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VIRTUOUS LIVING - FOR THAT SPRING OF LIFE
mere sight, even thought, is sufficient to affect the mind. Photographs, videos, songs, paintings and even verbal accounts have been used to excite the sexual passion. Sexual promiscuity, fornication, incest, gay relationships, over-indulgence, and all other abuses relating sex only go to excite and strengthen evil passions and tendencies, and, thus, actually produce weakness of the will. Therefore, so long as sexual passion is not brought under the control of the will, it acts as an impediment to the realization of perfection and bliss. While total control, i.e., strict celibacy is enjoined on the ascetics, for the rest, partial control is instructed. Partial control consists of proper selection of a bride, and in the observance of the nuptial vows. The person on the path of spiritual progress is required to restrict the sexual passions to the married spouse only. The idea of a bedmate other than the married spouse should never be allowed to sully the purity of the heart; sexual fidelity should not be jeopardized even in thought. The Seventh Commandment in the Hebrew scripture specifies “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The Westminster Larger Catechism, still used by the Presbyterian Church (USA), expanded on the scope of the Commandment thus:
Q. 139: What are the sins forbidden in the Seventh Commandment? A. The sins forbidden in the Seventh Commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are: - Adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural
lusts; - All unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections; - All corrupt or filthy communications, or listening thereunto; - Wanton looks, impudent or light behavior, immodest apparel,
prohibiting of lawful, and dispensing with unlawful marriages; - Allowing, tolerating, keeping of stews, and resorting to them;
Entangling vows of single life, undue delay of marriage; having more wives or husbands than one at the same time;
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