For she wished, and I remember
in private with great anxiety warned me, "not to commit fornication;
but especially never to defile another man's wife." These seemed to me
womanish advices, which I should blush to obey. But they were Thine,
and I knew it not: and I thought Thou wert silent and that it was
she who spake; by whom Thou wert not silent unto me; and in her wast
despised by me, her son, the son of Thy handmaid, Thy servant. But I
knew it not; and ran headlong with such blindness, that amongst my
equals I was ashamed of a less shamelessness, when I heard them
boast of their flagitiousness, yea, and the more boasting, the more
they were degraded: and I took pleasure, not only in the pleasure of
the deed, but in the praise. What is worthy of dispraise but vice? But
I made myself worse than I was, that I might not be dispraised; and
when in any thing I had not sinned as the abandoned ones, I would
say that I had done what I had not done, that I might not seem
contemptible in proportion as I was innocent; or of less account,
the more chaste.
Pages:
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60