Untitled - Saints' Books

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CHAP, vi.] The Sin of Incontinence. \ 1
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I ask of you, go to such a lady, tell her that I die for the
love of her. Can greater blindness be conceived ?
2. OBSTINACY OF THE WILL.
In the second place, the sin of impurity produces ob
stinacy of the will.
fallen into the snare of the
devil, one cannot so easily escape it," says St. Jerome.
And according to St. Thomas, there is no sin in which
the devil takes so much delight as in impurity; because
the flesh is
strongly inclined to that vice, and he that
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falls into it can be rescued from it
only with difficulty. 2
Hence the vice of incontinence has been called by
Clement of Alexandria "a
malady without remedy;"
and by Tertullian,
"an incurable vice." Hence St.
Cyprian calls it the mother of impenitence. 5 "
It is im
possible," says Peter de Blois, u for him that submits to
the domination of the flesh to conquer carnal tempta
tions." Father Biderman relates of a young man, who
was in the habit of relapsing into this sin, that at the
hour of death he confessed his sins with many tears and
died, leaving strong grounds to hope for his salvation.
But on the following day his confessor, while saying
Mass, felt some one pulling the chasuble; turning round
he saw a dark cloud, which sent forth scintillations of
fire, and heard a voice saying that was the soul of the
young man that had died; that though he had been ab
solved from his sins, he twas again tempted, yielded to a
bad thought, and was damned.
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2
Hoc rete diaboli, si quis capitur, non cito solvitur."
Eusebius,
Ep, ad Dam. de morte Hier.
Diabolus dicitur maxima gaudere de peccato luxuriae, quia est
rnaximse adhaerentiae, et difficile ab eo homo potest eripi." i. 2, q. 73,
a. 5.
3 "
Morbus immedicabilis." Pccdag. 1. 2, c. 10.
4
Vitium "
immutabile."
5 "
Impudicitia mater est impoenitentiae." De Disc, et Bon. pud.
Est fere impossibile triumphare de carne, si ipsa de nobis triumphavit."