. Families, and Houses, all which acknowledge the Lord as their united Parent. 2740. Genuine conjugal Love is not practicable but between two married People, that is, in the Marriage of one Husband and one Wife, never between more at the fame Time, for this Reason, because conjugal Love is mutual and reciprocal, and of the Life of one is that of the other alternately, so that they are as it were one; fuch an Union is given between two, but not between more, more cut asunder that Love. The Men of the most Antient Church, who were celestial, and in the Perce tion of Good and Truth, as Angels, had only one Wife; they said, th with one Wife they perceiv'd heavenly Delights and Felicities, and when the Marriage of more was only named, they seem'd in a Horror: For the Marriage of one Husband and one Wife, descended, as has been faid, from the Marriage of Good and Truth, or from celestial Marriage, which is fuch, may manifestly appear from the Words of the Lord in Matthew, Jefus faid, Have ye not read, that be which made them at the Beginning, made them Male and Female ? And laid, that for this Cause shall a Man leave Father and Mother, and shall cleave unto his Wife; and they twain shall be one Flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one Flesh. What therefore God bath joined together, let no Man put asunder. Mofes, because of the Hardness of your Hearts, fuffered you to put away your Wives; but from the Beginning it was not fo : But all Men cannot receive this Saying, fave they to whom it is given," xix. 4 to 12. 2741. Good and Truth flow continually from the Lord into all, in like Manner does genuine conjugal Love, but it is diverfly received, and as it is received, fuch it is; in lafcivious Men it is turned into Lafciviousness, in Adulterers into Adulteries, celestial Felicity into a filthy Pleasure, so Heaven into Hell; this is as the Light of the Sun falling upon Objects, which is received according to the Form of the Objects, and becomes blue, red, yellow, green, dark, even black, according to its Reception. 2742. There is given a kind of Likeness of conjugal Love to fome, but yet it is not real if they are not in the Love of Good and Truth, it is Love appearing as conjugal, but it is from the Causes of the Love of the World and of Self, namely, that they may be served at Home, that they may be in Security, that they may be in Idleness, that they may be ministred to when they are not well and when they grow old, for the fake of their Children whom they love; in some it is a Compulfion from Fear for the Wife, for Reputation, for Evils; in fome it is the Love of Wantonness ٦ they were, when they lived in the World, Adulterers above others; where any Wife was handsome and young, they enter'd without any Confcience, and by those Stratagems entic'd them to the Act of Adultery; they are invisible, nor will they suffer themselves to be detected, because they are incognito; they are likewise cruel, have ftudied only for themselves, and accounted it as nothing if the whole World had perish'd for them : Such at this Day are in great Numbers, and it was faid from the Christian World: Their Hell is the most grievous of all. 2755. The Hells of Adulterers are many, there they love nothing more than Filth and Excrements, these then are their Delights; which may appear alfo from many of that Sort in the Life of the Body, to whom it is a Pleasure to think and relate beaftly Things, but abstain only for the sake of Decency. The Pleasure of Adultery is turned in the other Life into fuch Things; this is just as when the Heat of the Sun, also the Vernal Warmth, falls upon Excrement or upon a Dead Carcafs. 2756. There are those who held for a Principle a Communion of Wives; they in the other Life talk like good Men, but are malicious and deceitful; their Punishment is horrible, they are gather'd as it were into a Bundle, and representatively as a Serpent is extended round, and girds all like a Heap bundled together, and so are thrown away. 2757. When I had been led thro several Manfions, I came to one, where a Heat feiz'd on my Feet and Loins, it was said that there those were who indulged their Pleasures, and had not yet extinguish'd the natural Defire of procreating a Succession of Children. 2758. That genuine conjugal Love is Heaven, is represented in the Kingdoms of Nature, for nothing is given in universal Nature, which Some Way or other does not represent the Kingdom of the Lord in common; - for the Natural Kingdom deduces its whole Original from the spiritual Kingdom, which is without an Original before itself, it is nothing, any Thing unconnected from the Cause, so from the End, is not given, which Inconnection falls to Pieces in a Moment, and becomes nothing; hence now are the Representatives of the Kingdom of the Lord in the Kingdoms of Nature. That conjugal Love is Heaven, is plain from the Transformation of Small Worms into Grubs or Meggots, and so into winged Infects; for when the Time of their Nuptials comes, which is when they put off the terrestrial Form, which is their vermicular or worm-like Form, and are marked with Wings, and become Volatiles, then are they elevated into the Atmosphere, their Heaven, there they play among themselves, act Marriages, lay their Eggs, and are nourished with the fuices from Flowers, Flowers, then likewise are they in their Beauty, for they have Wing d decorated with golden Colours, Silver, and others agreeably variegated. Such Things does the conjugal Commerce produce among fuch vile Animal-o cules. 2759. On the right Side from the inferior Earth rose up a Volumn, it was faid that they were many Spirits from the unlearned Multitude; they were Rufticks and other fimple People; I discoursed with them; they faid that they would know the Lord, to whose Name they commended themselves; they knew but little befides of Faith and its Mysteries; after them there rose up others, who knew a little more; it was perceived that their Interiors might be opened, for this in the other Life may be ma-. nifeftly perceived ; they had a Confcience, which was communicated with. me, that I might know, and it was faid that they had lived fimply in conjugal Love, they said that they had loved their Wives, and had abStained from Adulteries; that they had done these Things from a Principle of Conscience, appear'd from this, because they said that they could not do otherwise because it was contrary to their Will: Such are instructed in the other Life, and are perfected in the Good of Love and the Truth of Faith; and are at length received among Angels. |