{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"15489c3ab70a1e0345f505967a2a035f7360df7ceafc8dc5858ea8b111f3dc6b","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK FIRST."],"id":"pg45304-paragraph-91","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","note_targets":[],"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-paragraph-unclassified","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":null,"source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<p>But, we are told, there is ground to fear that, when the\r\nbody is subjected to the enemy's lust, the insidious pleasure\r\nof sense may entice the soul to consent to the sin, and steps\r\nmust be taken to prevent so disastrous a result. And is not\r\nsuicide the proper mode of preventing not only the enemy's\r\nsin, but the sin of the Christian so allured? Now, in the\r\nfirst place, the soul which is led by God and His wisdom,\r\nrather than by bodily concupiscence, will certainly never consent\r\nto the desire aroused in its own flesh by another's lust.\r\nAnd, at all events, if it be true, as the truth plainly declares,\r\nthat suicide is a detestable and damnable wickedness, who is\r\nsuch a fool as to say, Let us sin now, that we may obviate a\r\npossible future sin; let us now commit murder, lest we perhaps\r\nafterwards should commit adultery? If we are so controlled\r\nby iniquity that innocence is out of the question, and\r\nwe can at best but make a choice of sins, is not a future and\r\nuncertain adultery preferable to a present and certain murder?\r\nIs it not better to commit a wickedness which penitence may\r\nheal, than a crime which leaves no place for healing contrition?\r\nI say this for the sake of those men or women who\r\nfear they may be enticed into consenting to their violator's<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_37\">[Pg 37]</a></span>\r\nlust, and think they should lay violent hands on themselves,\r\nand so prevent, not another's sin, but their own. But far be\r\nit from the mind of a Christian confiding in God, and resting\r\nin the hope of His aid; far be it, I say, from such a mind\r\nto yield a shameful consent to pleasures of the flesh, howsoever\r\npresented. And if that lustful disobedience, which\r\nstill dwells in our mortal members, follows its own law irrespective\r\nof our will, surely its motions in the body of one\r\nwho rebels against them are as blameless as its motions in\r\nthe body of one who sleeps.</p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"283c322fb8828a6e19f5dbb7db722fa3781d8ba04ad03d694cc8b61ef616c252","verified":false,"work_id":null}