SO FAR AS ANY ONE SHUNS ALL KINDS OF ADULTERY AS SINS, SO FAR BE LOVES CHASTITY In the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, by committing adultery in the natural sense is meant not only to commit whoredom, but also to commit obscene acts, to speak lascivious words, and to think filthy thoughts. But in the spiritual sense, by committing adultery is meant to adulterate the goods of the Word and to falsify its truths; while in the supreme sense, by committing adultery is meant to deny the Lord's Divinity and to profane the Word. These are all the kinds of adultery. The natural man may know from rational light (lumen) that by committing adultery is also meant to commit obscene acts, to speak lascivious words and to think filthy thoughts; but he does not know, that by committing adultery is also meant to adulterate the goods of the Word and to falsify its truths; still less does he know that it means to deny the Lord's Divinity and to profane the Word. Consequently he does not know that adultery is so great an evil that it may be called devilishness itself; for whoever is in natural adultery is also in spiritual adultery, and conversely. That this is so will be shown in a particular treatise on MARRIAGE.* But they who do not regard adulteries as sins, both in faith and in life, are at the same time in adulteries of every kind. *De Conjugio, a little work, written c. 1767, and first published in 1860. An English translation appears in POSTHUMOUS THEOLOGICAL WORKS Vol. II. The work De Amore Conjugiali was published in 1768.