We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or
gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a
provoking object, ever almost in his eyes; herein consisted his merit,
herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore
did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that
these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?
They are not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine to remove
sin by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap
increasing under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may
for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a
universal thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remains
entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet
one jewel left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetousness. Banish all
objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can
be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came not
hither so; such great care and wisdom is required to the right managing
of this point. Suppose we could expel sin by this means; look how much
we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue: for the matter of them
both is the same; remove that, and ye remove them both alike.
This justifies the high providence of God, who, though he command us
temperance, justice, continence, yet pours out before us, even to a
profuseness, all desirable things, and gives us minds that can wander
beyond all limit and satiety.
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