librium, is, because while any one is in it, he can
turn himself to the sphere of conjugial love, that is, to this love, and
also to the sphere of the love of adultery, that is, to the love of
adultery; but if he turns himself to conjugial love, he turns himself to
heaven; if to the love of adultery, he turns himself to hell: each is in
the man's free determination, good pleasure, and will, to the intent
that he may act freely according to reason, and not from instinct:
consequently that he may be a man, and appropriate to himself influx,
and not a beast, which appropriates nothing thereof to itself. It is
said the lust of fornication such as it is in the beginning, because at
that time it is in a middle state. Who does not know that whatever a man
does in the beginning, is from concupiscence, because from the natural
man? And who does not know that that concupiscence is not imputed, while
from natural he is becoming spiritual? The case is similar in regard to
the lust of fornication, while a man's love is becoming conjugial.

456. XI. CARE IS TO BE TAKEN LEST, BY IMMODERATE AND INORDINATE
FORNICATIONS, CONJUGIAL LOVE BE DESTROYED. By immoderate and inordinate
fornications, whereby conjugial love is destroyed, we mean fornications
by which not only the strength is enervated, but also all the delicacies
of conjugial love are taken away; for from unbridled indulgence in such
fornications, not only weakness and consequent wants, but also
impurities and immodesties are occasioned, by reason of which conjugial
love cannot be perceived and felt in its purity and chastity, and thus
neither in its sweetness and the delights of its prime; not to mention
the mischiefs occasioned to both the body and the mind, and also the
disavowed allurements, which not only deprive conjugial love of its
blessed delights, but also take it away, and change it into cold, and
thereby into loathing. Such fornications are the violent excesses
whereby conjugial sports are changed into tragic scenes: for immoderate
and inordinate fornications are like burning flames which, arising out
of ultimates, consume the body, parch the fibres, defile the blood, and
vitiate the rational principles of the mind; for they burst forth like a
fire from the foundation into the house, which consumes the whole. To
prevent these mischiefs is the duty of parents; for a grown up youth,
inflamed with lust, cannot as yet from reason impose restraint upon
himself.

457. XII.