Conjugial Love#487
487. 7. Adulteries committed by such people are mild. This follows from the observations made above in no. 486, without need of further demonstration. For people know that the character of every deed, in general the character of every event, depends on the circumstances, and that these mitigate or aggravate it.
Adulteries of this degree are mild, however, the first time they are committed. And they also remain mild to the extent in the subsequent course of his or her life the adulterer or adulteress refrains from them for the reason that they are evils against God, or are evils against the neighbor, or because they are evils contrary to the good of civil society, and in consequence of one or the other of these, because they are evils contrary to reason. But on the other hand, adulteries of this degree are also reckoned among the more grave ones if they do not refrain from them for one of the aforementioned reasons. Thus the case is in accordance with the Divine law, in Ezekiel 18:21-22,24, 1 and elsewhere.
Still, such adulteries cannot by man be excused or condemned or attributed and judged as mild or grave on these grounds, because they are not visible to his sight; indeed, neither are they within the scope of his judgment. What we mean, therefore, is that they are so reckoned and imputed after death.
脚注:
1. "But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live.... But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die."
