometimes
this lust importunes them in spite of themselves, and sometimes fails
them when they desire to feel it, so that though lust rages in the
mind, it stirs not in the body. Thus, strangely enough, this
emotion not only fails to obey the legitimate desire to beget
offspring, but also refuses to serve lascivious lust; and though it
often opposes its whole combined energy to the soul that resists it,
sometimes also it is divided against itself, and while it moves the
soul, leaves the body unmoved.
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