SPIRITUAL LIFE AND THE WORD OF GOD - { PT. 61 }

 { PT.  61 } - How profane and thus how much to be detested adulteries are can be seen from the holiness of marriages. All things in the human body, from the head to the sole of the feet, both interior and exterior, correspond to the heavens, and in a heaven in its least form, and also angels and spirits are in form perfectly human, for they are forms of heaven. All the members devoted to generations in both sexes, especially the womb, correspond to societies of the third or inmost heaven, and for the reason that true marriage love is derived from the Lord's love for the church, and from the love of good and truth which is the love of the angels of the third heaven; therefore marriage love, which descends therefrom as the love of that heaven, is innocence, which is the very being ( esse ) of every good in the heavens. And for the reason embryos in the womb are in a state of peace, and when they have been born as infants are in a state of innocence; so, too, is the mother in relation to them. As this is the correspondence of the genital organs in the two sexes, it is evident that by creation they are holy, and therefore they are devoted solely to chaste and pure marriage love, and are not to be profaned by the unchaste and impure love of adultery, by which man converts the heaven in himself into hell; for as the love of marriage corresponds to the love the highest heaven, which is love to the Lord, so the love of adultery corresponds to the love of the lowest hell.