![[Milton's] argument is (a) St. Augustine was wrong in thinking God's only purpose in giving Adam a female, instead of a male, companion, was copulation. For (b) there is a "peculiar comfort" in the society of man and woman "beside, (i.e. in addition to, apart from) the genial bed"; and (c) we know from Scripture that something analogous to "play" or "slackening the cords" occurs even in God. That is why the Song of Songs describes a thousand raptures...far on the hither side of carnal enjoyment.](/assets/img/quote-photos/miltons-argument-is-a-st-augustine-was-wrong-in-thinking-gods-only-purpose.jpg)
Related Quotes
song writing pay
All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid. Charles Caleb Colton
song world this-life
And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a bright old song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round! Charles Dickens
song blue rivers
Heaven above was blue, and earth beneath was green; the river glistened like a path of diamonds in the sun; the birds poured forth their songs from the shady trees; the lark soared high above the waving corn; and the deep buzz of insects filled the air.
song remember lows
I can not sing the old songs now! It is not that I deem them low, 'Tis that I can't remember how They go. Charles Stuart Calverley
song pain men
Song of God and Son of Man, there He hangs, bearing pains unutterable, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Charles Spurgeon
song names heaven
Praise is the rehearsal of our eternal song. By grace we learn to sing, and in glory we continue to sing. What will some of you do when you get to heaven, if you go on grumbling all the way? Do not hope to get to heaven in that style. But now begin to bless the name of the Lord.
song nature believe
The best thing is to go from nature's God dawn to nature; and if you once get to nature's God, and believe Him, and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds; to see God everywhere in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks, and hear Him everywhere, in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling of thunder, and in the fury of tempests. Get Christ first, put Him in the right place, and you will find Him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience.
song grief mars
Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life's song, 'He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.'
song heart night
He who sings a song to Christ in the night, sings the best song in all the world; for he sings from the heart.
men perfection great-expectations
The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
men years practice
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!
men self world
It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by.
men words-of-wisdom aversion
No one has the least regard for the man; with them all, he has been an object of avoidance, suspicion, and aversion; but the spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, probably because it IS life, and they are living and must die.
men glasses light
The sun,--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.
men tongue habit
The habit of paying compliments kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense.
men words-of-wisdom daylight
He was bolder in the daylight-most men are.
men sea waiting
Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide.
men way aging
I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it?
thinking words-of-wisdom done
At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too . . .
thinking words-of-wisdom asking
When we have done our very, very best, papa, and that is not enough, then I think the right time must have come for asking help of others.
thinking hiking feet-and-walking
If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.
thinking vanity
None of us are so much praised or censured as we think.
thinking two glory
There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.
thinking enemy frankness
He that openly tells, his friends all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies much that they do not think of him.
thinking people remember
A thorough-paced antiquary not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think is proper to remember.
thinking daring finished
Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.
thinking mind wish
I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. But don't be hard in your construction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is. You don't know how you haunt and bewilder me. You don't know how the cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other turning of my life WON'T help me here. You have struck it dead, I think, and I sometimes wish you had struck me dead along with it.