v.
28. It is impossible to enumerate all the causes of abstinence from
adulteries in the body only, they being various according to states of
marriage, and also according to states of the body; for there are some
persons who abstain from them from fear of the civil law and its
penalties; some from fear of the loss of reputation and thereby of
honor; some from fear of diseases which may be thereby contracted; some
from fear of domestic quarrels on the part of the wife, whereby the
quiet of their lives may be disturbed; some from fear of revenge on the
part of the husband or relations; some from fear of chastisement from
the servants of the family; some also abstain from motives of poverty,
avarice, or imbecility, arising either from disease, from abuse, from
age, or from impotence. Of these there are some also, who, because they
cannot or dare not commit adultery in the body, condemn adulteries in
the spirit; and thus they speak morally against adulteries, and in favor
of marriages; but such person, unless in spirit they call adulteries
accursed, and this from a religious principle in the spirit, are still
adulterers; for although they do not commit them in the body, yet they
do in the spirit; wherefore after death, when they become spirits, they
speak openly in favor of them.
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