EVERYDAY BLESSINGS

  { PT.  63 } - Therefore in the heavens the angels are beautiful according to the quality of marriage love in them, and in the hells the spirit are deformed according to the quality of the love of adultery in them. In a word, the angels of heaven have life in their faces, in the movement of the body, and in their speech, in the measure of their marriage love, while the spirits of hell have death in their faces in the measure of their love of adultery. In the spiritual world the delight of marriage love are represented to the sense by odors from fruits and flowers of various kings, while the delights of the love of adultery are there represented to the sense by the stenches from excrements and putridities of various kinds. Moreover, the delights of the love of adultery are actually turned into such things, since all things pertaining to adultery are spiritual filth. Therefore from the brothels in the hells stenches pour forth that excite vomiting. ( A.E., n. 986 ). How holy in...

  { PT.  63 } - That there is such a correspondence is a mystery not yet known in the world, but it has been made evident and proved to me by much experience. From this also it is clear how holy and heavenly marriages are in themselves, and how profane and diabolical adulteries are. And for this reason adulterers make no account of Divine truths and thus of the Word, and if they were to speak from the heart they would even blaspheme the holy things that are in the Word. This they do when they have become spirits after death, for every spirit is compelled to speak from the heart, that his interior thoughts may be revealed. ( A.E., n. 985 ). As all the delights that man has in the natural world are turned into correspondent delight in spiritual world, so are the delights of the love of marriage and delights of the love of adultery. The love of marriage is represented in the spiritual world as a virgin, whose beauty is such as to inspire the beholder with the charms of life; whil...

  { PT.  62 } - The love of marriage is so holy and heavenly because it has its beginning in the inmost of man from the Lord Himself, and it descends according to order to the out-mosts of the body, and thus fills the whole man with heavenly love and brings him into a form of the Divine love, which is the form of heaven, and is an image of the Lord. But the love of adultery has its beginning in the outmosts of man from an impure lascivious fire there, and thus, contrary to order, penetrates toward the interiors, always into the things that are man's own, which are nothing but evil, and brings these into a form of hell, which is an image of the devil. Therefore a man who loves adultery and turns away from marriages is in form a devil. As the organs of generation in the two sexes correspond to the societies of the third heaven, and the love of a married pair corresponds to the love of good and truth, so those organs and that love correspond to the Word. The reason is that the Wo...