SPIRITUAL LIFE AND THE WORD OF GOD - { PT. 68 }


 ( PT.  68 ) - Becoming an adulterer means living in the marriage of evil and falsity by thinking evils and falsities from a delight in them and by doing them from a love for them. Every man who does this becomes an adulterer. Moreover, it is from Divine justice that no one suffers punishments on account of the evils of his parents, but only on account of his own; therefore the Lord provides that hereditary evils shall not return after death, but only one's own evils, and it is only for those that return that a man is then punished. ( A.E., n. 989 ). It has been said that the difference between a love of marriage and a love of adultery is like that between heaven and hell. There is a like difference between the delights of these loves; for delights derive their all from the loves from which they spring. The delights of the love of adultery derive what they are from the delights of doing evil uses, thus of evil-doing; and the delights of the love of marriage from the delights of doing good uses, thus of well-doing. Therefore such as the delight of the evil is in doing evil such is the delight of their love of adultery; because of love of adultery descends therefrom. That it descends from that scarcely anyone can believe; and yet such is its origin. From this it is evident that the delight of adultery ascends from the lowest hell. 

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