irginity the attainments of her
progenitors, and both in word and deed diligently inviting thee, her
sister, as is meet, to the same competition. Remember these, and
the angelic company associated with them in the service of the Lord,
and the spiritual life though yet in the flesh, and the heavenly
converse upon earth. Remember the tranquil days and the luminous
nights, and the spiritual songs, and the melodious psalmody, and the
holy prayers, and the chaste and undefiled couch, and the progress
in virginal purity, and the temperate diet so helpful in preserving
thy virginity uncontaminated. And where is now that grave
deportment, and that modest mien, and that plain attire which so
become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and that
comely paleness--the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils, that
outshines every ruddier glow. How often in prayer that thou
mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity hast thou poured forth
thy tears! How many letters hast thou indited to holy men,
imploring their prayers, not that thou mightest obtain these human
--nuptials, shall I call them? rather this dishonorable defilement
--but that thou mightest not fall away from the Lord Jesus? How
often hast thou received the gifts of the spouse! And why should I
mention also the honors accorded for his sake by those who are his
--the companionship of the virgins, journeyings with them, welcomes
from them, encomiums on virginity, blessings bestowed by virgins,
letters addressed to thee as to a virgin! But now, having been just
breathed upon by the aerial spirit that worketh in the children of
disobedience, thou hast denied all these, and hast bartered that
precious and enviable possession for a brief pleasure, which is
sweet to thy taste for a moment, but which afterward thou wilt find
bitterer than gall.

Besides all this, who can avoid exclaiming with grief, "How is Zion,
the faithful city, become an harlot!" Nay, does not the Lord
himself say to some who now walk in the spirit of Jeremiah, "Hast
thou seen what the virgin of Israel hath done unto me?" "I
betrothed her unto me in faith and purity, in righteousness and in
judgment, and in loving-kindness and in mercies," even as I promised
her by Hosea, the prophet. But she has loved strangers; and even
while I her husband lived, she has made herself an adulteress, and
has not feared to become the wife of another husband. And what
would the bride's guardian and