Love created good; transfer desire; husbands love as Christ
God the Creator of the universe made all the motions of the soul for good; yet it often happens, by our use of them, that things good by nature, when we misuse them, lead us into sins. One of the soul’s motions is love: we use it well for loving when we love wisdom and truth; but when our love falls toward what is worse, we love flesh and blood. You then, as a spiritual person, hear spiritually these amorous words being sung, and learn to transfer the motion of your soul and the fire of natural love toward better things, according to that saying: Love her, and she will keep you; embrace her, and she will exalt you. Husbands, love your wives, says the Apostle — yet he did not stop at what he had said: Husbands, love your wives. Knowing that love of wives can become even among wives themselves something unseemly, he taught how husbands ought to love their wives, adding: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church. And this we have said by way of preface to what must be treated afterward.
Latin
Omnes animae motus universitatis conditor Deus creavit ad bonum, sed pro usu nostro fit saepe, ut res, quae bonae sunt per naturam, dum male eis abutimur, nos ad peccata perducant. Unus de animae motibus amor est, quo bene utimur ad amandum, si sapientiam amemus et veritatem; quando vero amor noster in peiora corruerit, amamus carnem et sanguinem. Tu igitur, ut spiritalis, audi spiritaliter amatoria verba cantari et disce motum animae tuae et naturalis amoris incendium ad meliora transferre secundum illud: Ama illam, et servabit te; circumda illam, et exaltabit te. Viri, diligite uxores vestras, ait Apostolus, sed non stetit in eo quod dixerat: Viri, diligite uxores vestras; sciens enim posse dilectionem uxorum in ipsis quoque uxoribus inhonestam fieri, docuit quomodo viri uxores suas amare deberent, inferens: Viri, diligite uxores vestras, sicut et Christus dilexit ecclesiam. Et haec quidem in prooemio eorum quae postea disserenda sunt diximus.