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[Conceived] therefore, either by desire or by love: not that the
creature ought not to be loved; but if that love [of the creature] is
referred to the Creator, then it will not be desire (cupiditas),
but love (charitas). For it is desire when the creature is loved for
itself. And then it does not help a man through making use of it, but
corrupts him in the enjoying it. When, therefore, the creature is
either equal to us or inferior, we must use the inferior in order to
God, but we must enjoy the equal duly in God. For as thou oughtest
to enjoy thyself, not in thyself, but in Him who made thee, so also
him whom thou lovest as thyself. Let us enjoy, therefore, both
ourselves and our brethren in the Lord; and hence let us not dare to
yield, and as it were to relax, ourselves to ourselves in the
direction downwards. Now a word is born, when, being thought out,
it pleases us either to the effect of sinning, or to that of doing
right. Therefore love, as it were a mean, conjoins our word and the
mind from which it is conceived, and without any confusion binds itself
as a third with them, in an incorporeal embrace.
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