Untitled - Saints' Books

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CHAP, vi.] The Sin of Incontinence. 115
says St. Thomas. Hence he afterwards adds, The sins
of the flesh extinguish the light of reason, for carnal
delectations cause the soul to be drawn entirely towards
the pleasures of the senses." This vice, by its beastly
delectation, deprives man even of reason; so that, as
Eusebius says, it makes him become worse than the
senseless beast. 2
Hence the unchaste priest, blinded by
his impurities, shall no longer make any account of the
nor of the
injuries that he does to God by his sacrileges,
scandal that he gives to others. He will even go so far
as to dare to say Mass in a state of sin. No wonder;
for he that has lost the light, easily abandons himself to
the commission of every crime.
Come ye to Him and be enlightened? He that wants light
must draw near to God; but because, according to the
words of St. Thomas, a thoroughly impure man is
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mostly removed from God," impurity removes man to
a great distance from God, the unchaste becomes, as it
were, senseless brutes that no longer apprehend spiritual
things. But the sensual man, says St. Pa.u\, perceiveth not
these things that are of the Spirit of God? Hell, eternity,
and the dignity of the priesthood, no longer make any
impression upon the incontinent ecclesiastic: Heperceiveth
not!"
Perhaps he will, as St. Ambrose says, begin even
to entertain doubts about faith:
"Whenever one begins
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Vitia carnalia extinguunt judicium rationis.
Delectatio quse est
2 "
in venereis, totam animam trahit ad sensibilem delectationem." 2. 2,
q. 53, a. 6.
Luxuria hominem pejorem bestiafacit." Eusebius, Ep. ad Dam.
de morte Hier,
3 "Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini." Ps. xxxiii. 6.
4
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Per peccatum luxuriae, homo videtur maxime a Deo recedere."
In Job 31, led. i.
5 "Animalis autem homo non percipit ea quae sunt Spiritus
Dei."-
I Cor. ii. 14.
6
Non " percipit."