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. From these considerations it is manifest,
that even a wicked person may shun adulteries as hurtful; but that none
but a Christian can shun them as sins. Hence then the truth of the
proposition is evident, that chastity cannot be predicated of those who
abstain from adulteries merely for various external reasons.

154. XII. CHASTITY CANNOT BE PREDICATED OF THOSE WHO BELIEVE MARRIAGES
TO BE UNCHASTE. These, like the persons spoken of just above, n. 152, do
not know either what chastity is, or even that it exists; and in this
respect they are like those who make chastity to consist merely in
celibacy, of whom we shall speak presently.

155. XIII. CHASTITY CANNOT BE PREDICATED OF THOSE WHO HAVE RENOUNCED
MARRIAGE BY VOWS OF PERPETUAL CELIBACY, UNLESS THERE BE AND REMAIN IN
THEM THE LOVE OF A LIFE TRULY CONJUGIAL. The reason why chastity cannot
be predicated of these, is, because after a vow of perpetual celibacy,
conjugial love is renounced; and yet it is of this love alone that
chastity can be predicated: nevertheless there still remains an
inclination to the sex implanted from creation, and consequently innate
by birth; and when this inclination is restrained and subdued, it must
needs pass away into heat, and in some cases into a violent burning,
which, in rising from the body into the spirit, infests it, and with
some persons defiles it; and there may be instances where the spirit
thus defiled may defile also the principles of religion, casting them
down from their internal abode, where they are in holiness, into things
external, where they become mere matters of talk and gesture; therefore
it was provided by the Lord, that celibacy should have place only with
those who are in external worship, as is the case with all who do not
address themselves to the Lord, or read the Word. With such, eternal
life is not so much endangered by vows of celibacy attended with
engagements to chastity, as it is with those who are principled in
internal worship: moreover, in m