Part 4 (1/2)
The love in marriage is from its origin and correspondence heavenly, spiritual, holy, pure and clean above every other love which the angels of heaven or men of the Church have from the Lord. It is such from its origin, which is the marriage of good and truth; also from its correspondence with the marriage of the Lord and the Church. If it be received from its Author, Who is the Lord, sanct.i.ty from Him follows, which continually cleanses and purifies it. Then, if there be in man's will a longing for it and an effort toward it, this love becomes continually cleaner and purer. All who are in such love shun extra-conjugial loves (which are conjunctions with others than their own conjugial partner) as they would shun the loss of the soul and the lakes of h.e.l.l; and in the measure that married partners shun such conjunctions, even in respect of libidinous desires of the will and any intentions from them, so far love truly conjugial is purified with them, and becomes successively spiritual.
--_Conjugial Love, nn._ 64, 71
THE HEIGHT OF SERVICE
Conjugial love is the love at the foundation of all good loves, and is inscribed on all the least life of the human being. Its delights therefore surpa.s.s the delights of all other loves, and it also gives delight to other loves, in the measure of its presence and union with them. Into it all delights from first to last are collected, on account of the superior excellence of its use, which is the propagation of the human race, and from it of an angelic heaven. As this service was the supreme end of creation, all the beat.i.tudes, satisfaction, delights, pleasantnesses and pleasures, which the Lord the Creator could possibly confer upon man, are gathered into this love.
--_Conjugial Love, n._ 68
ITS WHOLE ESTATE
The states of conjugial love are Innocence, Peace, Tranquillity, Inmost Friends.h.i.+p, full Confidence, and mutual desire of mind and heart to do each other every good. From all of these come blessedness, satisfaction, agreeableness and pleasure; and as the eternal fruition of them, heavenly happiness. These states can be realized only in the marriage of one man with one wife.
--_Conjugial Love, nn._ 180, 181
THE SACRED SCRIPTURES
”They testify of Me.”
--_John_, V, 39
G.o.d'S WORD
In its inmosts the Sacred Scripture is no other than G.o.d, that is, the Divine which proceeds from G.o.d.... In its derivatives it is accommodated to the perception of angels and men. In these it is Divine likewise, but in another form, in which this Divine is called ”Celestial,” ”Spiritual,” and ”Natural.” These are no other than coverings of G.o.d. Still the Divine, which is inmost, and is covered with such things as are accommodated to the perceptions of angels and men, s.h.i.+nes forth like light through crystalline forms, but variously, according to the state of mind which a man has formed for himself, either from G.o.d or from self. In the sight of the man who has formed the state of his mind from G.o.d, the Sacred Scripture is like a mirror in which he sees G.o.d, each in his own way. The truths which he learns from the Word and which become a part of him by a life according to them, compose that mirror. The Sacred Scripture is the fulness of G.o.d.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 6
IN ITS BOSOM SPIRITUAL
The Word in its bosom is spiritual. Descending from Jehovah the Lord, and pa.s.sing through the angelic heavens, the Divine (in itself ineffable and imperceptible) became level with the perception of angels and finally the perception of man. Hence the Word has a spiritual sense, which is within the natural, just as the soul is in the body, or as thought is in speech, or volition in action.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 193
THE LETTER OF THE WORD
The truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are in part appearances of truth, and are taken from things in nature, and thus accommodated and adapted to the grasp of the simple and also of little children. But being correspondences, they are receptacles and abodes of genuine truth; and are like enclosing and containing vessels. The naked truths themselves, which are enclosed and contained, are in the Word's spiritual sense; and the naked goods in its celestial sense.
The doctrine of genuine truth can also be drawn in full from the literal sense of the Word; for the Word in this sense is like a man clothed, whose face and hands are bare. All that concerns man's life, and so his salvation, is bare; the rest is clothed.
--_Doctrine Concerning the Sacred Scripture, nn._ 40, 55
ITS LANGUAGE
The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world; not only generally, but in detail. Whatever comes forth in the natural world from the spiritual, is therefore called correspondent. The world of nature comes forth and subsists from the spiritual world, just as an effect does from its efficient cause.