Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 442

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442. XVI. THAT THE ENJOYMENTS OF SCORTATORY LOVE ARE THE PLEASURES OF INSANITY, BUT THE ENJOYMENTS OF CONJUGIAL LOVE ARE THE DELIGHTS OF WISDOM. That the enjoyments of scortatory love are the pleasures of insanity is because no others are in that love but natural men, and in spiritual things the natural man, being against them, is insane. Therefore he embraces only natural, sensual, and corporeal enjoyments. It is said that he embraces natural, sensual, and corporeal enjoyments because the natural is distinguished into three degrees. Natural men in the highest degree are those who from rational sight see the insanities and yet are carried away by the enjoyments thereof, as boats by the current of a stream. Natural men in a lower degree are those who see and judge only from the senses of the body, spurn things rational as being contrary to appearances and fallacies, and reject them as worthless trifles. Natural men in the lowest degree are those who, being without judgment, are carried away by the alluring heats of their body. The latter are called corporeal-natural, the former sensual-natural, and the first natural. With them are also the same degrees of scortatory love and of its insanities and pleasures.


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