Such men are made chaste either by the temperateness of their bodies, or the fear of temporal punishment suspends them from the act of unchastity, or a denied opportunity leaves them destitute. But although he is unchaste in will who is chaste by necessity; yet if both he who is of a temperate body gives thanks, for the benefit of his nature, to God the author of all natures; and he whom fear holds in the good of chastity, and he to whom opportunity denies the means of committing adultery, grow accustomed to live chastely: they for the most part advance into virtue out of necessity; and, as the very delight of chastity gradually grows, they truly become chaste:
and so they advance, that now, detesting the filth of unchastity not by speech but by virtue, they withstand carnal incitements not by the fear of punishment — which is proper to beginners — but by abhorrence of sin they curb the restless affections of the flesh, which is the summit of perfected chastity. Not that the soul ever ceases in this flesh to have conflict with the vices; but that the very multitude of triumphs nourishes and advances it, and, as far as can be done in the present life, perfects it: provided only that, captive, it does not cast itself down into the body by the delight of sensible things; but, sublimely strengthened by abhorrence of delights, raises itself, a victor, above the body of bodily things;